Why Apple Will Win The Flash Battle.

For whatever reason, Apple has opted not to allow Flash on the iPhone or iPad.

Here's why they will be able to make that stick:

1. Apple's iPhone and iPad owners don't care about Flash - they care about being able to watch video on their device.
2. The suppliers of video content don't care about the delivery technology - they care about being able to deliver their content to large groups of people.
3. Apple users are important to video suppliers as visible, vocal, trend-setting consumers.

As a result, the video suppliers will (sooner or later) convert their content to a format suitable for the iPhone and iPad.  The cost of conversion is small, certainly on a going-forward basis.

Yes, this analysis ignores other uses of Flash, e.g. casual games like Desktop Tower Defender.  But most of the conversation around Flash has been its use as a standard method for video distribution on the Web.

Comments

[AdamD]

You make a case that's easy to agree with. I'd add to it that serving video through Flash has always been a hack. The true Web solution will win eventually. Apple is just pushing us in that direction sooner, like when it took away our floppy drives.

[Wireless Tech Review]

The main reason to allow flash is to be able to deliver casual online games. However, apple seems to have no shortage of those as as iPad apps right now. Perhaps they see flash as competition to their own app development.

[Convert Video]

Apple are trying to keep things as closed as possible. In all terms of the word. why do you think you cant send files to other devices with an iphone or ipad. Keeping flash out is just another way to keep the competition out and I guess it saves them a reasonable amount of time and money not having to build in support in their apps.