Apple got Adobe Flash to work on iOS but performance was 'abysmal,' says Scott Forstall
Contrary to a very public stance against the adoption of Adobe Flash, Apple at one point in the development of iPhone and its underlying iOS operating system attempted to build in support for the once-ubiquitous software.
The tidbit, revealed by former iOS chief Scott Forstall during a taped deposition for the upcoming Epic Games v. Apple trial, is salacious news for longtime Apple followers.
According to Forstall, Apple attempted to work with Adobe to get Flash working on iOS. The topic came up when the former executive was asked about integrating cross-platforming capabilities in iOS, a potential avenue of inquisition Epic could explore in the upcoming trial.
"We did not ship Flash," Forstall said. "We tried to make Flash work. We helped Adobe. We definitely were interested. Again, this is one where I thought if we could help make it work, this could be great."
When the collaboration took place is unknown, though late Apple cofounder Steve Jobs famously penned "Thoughts on Flash," an effective takedown of the software platform-- in 2010. That was nearly three years after the first iPhone with iPhone OS debuted, and the same year in which Apple adopted the now-familiar iOS branding.
It is unclear whether Forstall is making a distinction between iPhone OS and iOS in his deposition.
In any case, the experiment was a failure, as Flash proved unsuitable for Apple's power-efficient mobile operating system. Indeed, Forstall echoed some of the same complaints Jobs outlined in his 2010 letter.
"Flash has been such a problem because the way that it hooks into systems, it's been a virus nightmare on Windows, even on the Mac," Forstall said. "And when we got it running on iOS, the performance was just abysmal and embarrassing and it could never get to something which would be consumer value add."
Jobs in "Thoughts on Flash" criticized the software's lack of openness; inability to access the "full web;" reliability, security and performance; battery life; lack of touch control integration; and substandard quality of third-party development tools. He said its exclusion from iOS was "based on technology issues," and declared there would be no tool for converting Flash apps to iOS. The decision to move to HTML5 and other protocols allowed Apple to remain in full control of its ecosystem and evolve iOS APIs
9to5Mac spotted Forstall's telling of Apple's Flash for iOS trial earlier today.
Following Jobs' lead, Apple consistently denigrated Flash for more than a decade prior to its denouement this year. That pressure, along with inherent flaws and an inability to adapt to an increasingly mobile-focused industry, contributed to the software's demise.
The tidbit, revealed by former iOS chief Scott Forstall during a taped deposition for the upcoming Epic Games v. Apple trial, is salacious news for longtime Apple followers.
According to Forstall, Apple attempted to work with Adobe to get Flash working on iOS. The topic came up when the former executive was asked about integrating cross-platforming capabilities in iOS, a potential avenue of inquisition Epic could explore in the upcoming trial.
"We did not ship Flash," Forstall said. "We tried to make Flash work. We helped Adobe. We definitely were interested. Again, this is one where I thought if we could help make it work, this could be great."
When the collaboration took place is unknown, though late Apple cofounder Steve Jobs famously penned "Thoughts on Flash," an effective takedown of the software platform-- in 2010. That was nearly three years after the first iPhone with iPhone OS debuted, and the same year in which Apple adopted the now-familiar iOS branding.
It is unclear whether Forstall is making a distinction between iPhone OS and iOS in his deposition.
In any case, the experiment was a failure, as Flash proved unsuitable for Apple's power-efficient mobile operating system. Indeed, Forstall echoed some of the same complaints Jobs outlined in his 2010 letter.
"Flash has been such a problem because the way that it hooks into systems, it's been a virus nightmare on Windows, even on the Mac," Forstall said. "And when we got it running on iOS, the performance was just abysmal and embarrassing and it could never get to something which would be consumer value add."
Jobs in "Thoughts on Flash" criticized the software's lack of openness; inability to access the "full web;" reliability, security and performance; battery life; lack of touch control integration; and substandard quality of third-party development tools. He said its exclusion from iOS was "based on technology issues," and declared there would be no tool for converting Flash apps to iOS. The decision to move to HTML5 and other protocols allowed Apple to remain in full control of its ecosystem and evolve iOS APIs
9to5Mac spotted Forstall's telling of Apple's Flash for iOS trial earlier today.
Following Jobs' lead, Apple consistently denigrated Flash for more than a decade prior to its denouement this year. That pressure, along with inherent flaws and an inability to adapt to an increasingly mobile-focused industry, contributed to the software's demise.
Comments
What I am curious though is how does this pertain to the Epic case? How does Epic plan on twisting Forstall’s deposition against Apple? If at all it helps Apple’s case that they really did everything they could to make the best experience for their customers. And that a curated eco system is one of the plus points that a customer opts into when using Apple products. Not something that is slapped on them unwittingly.
As for getting Flash to work on the iPhone, while I'm sure performance was a big part of it, another part is that interacting with an app using fingers on a small touchscreen is very different than using a mouse on a large monitor. So it would have required Flash apps to undergo a major overhaul to be usable (as well as Flash itself).
iOS is like a big party going on, and everyone wants to show up.
But there's a doorman and a dress code... DEAL WITH IT !
Even if Adobe Flash had already been made 100% open, like Adobe did with PDF, it would still have lost to modern development. Perhaps they had tried doing this a decade earlier things may have advanced differently to keep it active, but chances are it would've just reached its inevitable end since it was built on bloat and had been repeated shown to be weakest point in a webpage in terms of security.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Flash#Open_Source
This whole Flash episode happened about the time that Adobe was going through a significant business model transition, greatly raising the price of their software and ultimately going to a subscription model a few years later. Bean counters took control and they weren’t in any mood to spend time and money updating their software (Flash or otherwise) for no perceived gain. Their balance sheet clearly didn’t include a loss column for when they lost out on iPhone and mobile.
I grew up on Illustrator and Photoshop as well as Aldus/Adobe PageMaker and then InDesign. Great programs that Adobe priced out of my financial reach at the time. I didn’t leave Adobe. They left me.
The only difference would be to (at the very least) ask Apple Photos on behalf of the end user and a third party app (like a backup service), to provide read-only access to their photos. That always requires user consent. This is usually done through a protocol line oAuth.