[inferiorhuman]

The problem with this take is that it pretends that flash provided a decent mobile experience outside of Apple. Adobe couldn't be arsed to create a decent desktop experience for end users. Flash on Android was worse. If flash had survived and become the dominant mobile game engine, would mobile have become as popular? I highly doubt it.

[mlunar]

I'm not trying to say it was good on mobile, from many accounts it was apparently bad. But we never got to find out for real, did we?

It's irrelevant though as if Apple cared so much about preserving the user experience, they would also block slow or crashy websites, which they didn't, because they don't pose a threat to their business model.

And it doesn't pose a threat because they (still) control what is possible on iOS web by restricting browser engines to webkit only.

[inferiorhuman]

Well, no. Let's not pretend that Apple is (or was) the only player in the mobile phone space. Had mobile flash actually provided Android with a tangible advantage, it wouldn't have died. Adobe couldn't provide a decent experience on desktop, couldn't provide a decent experience on any of the non-Apple mobile platforms they supported, but suddenly the downfall of flash was Apple's responsibility? We really did see what flash could do on mobile and it wasn't great, there was no reason for Apple to put more lipstick on that pig.

Dunno about Android, but crashy web sites weren't really a thing I've ever had to deal with on iOS (or BB10).

[mlunar]

I'm not sure how to respond to this, it just seems to be quite a distorted Apple-centric view. I will leave a few references and make of it what you will.

"only player in mobile space" iOS had 28% market share when the letter was published (Q2 2010), just after Symbian with 33% and Symbian was not on the same level of "smartphone". Android was 4%. So yes, what was supported in iOS had a significant effect on the industry as a whole. Source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/272698/global-market-sha...

"It was bad/slow/unstable" Sure, but that's irrelevant. It's not even the main problem Jobs had with it. It's that he lost control over the platform and, if you read between the lines, the App Store revenue. Read the letter and ensuing battle yourself: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thoughts_on_Flash#References

[inferiorhuman]

  "It was bad/slow/unstable" Sure, but that's irrelevant. 

No, it's pretty much the only thing that mattered. The iPhone wasn't the first smart phone, not by a long shot. It was the first smart phone that worked well enough for the masses. HTML5 video wasn't the first video framework either, it was the first that worked well enough for the masses. If Apple had thrown their weight behind flash, we wouldn't be having this conversation… because mobile would not be as popular. Users were not clamoring for another flash experience.

Sure, if literally everything were different flash could've been great. But that's not how life works. Sure, Adobe could've added a bunch of spit and polish (ignoring that flash was inherently bad for video), but they couldn't / didn't.

If flash were some sort of killer feature, surely Google could've doubled down on it and flown the "look how much better than Apple we are" flag. Or Palm, or Nokia, or Blackberry. Nobody defended flash because no users wanted it.

Adobe couldn't even get the desktop experience up to snuff, they had no chance with mobile. That is not and was not an Apple problem, that's an Adobe had an "awful product that nobody wanted to use on their hands" problem. Flash was as popular as it was because a.) that's all there was and b.) it allowed for abusive ads so adtech companies loved it.

[fomine3]

Yeah, I believe 100% of people who tried Flash for Android convinced that it's dead end.