jgleman

We know from painful experience that letting a third party layer of software come between the platform and the developer ultimately results in sub-standard apps and hinders the enhancement and progress of the platform. 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. We cannot be at the mercy of a third party deciding if and when they will make our enhancements available to our developers.

When iPhone OS 4 comes out this summer one of the new features that is coming is GameKit, which in short is sort of like Xbox Live for iPhone/iPad games. If you have ever used Xbox Live or Steam on the PC you will realize exactly how huge of a feature this could be. Centralized friends lists, achievements etc. are great.

If Apple allowed games made with the Flash CS5 compiler in the app store, none of them, not one, could use GameKit.

This is exactly what Steve Jobs is talking about in the quote above.

I’ll try to keep this short. I wasn’t really going to weigh in on this here because, frankly, who cares what I think? I have been closely following the Flash vs. HTML5 debate that the Apple iPad announcement seems to have highlighted and people missing what I feel is the fundamental reason that HTML should be favored over Flash.

To me, Flash shows a fundamental disrespect for the user. Arguments about Flash being open aside, Flash sites are closed. This is not Flash vs. HTML5. The argument is Flash vs. HTML. I would rather visit a less capable Web site written in HTML than a rich site served up in Flash for the simple fact that when it comes to the HTML page, I can control the experience.

With HTML, the author sets a baseline for the experience and I can adjust that experience to my preferences. I can disable scripting. I can inject my own scripting (via bookmarklets or via the console in an add-on like Firebug).

Can something like Readability even exist for Flash?

With Flash, the author demands how the site will behave and there is nothing I can do about it other than not use it. I may not like the performance of Flash, but that can be fixed. The problem is not a technical, it is philosophical.