Thoughts On Adobe Flash

In his now famous 2010, “Thoughts on Flash” letter, the late Steve Jobs practically declared Adobe Flash dead to him and his multi-billion dollar company, despite the fact that Apple was Adobe’s first big customer and investor. He explained that:

  1. Flash was 100% proprietary and as a closed system, it left no room for true mass appeal.
  2. He claimed that while Apple devices were unable to play Flash games, they still had over 50,000 games available in their App Store and their videos from multiple major sources on a more modern platform available for consumption on all Apple mobile devices.
  3. Flash had failed the all-important security and performance tests and have failed to fix those problems for years now
  4. Their support was recently updated but due to their older generation decoder, it compromises battery life by half.
  5. Flash wasn’t designed for touchscreen devices and would need to be rewritten
  6. Adobe requires developer adoption, which puts them in the middle of passing along enhancements and innovation when they feel it’s necessary.

Is Adobe Flash Dead?

Many developers and users remember being impressed by Adobe Flash’s presence but then certain problems started showing up. There wasn’t any content that search engines could grab on to and the download sizes were astronomical, which slowed and soured the web experience for many. When it came to mobile plugins with Flash requires more resources than many are willing to spare and so it becomes an albatross in comparison to the ubiquity and flexibility of HTML 5.

Flash’s Future

In a post about Flash, Adobe Flash Principal Developer Mike Chambers explained that while they will be focusing on the Adobe Air for mobile applications and Flash Player for Desktop, they would be abandoning Flash Player for Mobile and putting more resources in working with HTML 5. That move surprised many but the fact that HTML 5 Adoption is solidified in many platforms across many sites, has the support and marketing from major influencers like Apple and is a favorite among developers worldwide means that Adobe’s late adoption could be a little too late. It’s going to take a lot of time for Adobe to really find ways to integrate the open platform with their existing proprietary products and by then, it may be too late to turn people’s heads.

Adobe Flash will still be around for us with casual games and such but it’s pretty clear that when Steve Jobs shared his thoughts, the application’s days were already numbered and the clock is ticking even louder.