Adobe vs Apple, round 4: Jobs explains himself

For anyone following the mega-row between Apple and Adobe, here's the latest instalment: a 1700 word open letter from Steve Jobs, explaining his position on the subject, for anyone who hasn't already drawn their own conclusions.

Apple has refused to support Adobe's Flash on its iProducts since the year dot, and has since added insult to injury, issuing new terms and conditions for the latest iPhone OS banning developers from creating apps in Flash and then recompiling them into something Jobs is less hysterical about. Apple maintains that Flash just isn't good enough, and that open source standards like HTML 5 can be used to achieve the same things just as well, if not better.

Which is pretty much the same sort of points that Jobs is pressing home in his missive to the world about why Apple won't play nicely with Adobe. Commenting that Flash was made for the days when the interface was mainly the mouse, he went on to say that Flash translated  poorly onto new interfaces, namely touchscreen mobile devices. Flash also comes in for criticism for being power-hungry - consuming power at twice the rate of H.264 video -  and weak on the security front. Jobs adds that it is "the number one reason Macs crash". He then goes on to explain the new ruling on third-party code being translated for the iPhone; commenting that experience shows that such practices result in sub-standard apps.

Up til now, there has been a feeling that Jobs et al were being a little high-handed and unfriendly in their antipathy to Flash; but Jobs' letter does make some good points. Security, battery life and the ability to work well with touchscreens really matter on mobile devices. Jobs also points out that Apple has repeatedly asked Adobe to demonstrate Flash working well on a mobile device - but delays in releasing a fully-featured version of Flash which does work well on mobile have meant that new standards like HTML5 and H.264 have had a chance to catch up. Now unless Adobe gets its act in gear, quick and widespread adoption of those standards could result in Flash being left out in the cold for mobile.