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I think that's rewriting history a bit. Sure, many of us nerds knew that Flash was problematic abandonware and sort of wished it would go away long before Apple

I think that's rewriting history a bit. Sure, many of us nerds knew that Flash was problematic abandonware and sort of wished it would go away long before Apple launched a nuke at it, but we were the exception. Most people then, as now, didn't really understand or care how damaging flash was to the tech ecosystem. Sure, they saw a few annoying ads and security warnings, but they broadly considered them "worth it" for the content. Apple not only spoke up about Flash being the industry limiting factor regarding device responsiveness, battery performance, and security, but they did something about it in the face of widespread condemnation and resentment that hasn't dissipated to this very day.

hrktb 6y ago
I'd argue the point is not how the public felt about about Flash, but how device makers saw it. Flash didn't make it on any other mobile platform. Serious attempts were being made way earlier than the iPhone, including for Symbian [0], making it available for high end feature phones. But all of them were horribly limited, and none could solve the rift between desktop Flash and low power devices flash. Jobs saying that Flash won't make it on the iPhone was the equivalent of announcing that the iPhone wouldn't use Intel chips, it was just putting a stake on a dead body so everyone could stop trying to revive it. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Flash#Mobile_devices https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Flash#Mobile_devices