“Why? For most of the same reasons why I don’t expect the iPhone OS ever to support Flash,” Gruber writes. “Flash is the leading cause of application crashes on Mac OS X. It is buggy. It’s inefficient. Presumably The Tablet is going to have a faster CPU and more RAM than an iPhone, but that doesn’t mean Apple isn’t going to treat CPU cycles and memory as any less precious than they do on the iPhone.”
Gruber writes, “As I wrote in February 2008, correctly predicting that Apple would not be adding Flash support to iPhone OS: ‘As it stands today, Apple is dependent on no one other than itself for the software on the iPhone. Apple controls the source code to the whole thing, from top to bottom. Why cede any of that control to Adobe?'”
“To my knowledge, Apple controls the entire source code to the iPhone OS,” Gruber writes. “That’s not to say they wrote the whole thing from scratch. Many low-level OS components are open source. But they have the source. If there’s a bug, they can fix it. If something is slow, they can optimize or re-write it. That is not true for Mac OS X, and Flash is a prime example. The single leading source of application crashes on Mac OS X is a component that Apple can’t fix.”
There’s much more in the full article, “Tablet Musings,” here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “MacVicta” for the heads up.]
Flash is the scourge of the internet…next to M$.
Flush Flash!!!
Can’t decide which is worst – Flash or Pelosi. LOL!
…. and that’s why I have click-to-flash on my browser. Unless I really need to watch something in flash, I don’t have to worry about Safari slowing down or crashing!
No FLASH? I hate to see this dead on arrival
Flash causes havoc on my safari browsing.
Flash has been flaunted as “must have”. We’ve gotten this far without it (iPhone). I think we’ll be just fine.
Apple could fix Flash if they bought Adobe. But perhaps not supporting it will force Adobe to address the bugs?
Apple has learned its lesson about not ceding control of an important part of its user experience to a third party. There will be no flash on the tablet, just like the iPhone.
I remember when I got my first iPod and there was no good way to plug it into my car. I thought, “Surely Apple can’t expect the entire automotive industry to change to accommodate their product.” But that was exactly what Apple expected, and now many (most?) cars have iPod kits standard or optional.
Its the same with the web. People say “Surely Apple can’t expect the entire Web to be re-written to accommodate the fact that Apple won’t use flash.”
But the Web will be re-written without Flash. Good riddance.
HTML 5 people, HTML 5. Can’t wait for it, the real death of Flash.
Why would the iSlate support Flash? It’s meant to
be nothing more than a new vessel to purchase iTunes content. If you had Flash, you’d have a hell of a lot less dependence on iTunes and that’s no good as far as Steve’s concerned.
The iSlate is gearing up to be a big ass iPod touch with a few extra features, not the remarkable device in some of our imaginations. Just like the Apple TV, everything you’re expected to do with it will revolve around iTunes. It’ll be a portable iTunes media player, not a tablet computer.
And, now that Apple owns Quattro Wireless, they can even be at the forefront of showing how those “ad” people can still get their point across using HTML5.
I don’t think Flash is going anywhere because there are MANY Windows systems (and other portables) that run it well enough for their users. But those companies that took their Flash content and quickly exported it as an iPhone app format have GOT to be happy that they’ve got an excuse to monetize their “Free” Flash game.
Who wants to support processor abusive software?
Unplug Flash.
Of course it won’t support flash, it uses too many CPU cycles. A portable device can’t afford sloppy coding.
@Dmitri – And not a moment too soon. Adobe has been on my list since they started charging royalties for PostScript, their supposed always-going-to-be-free page description standard that they suckered the world into adopting. They deserved to die then.
To make running of Flash optional, I also use (and recommend) ClickToFlash — http://rentzsch.github.com/clicktoflash/ .
Flash down the toilet… but what I hate equally is that every single web page now is infested with useless google ads that are made to look like content.
Someone make a filter to block this crap.
I am all for accepting ads that support the site owners, but this is ….
Flash rocks! I hope it is included!
adobe needs to follow google…
create a real device, put flash on it and see it fail
The iPod Touch is already a pocket computer. If the ‘iSlate’ is gearing up to be a big ass iPod Touch with a few extra features, then it’s going to be a tablet computer.
Hipp Hip Hooray!!!!
It sounds like you don’t own an iPod Touch (or iPhone). My “Touch” is more useful that my M$ XP Pro box at work (yes, the IT department is smart enough to off Vista and 7ista). I use of my MacBook Pro at home half as much as I did before getting my “Touch”.
I will be getting an “iSlate” (whatever the name)!
I’m a bit of a Flash developer. I admit it’s done to death on the internet, but for cartoon animation’s (what I do) that don’t involve a lot of scripts, it’s pretty cool. Seriously why do people hate it, what’s causing problems? Can anyone recommend an alternative that can do frame by frame animation and tweening. Serious question, I am curious.
@Garry,
Go ahead and use Flash as an animation tool… Nobody’s saying you can’t. But, you don’t have to deploy to SWF! Instead, export to h.264 mp4 at different resolutions so anybody can view your work, regardless of what platform they’re on – including AppleTV, iPhone, iPod touch, and even “slate” (or whatever it turns out to be) users.
John Gruber writes a cute headline grabbing question about flash – BUT – that is not the REAL and important question about the upcoming tablet.
The real question is will third party developers have Mac like access to the tablet or will everything have to go through Apple?
There are advantages to both. I for one, like the worry free universe of the iPhone. I can install, or tell my family and friends to install anything they want without worrying about that software mucking things up.
Question #2 – Now that Apple is buying AdMob, will AdMob be distributing Flash ads in the future?
Gruber: “iPhone OS”. <–No. It’s OS X, modified specifically for the iPhone.
Gruber: “Me? I think The Tablet is going to be running its own Whatever-the-Name-of-the-Tablet-Is OS.” <– No, you stunning dunce. It would, if it existed, be OS X modified specifically for the iPhone.
Q: If one has the single most secure and stable commercial OS on the planet, why would one create some new OS just for a tablet?
A: One wouldn’t.
The fact is that OS X is entirely able to run software supporting Flash. So why is Apple so reluctant to provide that support? Because FLASH SUCKS. As Apple clearly pointed out in the press, Flash is the #1 cause of browser crashes, in ANY browser, anywhere on the Internet. So one would want to support bombing your customer’s Internet experience because why? One wouldn’t.
But Gruber is fundamentally wrong in the first place. OS X on the iPhone already DOES support Flash, as found on YouTube, which was supported in the very first iteration of the iPhone onwards.
Conclusion: Gruber is off his trolley wheels, wasting our time with nothing coherent to say.