Thoughts on Flash

The situation

In 2010 Adobe Flash was everywhere on the web. Video sites, games, advertisements, restaurant menus and entire websites were built with it, and it ran as a plug-in inside desktop browsers. The iPhone, launched in 2007, did not support Flash, and the iPad, announced in January 2010, would not either. Critics and competitors treated this as a gap: an Android phone could show the “full web,” an iPhone could not.

At the same time Apple had changed its developer agreement to require that iPhone apps be written in Apple’s approved languages, which ruled out tools such as Adobe’s, which could convert Flash projects into iPhone apps. Adobe and Apple, long-time partners, were in open conflict.

What the letter argues

Jobs organised the letter around six areas: openness, the “full web,” reliability and security, battery life, touch, and what he called “the most important reason,” the risk of a third-party layer between Apple and its developers.

On openness he turned the usual criticism around. Apple was often called closed; Jobs wrote that “Adobe’s Flash products are 100% proprietary,” while Apple supported open standards such as HTML5, CSS and JavaScript.

On reliability he was blunt: “We also know first hand that Flash is the number one reason Macs crash.”

On battery life he gave numbers. Mobile devices decode the H.264 video format in hardware, and Jobs wrote that on an iPhone “H.264 videos play for up to 10 hours, while videos decoded in software play for less than 5 hours.”

On touch he made the argument that ties the letter together: “Flash was created during the PC era – for PCs and mice.” It was “designed for PCs using mice, not for touch screens using fingers,” and many Flash websites relied on hovering a mouse pointer, which has no equivalent on a touchscreen.

His final reason concerned control of the platform. Allowing “a third party layer of software come between the platform and the developer,” he argued, would leave apps dependent on the third party’s pace of adopting Apple’s new features, producing lowest-common-denominator software.

The letter ends with a prediction: “New open standards created in the mobile era, such as HTML5, will win on mobile devices (and PCs too).”

The decision it carried

Apple had already decided not to support Flash. The letter’s decision was to make that refusal permanent and public, and to frame it as a principle rather than a missing feature. That raised the cost of reversing course and sent a signal to every website owner: if you want to reach iPhone and iPad users, stop relying on Flash.

The alternatives were to license and support Flash, as some Android phones eventually did, to say nothing and let the criticism continue, or to negotiate a mobile version with Adobe.

What happened

The prediction proved accurate. In November 2011 Adobe announced that it would stop developing Flash for mobile browsers. Websites moved video to HTML5 and the H.264 format. In July 2017 Adobe announced it would end Flash altogether, citing open alternatives, and support ended on 31 December 2020, coordinated with the major browser makers.

The developer-tool restriction that had triggered the dispute did not last as written. In September 2010 Apple relaxed its rules on the tools developers could use to build iPhone apps, while keeping its review process. Apple’s platform remained tightly controlled through the App Store.

How to read it as a product manager

The letter is a useful model for explaining a “no.”

It translates strategy into customer outcomes. Battery hours, crashes and the impossibility of hovering with a finger are things users feel. Only the last reason, the third-party layer, is about Apple’s business, and it comes last.

It reframes the criticism. Apple was accused of being closed; the letter makes the case that Flash was the closed technology. Whatever one thinks of the argument, reframing is a deliberate and effective technique.

It makes the decision about the future, not the past. By describing Flash as a PC-era technology, the letter positions the choice as part of a transition rather than a refusal.

It also shows the limits of a platform owner’s arguments. The case for open standards was sincere and largely correct, but Apple also benefited from controlling how apps were built for its devices. Product managers making platform decisions should separate, at least for themselves, the user benefit from the business interest.

What is contested

Adobe’s chief executive at the time described the letter as an attack, and some developers argued that Apple was using technical reasons to justify control. Others pointed out that Flash’s mobile performance problems were real and that Adobe struggled to fix them. Most retrospective commentary has judged Jobs right about Flash’s future. The broader argument, that a third-party layer between platform and developer is harmful, remains contested: cross-platform tools are now common on both iOS and Android.

The decision, examined closely

What triggered it

The immediate trigger was a public dispute. Apple’s April 2010 developer terms had blocked Adobe’s tool for converting Flash projects into iPhone apps, Adobe had protested, and critics were again describing the iPhone and iPad as unable to show the “full web.” The letter was Apple’s answer, and it chose to address the whole question of Flash rather than the narrower dispute about tools.

The constraints

Flash content was everywhere, and Apple could not make it disappear by decree. Its leverage was the growing number of iPhone and iPad users, which gave website owners a reason to adopt alternatives. The letter had to persuade customers that they were not missing much, and persuade publishers that they would have to change.

What the author was optimising for

Two objectives run through the letter. One is the quality of the device: battery life, stability and touch, all things Apple controlled and marketed. The other is control of the platform: keeping a third party from standing between Apple and its developers. The first is presented as the main reason; the second is called “the most important reason.” Both pointed the same way, which made the decision easy for Apple and the argument persuasive to many readers.

Second-order effects

The refusal accelerated the move to HTML5 video and to open web standards on mobile, a shift that benefited every mobile platform, including Apple’s competitors. It also hardened the image of Apple as a company that would exercise strict control over its platform, an image that later fed into regulatory scrutiny of the App Store.

The counterfactual

If Apple had supported Flash, the transition to open standards might have been slower, and mobile web pages might have depended on a proprietary plug-in for years longer. Alternatively, Adobe might have been forced to make Flash efficient on mobile devices. Adobe’s own decision in 2011 to stop mobile Flash development suggests the technical difficulties were real, not merely Apple’s pretext.

Sources and limitations

Quotations were verified against contemporary reporting that quotes the letter directly; the original Apple page is no longer online, and an archived copy is linked. The word count is as reported by contemporary coverage. The account of Adobe’s later decisions relies on news reporting of Adobe’s announcements. The interpretation of the letter as a defence of platform control is the author’s.