Apple boss Steve Jobs has continued his criticism of Adobe’s Flash technology which is used in millions of web sites with the CEO now claiming that the software has security and stability issues.
Last night Jobs published an open letter explaining why the company won’t be allowing Adobe’s Flash platform to run on its iPhone and other mobile devices. Jobs criticises Flash for not being an open platform, as well as for security, stability, and battery life issues, and for not supporting multi-touch interfaces.
Addressing Adobe’s contention that the iPhone doesn’t offer the “full Web,” as 75% of Web video is in Flash, Jobs noted that “almost all this video is also available in a more modern format, H.264, and viewable on iPhone, iPods and iPad’s.”
He also shrugged off the contention that most online games are designed using Flash, noting that “there are over 50,000 games and entertainment titles on the App Store.”
The most important reason to exclude Flash on the iPhone, according to Jobs, is an aversion to relying on any third-party software.
“If developers grow dependent on third party development libraries and tools, they can only take advantage of platform enhancements if and when the third party chooses to adopt the new features,” Jobs wrote in the letter.
“We cannot be at the mercy of a third party deciding if and when they will make our enhancements available to our developers.”
