faaabulous

Publiée hier sur le site d’Apple, une longue lettre de Steve Jobs “Thoughts on Flash”, détaillant les multiples raisons pour lesquelles Flash n’est pas disponible sur iPhone/iPod/iPad et ne le sera probablement jamais. Ca mérite une lecture complète, mais pour les plus fainéants d’entre vous, voici quelques passages clés, et dont je suis également convaincu.

Flash n’a pas été conçu pour les mobiles et encore moins pour les devices multi-touch comme ceux d’Apple:

Flash was designed for PCs using mice, not for touch screens using fingers. For example, many Flash websites rely on “rollovers”, which pop up menus or other elements when the mouse arrow hovers over a specific spot. Apple’s revolutionary multi-touch interface doesn’t use a mouse, and there is no concept of a rollover. Most Flash websites will need to be rewritten to support touch-based devices. If developers need to rewrite their Flash websites, why not use modern technologies like HTML5, CSS and JavaScript?

Adobe ne veut pas faire de bonnes applis pour iPhone/iPod/iPad, mais de bonnes applis multi-plateformes, ce qui signifie pas adaptée à chaque device mais diffusées plus globablement, donc business-oriented (sous-entendu, nivelées par le bas et ça, ça va à l’encontre de la façon de penser d’Apple):

Flash is a cross platform development tool. It is not Adobe’s goal to help developers write the best iPhone, iPod and iPad apps. It is their goal to help developers write cross platform apps. And Adobe has been painfully slow to adopt enhancements to Apple’s platforms. For example, although Mac OS X has been shipping for almost 10 years now, Adobe just adopted it fully (Cocoa) two weeks ago when they shipped CS5. Adobe was the last major third party developer to fully adopt Mac OS X.

Et ouch, la conclusion qui tue:

The avalanche of media outlets offering their content for Apple’s mobile devices demonstrates that Flash is no longer necessary to watch video or consume any kind of web content. And the 200,000 apps on Apple’s App Store proves that Flash isn’t necessary for tens of thousands of developers to create graphically rich applications, including games.

New open standards created in the mobile era, such as HTML5, will win on mobile devices (and PCs too). Perhaps Adobe should focus more on creating great HTML5 tools for the future, and less on criticizing Apple for leaving the past behind.