But Clearly Steve Jobs Is Just An Asshole

Posted by on 2010-08-31 in Computing

So remember when teh Steve said that a large part of the reason they weren’t allowing Flash on their mobile platform was that it didn’t work well and had a terrible user experience? In fact, he said exactly this:

In addition, Flash has not performed well on mobile devices. We have routinely asked Adobe to show us Flash performing well on a mobile device, any mobile device, for a few years now. We have never seen it. Adobe publicly said that Flash would ship on a smartphone in early 2009, then the second half of 2009, then the first half of 2010, and now they say the second half of 2010. We think it will eventually ship, but we’re glad we didn’t hold our breath. Who knows how it will perform?

I know, I know, he was clearly just using this as an excuse. The real reason Apple blocked Adobe Flash had nothing to do with performance, or security, or battery life, or any other “user experience” factor. It was all about protecting the App Store. I mean, Adobe promised that “the recent Nexus One from Google will rock with a great experience in the browser with Flash Player 10.1.” And, at last, we have the PROOF we’ve been waiting for, because Adobe has now finally shipped Flash on a mobile platform and people in the “real world” are starting to test it and report back on how it works. And you can too, as long as you:

  1. Have a brand new DROID 2, or any other Android phone that has actually been allowed to upgrade to Android 2.2 (and you were picked by your carrier to get the OTA update)
  2. Don’t have a Motorola original DROID, since they did not allow Flash 10.1 with their initial Froyo update. (But seriously, who has one of those ancient phones from last November anymore?)
  3. Actually go through the trouble of getting the Flash Player app from the Android Marketplace (which, of course, requires a device with access to the Android Marketplace, and not all do have access).

You can now experience it yourself in your own hand. So, Steve, prepare to find out how wrong you were. Flash, baby, flash! Web video in all its glory here you come! Now we will know “how it will perform” and Steve can suck it!

 

Yeah! Now that’s an awesome user experience. Flash on Mobile is finally here. Now the world will be able to evaluate for themselves the real motives behind Apple’s decision to disallow Adobe’s Flash Player on their mobile products.

Or maybe not so much…

I like you guys, Adobe. Really, I do. That product evangelist guy you have is awesome and funny (and he can kick really high). I use your Creative Suite products in my work every single day. But seriously… How do you think that’s going to work out for you there, Adobe? I’m just not seeing the must-have feature that the Android fanboys all predicted while salivating over the inevitable doom of iOS. Are you? Really?