This morning CNN reported that Steve Jobs has come out saying that Adobe’s Flash technology simply isn’t suitable for the iPhone.
Jobs believes that the desktop version of Flash runs too slowly on the iPhone, the cellphone version of Flash isn’t functional enough, and “there’s this missing product in the middle” that would presumably run fast enough for the iPhone while retaining enough functionality.
Adobe doesn’t appear to have any plans for this so-called “product in the middle” so his remarks suggest that iPhone won’t support Flash anytime soon. This is not going to make developers or consumers happy given how important Flash has become for the web, whether it be for delivering rich applications or video.
Those who were hoping that Flash support would be announced with the SDK tomorrow will be especially disappointed. Perhaps Jobs was trying to soften the blow a little bit by announcing his Flash intentions a day early.
Of course, as Duncan speculates, this provides an opportunity for Microsoft to swoop in and enable the iPhone with Silverlight. But is that even imaginable?
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