Apple's CEO Steve Jobs explained in a letter why Apple does not allow Adobe's Flash products on iPhones, iPods and iPads. Jobs said the decision is based on technology issues and is not primarily business driven to protect its App Store, as Adobe suggests. In his letter, Apple's CEO talked about six Adobe issues, namely its closed system, its "full web" argumentation, its reliability, security and performance, its high energy consumption, its lack of support for touch-based devices, and Flash's cross platform development tool. Jobs says that while Adobe's Flash products are widely available, this does not mean they are open, since they are controlled entirely by Adobe and available only from Adobe. While Adobe has repeatedly said that Apple mobile devices cannot access "the full web" because 75 percent of video on the web is in Flash, Jobs says iPhone, iPod and iPad users are not missing much video as almost all this video is also available in a more modern format, H.264, and viewable on Apple's mobile devices. Jobs admits that Apple devices cannot play Flash games but said there are over 50,000 games and entertainment titles on the App Store available for iPhone, iPod and iPad. Jobs also says the company does not want to reduce the reliability and security of iPhones, iPods and iPads by adding Flash. He cited Symantec which recently highlighted Flash for having one of the worst security records in 2009. He added Flash has not performed well on mobile devices. Another reason for refusing Flash is related to the fact that Flash cuts Apple products' battery lives. Moreover, most Flash websites do not support touch-based devices and will need to be rewritten as Flash was designed for PCs using mice, not for touch screens using fingers. Job's most important reason for not allowing Flash on iPhones, iPods and iPads is that Adobe's goal is to help developers write cross platform apps. He argued that letting a third party layer of software come between the platform and the developer ultimately results in sub-standard apps and hinders the enhancement and progress of the platform. Jobs says it cannot accept an outcome where developers are blocked from using Apple's innovations and enhancements because they are not available on its competitor's platforms.
