[watty]

That's silly, had Steve Jobs wanted Flash to work on iOS it would work fine on iOS. Of course it doesn't work.

Power consumption in HTML5 is still higher than equivalent Flash, touch is a non-issue but standards is where HTML5 shines. I believe many times technologists focus too much on the platform rather than delivering a product. There's still a place for Flash and HTML5 is getting better (but is hindered by fragmented browser support).

http://www.craftymind.com/guimark3/

[melling]

Microsoft made the same statements about Flash for IE10 on tablets with Metro UI.

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/09/no-flash-windows-8-me...

Would they have not made this statement if it were not for Apple?

[quanticle]

>I believe many times technologists focus too much on the platform than delivering a product.

Well, that's for one of two reasons. First, platforms are more technically interesting than products. A product just does one thing. A platform can do many things, and it's the adaptability and extensibility of a platform that makes it more interesting than a product.

Secondly, often technologists aren't so concerned about the individual product as they are the about the market for products. A platform with standardized interfaces and specifications will have a more robust market of products running on it than a platform with proprietary interfaces and specifications.

[mikeash]

Does Flash work fine on other mobile devices? Every report I've heard indicates that it performs badly (to the point that watching video doesn't really work) and uses a great deal of power, although my sources certainly could be biased.

[watty]

I have a TouchPad, Droid X, and CR48 and Flash seems to work great on all of them - Flash outperforms HTML5 at least for this example. One major issue is the sheer content of Flash advertisements which will drain your battery if you don't set the "touch to enable" option. Obviously this isn't an issue with the technology though and would (will) happen to HTML5.

The good thing is HTML5 performance will continue to improve across browsers. The bad news is that devs will still need to tediously test across every browser and mobile device.

[mikeash]

Thanks for the info, seems that my info is probably out of date.

Your comment about Flash ads makes me wonder what's going to happen when sites start delivering rich (and battery-hungry) ads with HTML5. Flash at least has a convenient bottleneck where you can disable it on a case by case basis and not lose functionality.

[CubicleNinjas]

Really? I thought Adobe had some say into how well Flash works. I was under the impression if Adobe could have gotten together some code that actually worked well it could have had possibly had a chance. It appears I should have been blaming Steve Jobs for not fixing another company's crippled technology.

Flash's crashing 3 times for me this morning, across two computers, shows Adobe's commitment to excellence.

[watty]

Well I do agree, Adobe totally dropped the ball. However, it seems to be stable for me across several windows machines, linux, touchpad, and even Android. Now that it's "more" stable, iOS users don't have a choice to install it. Why?

[bjelkeman-again]

Flash runs really badly on my Macs and I don't really see why it would be any better on iOS.