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What’s with the criticism of Steve Jobs letter? Apple was completely right.

numbsafari 6y ago
Yeah, Adobe's failure to keep Flash relevant is the problem. Not Steve Jobs. It's not like they didn't try to work with Adobe. Adobe just couldn't get it done. This is what disruption is like. It's great that we have orgs like IA doing the work to keep this old content alive and accessible, and a platform like the Web that can grow and adapt over time.
- mschuster91 6y ago
  > Adobe just couldn't get it done. They should have fully open sourced it, at least the runtime.
  - webmaven 6y ago
    > > Adobe just couldn't get it done. > They should have fully open sourced it, at least the runtime. Rumor had it that there was code in there that Adobe (or more likely, FutureSplash) had licensed and couldn't release.
    - bigbubba 6y ago
      Something like that doesn't necessarily need to be a deal breaker. Part of Doom 3 was patent encumbered, but Id released the rest of the engine with that bit removed. Releasing part of the software in a nonfunctional state is much better than nothing.
      - webmaven 6y ago
        True, but that would have been quite a leap for Adobe to make. There is also the possibility that the licensed code would have been trivial to work around, which ironically would have created more liability for Adobe due to the mind-boggling stupidity that is "software patents" (in theory, software patents claim a specific implementation, but then in practice are often used to shake down anyone who makes a different implementation of the same idea, and the simpler the idea behind the patent, the worse the problem gets, unless you can find prior art to invalidate the patent claims). All of which would have put Adobe in a tough position, since they are fairly pro software patents.
TillE 6y ago
While everyone loves Flash games and Homestar Runner and everything, let's not forget that Apple's war was against horrendous Flash websites, which were never going to be reasonably accessible on a touchscreen phone.
- throw_m239339 6y ago
  > which were never going to be reasonably accessible on a touchscreen phone. I mean you could say the exact same thing for most websites that weren't fit for mobile and touch screen either. It had nothing to do with Flash, it was 100% a developer's problem, not a tech problem. Flash problems are: proprietary/closed source VM, performances and security, which was all on Adobe side, not Flash developers. In fact, Flash apps did run on Mobile including IOS via Air. https://www.adobe.com/products/air.html https://www.adobe.com/products/air.html So Steve Jobs was wrong initially. Let us remember that Jobs didn't want native apps on IOS, he wanted people to write web apps and Native apps to be solely the prerogative on Apple, until he changed his mind. Now you be that Apple prefers developers to write native apps, since it makes Apple a substantial amount of money.
throw_m239339 6y ago
Yes and back then everybody invoked "web standards". Well look at "web standards" now. Apple isn't at the forefront of implementing them anymore, they love their "native apps" and the billions they are making virtually for free with their store... Haxe lives and does compile for IOS on though, the irony (or the power of open source). https://haxe.org/ https://haxe.org/

Yeah, Adobe's failure to keep Flash relevant is the problem. Not Steve Jobs. It's not like they didn't try to work with Adobe. Adobe just couldn't get it done. This is what disruption is like. It's great that we have orgs like IA doing the work to keep this old content alive and accessible, and a platform like the Web that can grow and adapt over time.

mschuster91 6y ago
> Adobe just couldn't get it done. They should have fully open sourced it, at least the runtime.
- webmaven 6y ago
  > > Adobe just couldn't get it done. > They should have fully open sourced it, at least the runtime. Rumor had it that there was code in there that Adobe (or more likely, FutureSplash) had licensed and couldn't release.
  - bigbubba 6y ago
    Something like that doesn't necessarily need to be a deal breaker. Part of Doom 3 was patent encumbered, but Id released the rest of the engine with that bit removed. Releasing part of the software in a nonfunctional state is much better than nothing.
    - webmaven 6y ago
      True, but that would have been quite a leap for Adobe to make. There is also the possibility that the licensed code would have been trivial to work around, which ironically would have created more liability for Adobe due to the mind-boggling stupidity that is "software patents" (in theory, software patents claim a specific implementation, but then in practice are often used to shake down anyone who makes a different implementation of the same idea, and the simpler the idea behind the patent, the worse the problem gets, unless you can find prior art to invalidate the patent claims). All of which would have put Adobe in a tough position, since they are fairly pro software patents.

TillE 6y ago

While everyone loves Flash games and Homestar Runner and everything, let's not forget that Apple's war was against horrendous Flash websites, which were never going to be reasonably accessible on a touchscreen phone.

throw_m239339 6y ago
> which were never going to be reasonably accessible on a touchscreen phone. I mean you could say the exact same thing for most websites that weren't fit for mobile and touch screen either. It had nothing to do with Flash, it was 100% a developer's problem, not a tech problem. Flash problems are: proprietary/closed source VM, performances and security, which was all on Adobe side, not Flash developers. In fact, Flash apps did run on Mobile including IOS via Air. https://www.adobe.com/products/air.html https://www.adobe.com/products/air.html So Steve Jobs was wrong initially. Let us remember that Jobs didn't want native apps on IOS, he wanted people to write web apps and Native apps to be solely the prerogative on Apple, until he changed his mind. Now you be that Apple prefers developers to write native apps, since it makes Apple a substantial amount of money.

throw_m239339 6y ago

Yes and back then everybody invoked "web standards". Well look at "web standards" now. Apple isn't at the forefront of implementing them anymore, they love their "native apps" and the billions they are making virtually for free with their store... Haxe lives and does compile for IOS on though, the irony (or the power of open source). https://haxe.org/ https://haxe.org/