iPhone Flash, Java, SME – There’s No App for That
You have to give Apple credit for teaching the world how useful and how much fun smart phones can be. Before the iPhone, they were big, buggy, boring bricks with buttons. Now, a phone store is like a fashion show – a dazzling parade of slim new models, each one sleeker and slicker than the last. But, even so, like a one-named supermodel in a crowd of forgettable wannabes, for sheer cachet and sex appeal, the iPhone is still the one to beat. And, not only is the iPhone great looking, but it’s strong, smart and clever too. I mean, how many of those other, regular smart phones can level your bookcase, point to Mecca, and fart like a frat boy… and look so damn good doing it? It’s like the Cameron Diaz of smart phones.
Packed with so much powerful hardware, brimming with such brilliant design, and now sporting over 100,000 different software applications, er, apps, is there anything this thing can’t do?
As a matter of fact, there are at least three. It can’t run Flash. It can’t run Java. And, it can’t run private apps for most businesses. Perhaps, though, it would be more correct to say it won’t, or, at very least, it just doesn’t.
Flash
Adobe’s Flash is one of the most popular pieces of software on the planet for playing media or programming games and rich web sites and content. No matter that it is used on millions of web sites, including YouTube, by hundreds of millions of users every day, and no matter that Adobe has dragged more Apple computer hardware with their creative applications than any other software vendor; Flash is not supported on the iPhone for no apparent reason other than that Apple CEO Steve Jobs doesn’t like it. Jobs recently raised eyebrows and hackles by excoriating Adobe and Flash in this way.
“[Adobe] are lazy. [...] Apple does not support Flash because it is so buggy. Whenever a Mac crashes more often than not it’s because of Flash. No one will be using Flash, the world is moving to HTML5.”
HTML5 is the next version of the standard language commonly used for web site programming. While some parts of it are available now or will be soon, standards move slowly and HTML is no exception. The team developing it doesn’t expect the first level of recommendations from the W3C until 2012 or the final ones until 2022! Meanwhile there are 256 different groups on FaceBook alone with thousands of members between them that exist for the sole purpose of advising, demanding or begging Apple to support Flash on the iPhone.
Java
The Java programming language, created by Sun and now owned by Oracle, is one of the most popular programming languages on the planet for all kinds of applications, including mobile ones, but it is not supported on the iPhone. Why? You guessed it. Here is Steve explaining why Java is not supported on the iPhone.
“Java’s not worth building in. Nobody uses Java anymore. It’s this big heavyweight ball and chain.”
Oh, really? According to Sun’s statistics, Java has been downloaded 300 million times and is pre-installed on the majority of personal computers. What’s more, in 2005 in China, according to Evans Data, 4 out of 5 mobile phone developers used Java and according to China’s Ministry of Information Industry there were 500 million cell phones, virtually all of them supporting Java.
SME Apps
Companies with fewer than 500 employees that wish to deploy proprietary, private iPhone apps can forget it. There is one loophole, called ad hoc distribution. Ostensibly for testing purposes by both commercial and enterprise developers, this program allows them “to share your application with up to 100 other iPhone or iPod touch users with Ad Hoc distribution. Share your application through email or by posting it to a web site or server.” But otherwise, the freedom to privately deploy iPhone apps is restricted as follows.
“[Enterprise Distribution is] For deploying proprietary in-house applications to authorized users in your company, the iPhone Developer Enterprise Program is available to companies with 500 or more employees.”
According to US Small Business Administration statistics, companies with fewer than 500 employees account for 99.7% of all employers, they employ just over half of all employees, and they pay just under half of the total US private payroll. In other words, other than for what can be done using a web browser, the iPhone can only be used by .3% of US businesses. Global numbers may vary somewhat, but in general it is safe to say that the iPhone is effectively an application device exclusively for consumer and large enterprise applications.
The Tao of Steve
Steve Jobs, an unquestionably brilliant and successful business leader, once provided this interesting bit of business advice to would-be entrepreneurs:
“Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice.”
It is interesting to me because, with its absence of any qualifiers, it effectively says that the views of customers, partners, and employees are either validation or they are “noise”, and thus suggests that a company or its CEO has nothing to learn from anybody, contradicting conventional wisdom by more than a little. But is hard to argue with success, especially of the degree seen by Apple with the iPhone.
So, does that mean that Apple is right to ignore Flash, Java, and small business on the iPhone? It is certainly their prerogative, but it is hard to imagine that they couldn’t gain more revenue, market share and good will, and so maximize shareholder value, by finding a way to work these things into the plan, somehow. And, why would they not want to do that?
The answer is that Apple is a public company in form only. They do not want to be as big as they could be, or to make as much money as they could make, if it means listening to noise. Back when they were just a computer company, Jobs defended their diminutive market share in a way that seems to still hold true looking forward.
“Apple’s market share is larger than BMW or Mercedes or Porsche in the auto market. What’s wrong with being BMW or Mercedes?”
Nothing, I guess. It’s certainly what Google wants him to say.
For more of the Tao of Steve, check out this candid and wide-ranging interview conducted recently with the The Man Himself by Walt Mossberg, legendary tech columnist and suspected Google hater. Warning! This video is rated MA for mature audiences. It contains language and ideas that some viewers may find offensive, but others will find side-splittingly hilarious.
I can understand Steve Jobs’ irritation with Flash, but only from the perspective of the way it is used. I really don’t get his “buggy” accusation. And I’ve been using Macs for over 5 years now and, despite Steve’s insistence, they don’t crash often at all, and never in my experience has Flash caused them to crash. In fact I don’t think I’ve ever seen Flash fail, although I’m sure it does.
I have a Flash-neutralizing plug-in in my Browser which prevents a Flash program from running unless I click on it. It is great, because most of the annoying or distracting things web sites do are done in Flash. So maybe in this instance Steve is trying to shoot the messenger. Nevertheless it can’t be a good thing.
We lived through almost two decades while Microsoft stamped on standards (whether agreed or market driven) in an effort to achieve 100%+ market share for Windows. It wasn’t good for the industry. If Apple’s approach is to stamp on standards (whether agreed or market driven) on the basis of Steve’s inner abdominal rumblings, that won’t be good either – although it might make life amusingly unpredictable.
However, I doubt we need worry. All that’s required to stop the nonsense is another powerful vendor that is less inclined to random acts of unkindness. There’s an app for that. It’s called Google.
Fortunately some people are following steve’s advice: they don’t listen to the noise of Apple’s opinion, and create legal solutions such as iSpectrum to enable people to develop Java applications for iPhone. ( http://www.flexycore.com )