Wednesday, 31 March 2010

My thoughts on the Apple vs. Flash battle...

Some history: Apple seem to be launching an all out offensive against supporting Flash on their mobile, mini devices.

I don't think that the Adobe and Apple fight over Flash is about technical issues with running correctly. I think this is what Apple are bleating, but I think it is far from the truth. Here's the real problem Apple face, and it's strategic. Apple are relying on their developer kit for iPhone to win over thousands of developers... and that has been working. A significant reward is needed to convince companies that it's worth developing in a totally new environment on a new platform: Enter iPhone Apps and revenue as the reward, and the Objective C and Apple developer stuff as the environment... Now, logically, once companies are developing for iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, it's not a far leap to develop full-on Mac apps. What has happened, the Mac has become a developers platform, highly supported and tons of software being written for it. Can you see where I'm going here: Flash on these devices, will undermine their strategy of getting more developers, because suddenly people can bypass their precious Objective C platform, and simply use Flash and Flex. Apple don't want this. They REALLY don't want it, cos while in the short term it will benefit them to have more apps in the form of flash apps, in the long term, they go back to square one, and don't have a mass of mac developers.