Apple refuse to put Flash or J2ME on the iPhone citing performance issues and the fact that they seem to want to go with open web standards like HTML5 and so forth.
The hypocrisy is unreal.
Apple have a history of making their software and hardware closed off in its own little bubble. Just look at one example - CoverFlow on the iPhone looks great – but it is a protected API, and you can’t develop with it. Use it, and Apple will kick your app out of the App Store. In fact, pretend to use it – i.e. roll your own CoverFlow, and they will kick it out of the App Store – at least they have done in the past. Take a look at Peeps.
Hardware wise it is only in recent years that you could maintain anything on a Mac and you still can’t scratch build one the way you could build a PC. As far as I am aware, you can still only swap out the memory and hard drive. Want a better graphics card, motherboard or processor? Tough. One of the strengths of the PC platform – and one of the reasons it became so popular and widespread – was the fact that once “clean room” BIOS implementations became available (thanks to Phoenix, Compaq and others), it was possible to roll your own, and upgrade it almost endlessly. I had a 80286 machine years ago, which i upgraded to a 80386 and finally a 80486 with all new hardware over and over. The only original components were the keyboard, mouse, case and power supply. Everything else evolved as my needs grew and technology improved. It went from DOS to Windows 98 with me. I would have carried on upgrading if I hadn’t switched to laptops for convenience – but even these are upgradeable to some extent these days.
Show me one Mac owner who can say the same was possible. Anyone running a modern Mac in a Lisa case? Nah.
So Apple are hardly able to wave the Open Standards flag without some degree of proprietary sin themselves.
Next, there is the problem of ubiquity. Flash might not be an open standard as such (waits for the comment saying actually it now is) – but it is certainly a de facto one. Practically every desktop system supports it, and most mobile platforms support Flash Mobile at least. Likewise, J2ME is present in hordes of mobile devices.
It’s like the PKZip story. Although a proprietary shareware application back in the nineties, it became the de facto standard for compression and archiving on PCs and eventually other platforms. Most Operating Systems now come with Zip support built in, which I think is a fitting legacy for the late lamented Phil Katz, the original author. I can think of other examples. PGP, anyone?
My point? Flash and J2ME are ubiquitous technologies that are de facto standards on the web and in the mobile world respectively. People want Flash, and to a lesser extent J2ME, on iPhone.
Sure Flash might be slow on an iPhone. Yeah, J2ME is kinda lame these days. But why can’t I see a Flash presentation on a web site on my mobile device? Why can’t I transfer a game I paid for to my iPhone and still play it? I can still run ancient PC games on my modern laptop. Some of them – like a chess implementation I got years ago – are still a challenge. Maybe they look a little dated … but then so what, if I like them?
Apple need to rethink their strategy, and loosen their grip a little, especially since other mobile platforms have a competitive edge here as a result of Apple’s current stance.
Sun already have a J2ME implementation for iPhone. Likewise Adobe have a Flash implementation in the wings.
All they, and us mortals, are waiting for, is for Apple to change it’s mind.
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