The Flash vs. Steve Jobs debate has really kicked off in recent weeks, even though the issues underpinning this argument have been around for years.
No one can ignore Flash and its importance in the media ecosystem. Whether we like it or not, Flash has long had a big role to play in creating rich interactive tools and, particularly in recent years, in delivering video and ads.
However, Flash is wholly dependent on the platforms it runs on, not the other way around. If leading platforms don't or won't support it, it will die. The pace may be slower, but it will ultimately go the way of its older sister Shockwave - once the champ of interactivity on the web but really a hangover from the CD-ROM age.
Steve Jobs is correct that Adobe has under-delivered on the promise of Flash for mobile platforms for years. He's correct that it performs terribly on Macs, for no good reason other than Adobe's shoddy coding. He's also correct that Flash is in no way an open technology, although the irony of this coming from the leader of the modern Apple is lost on none of us.
The reality is that Flash is looking old and tired compared to Apple's shiny new platforms. Unfortunately for Adobe, those platforms are currently running away with the consumer market and it's unlikely that we'll see anything to change that trend any time soon.
The iPad is the vanguard for the new tablet computing category and the current poster-boy, but it's really the smaller iPhone platform format that counts right now. Tens of millions of units in the hands of extremely happy consumers, a proven commercial infrastructure supporting it, dominance of mobile web traffic, and almost unlimited growth potential still ahead of it. All this success, without Flash.
The iPad looks set to continue the trend. It's a really exciting product. It has sold its first million units at time of writing in less than a month and it's a genuinely interesting new type of experience. Rich interactivity, sophisticated applications and incredible performance - again, all without Flash.
Flash has its uses, and some of them are genuinely valuable. The ability to save a Flash app as a native iPhone OS app in CS5 was an inspired idea by Adobe, and immediately useful to us for prototyping. We can build prototypes to test on the iPad and iPhone quickly and easily: it's a great solution. It makes exploring design solutions for the iPhone OS simpler and faster.
So why have Apple outlawed it for the deployment of live apps?
Setting aside the obvious fact that Steve wants everything running on his products directly under his control, the obvious answer is that Apple can make more money by exerting more control over their platform. They're protecting their interests, albeit in their typically heavy-handed way. In their position, most of us would do the same. Apple is innovating on a scale far above everyone else, and they take risks for which they are admired and envied. While it's true that committed, platform-specific development will always lead to a better performing product, and a better experience for the consumer as a result, it probably has little to do with Apple's real motives. But let's be clear, it is their platform.
Apple is succeeding by innovating and dominating key consumer markets. Innovation is and always will be the right way to succeed. Apple has become very, very good at innovating in just the right areas.
Adobe has been a disastrous innovator. They have grown sloppy and fat on the proceeds of what is without doubt an impressive monopoly position. Nothing has offered genuine competition to Flash for a long time, and the same is true in many of their core software markets too.
Adobe desperately needs to innovate. Flash has taken an internet eternity to show its face on mobile platforms because Adobe dropped the ball. They failed to overhaul Flash's underlying architecture while the going was good, preferring to evolve the platform slowly, incrementally adding new capabilities while relying on Moore's law to prop them up. Flash got better as desktop computers got faster. The emergence of rich mobile platforms, energy-efficient processors and the need for highly optimised code to run them on, caught Adobe snoozing. Or more accurately in a deep, snoring slumber.
It's not exactly the first time this lethargy has struck Adobe; there has been an endless wait for a meaningfully accessible Flash solution.
All is not lost for Flash. HTML5 is bandied around as the cure for all ills but it does not do everything Flash can. Yet. But it does many, many things much better and it is -properly - open. Adobe could try open sourcing Flash and let the community solve its problems for it, but I just don't think the community has the will for it or the affinity with Adobe to make it happen. Everyone who could make a difference is looking to HTML5 and its sibling technologies, and they're unlikely to turn away from that to help sort out Flash.
If Adobe were smart, and had the nerve for it, they would have been putting insane amounts of resource into building new creative tools that make Flash obsolete. It should have been their agenda, their innovation driving them to stand on stage saying 'here's the future beyond Flash'. Let's hope they have.
Apple, for all its faults, has never been afraid to leave things behind, to recognise a dead end and turn around. Adobe needs to get some of the same blood in its veins and start focusing hard on innovation. They need to win by being better; by making their technology so good that everyone wants it on their platform.
If Adobe do their job properly, Steve will be inviting them to tea instead of sending them snotty letters that make it abundantly clear that they're really not welcome in this neighbourhood - and that would be good for all of us.