Apple's Jobs Says Flash Crashes Macs; No Flash for iPad, iPhone Planned

From DailyTech: In the wake of the iPad launch, Apple CEO Steven P. Jobs launched into a cross-country media tour. Even as his much ballyhooed tablet was being picked apart by critics who questioned its ability to serve as a competent eBook reader, Mr. Jobs visited The Wall Street Journal and other major news industry players in an effort to boost the device's public perception.

However, Mr. Jobs found the folks at the WSJ were asking him the same question, a question that had infuriated him time after time -- "Why doesn't the i have Flash?"

Jobs' mobile devices boycott of Flash, one of the most widely used internet formats, is close to extraordinary. Even Microsoft, who has its own competitive format (Silverlight) has cooperated with Adobe in ensuring Flash runs smoothly on Windows PCs and is ported to Windows smartphones. Apple, meanwhile, has been almost the only major player to play the role of Flash obstructionist.

Apple has its reasons. Flash on a base level provides a very real threat to Apple's lucrative App Store, one of the key things that it uses to differentiate the iPod Touch/iPhone/iPad from its competitors. If Apple adopted Flash, many of its developers could move to Flash which would free them of the restrictions of Apple's App Store approval process. And that would ultimately ruin the exclusivity of Apple's app catalog and make Apple vulnerable to handsets with superior hardware. Also, with Flash customers could simply view TV episodes from Hulu for free, rather than buy them from Apple's iTunes store.

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