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Why? I think everything Apple said about their reason for not allowing Flash was true. I think they really did believe it made a sucky experience that people w

Why? I think everything Apple said about their reason for not allowing Flash was true. I think they really did believe it made a sucky experience that people would blame on the phones, instead of flash. I also think that wasn't all of their reasoning on the subject. The business value of not allowing cross-platform tools was huge. It effectively created a lock-in early-on in the iPhone's tenure. Of course, I have no evidence of this, but Apple has been too shrewd not to consider it. So, in our world, where flash sucked, it wouldn't get on the iPhone regardless of the lockin implications. But in a world where flash didn't suck, I think the same decision would have been made. The interesting thought question is whether consumers and developers would have allowed it in that world, and, if they didn't, how would the reduced lock-in have affected iOS share.

revscat 13y ago
> So, in our world, where flash sucked, it wouldn't get on the iPhone regardless of the lockin implications. But in a world where flash didn't suck, I think the same decision would have been made. Ahh, I see. Perhaps. That is certainly a defensible position. But to continue on the speculation: I'm not so sure. If Flash hadn't sucked then there would have been demand for it that Apple would have been forced to listen to. Their position in mobile was not strong early on.
- SoftwareMaven 13y ago
  That was what I meant by my last paragraph. If flash hadn't sucked, demand may have pushed it onto the iPhone and that could have drastically altered the landscape as apps would have been cross platform, leading to less vendor lock. As a happy Apple customer, I'm not sure if that would have been a better or worse world. I'm very happy to have Android out there, keeping competitive pressure strong, but having Apple run basically unchecked early on caused a massive revolution that altered the whole mobile world, and in a cross-platform app world, would that have happened?

revscat 13y ago

> So, in our world, where flash sucked, it wouldn't get on the iPhone regardless of the lockin implications. But in a world where flash didn't suck, I think the same decision would have been made. Ahh, I see. Perhaps. That is certainly a defensible position. But to continue on the speculation: I'm not so sure. If Flash hadn't sucked then there would have been demand for it that Apple would have been forced to listen to. Their position in mobile was not strong early on.

SoftwareMaven 13y ago
That was what I meant by my last paragraph. If flash hadn't sucked, demand may have pushed it onto the iPhone and that could have drastically altered the landscape as apps would have been cross platform, leading to less vendor lock. As a happy Apple customer, I'm not sure if that would have been a better or worse world. I'm very happy to have Android out there, keeping competitive pressure strong, but having Apple run basically unchecked early on caused a massive revolution that altered the whole mobile world, and in a cross-platform app world, would that have happened?