Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, just issued some thoughts on Flash, detailing why Apple won’t support it on their iPhones and -Pads. They’ll probably have some valid points there, but as I don’t own or plan to own any of those products, I don’t really care.
Still, there’s one bone I have to pick with his epistle. In response to Adobe’s claim that Flash is open and Apple distributes a closed system, Jobs says,
Anyone following what’s going on with HTML5 will see the elephant in the room, and Jobs mentions it a bit further on: Adobe has repeatedly said that Apple mobile devices cannot access “the full web” because 75% of video on the web is in Flash. What they don’t say is that almost all this video is also available in a more modern format, H.264, and viewable on iPhones, iPods and iPads.
And there you have it. First, Jobs says that Apple strongly believe[s] that all standards pertaining to the web should be open
but then he won’t say that the only video-format that his company’s browser will support is the closed source, proprietary H.264 format. Which makes that bit about strongly believing in the open web sound a bit, well, phony.
So, ehm, mr. Jobs: either put your money where your mouth is and start supporting open video in Webkit, or just STFU, ‘kay?