Thoughts on Flash by Jobs

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乔布斯关于Flash的几点思考，大家可以看看。
" z+ Z% f* w" }有能力的，直接看1L原文；没能力的，拉到2L看译文。

. W; X. r3 y+ }. L4 tApple has a long relationship with Adobe. In fact, we met Adobe’s founders when they were in their proverbial garage. Apple was their first big customer, adopting their Postscript language for our new Laserwriter printer. Apple invested in Adobe and owned around 20% of the company for many years. The two companies worked closely together to pioneer desktop publishing and there were many good times. Since that golden era, the companies have grown apart. Apple went through its near death experience, and Adobe was drawn to the corporate market with their Acrobat products. Today the two companies still work together to serve their joint creative customers – Mac users buy around half of Adobe’s Creative Suite products – but beyond that there are few joint interests.
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I wanted to jot down some of our thoughts on Adobe’s Flash products so that customers and critics may better understand why we do not allow Flash on iPhones, iPods and iPads. Adobe has characterized our decision as being primarily business driven – they say we want to protect our App Store – but in reality it is based on technology issues. Adobe claims that we are a closed system, and that Flash is open, but in fact the opposite is true. Let me explain.
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- e4 _8 }2 Q# }0 B9 Y& ~First, there’s “Open”.

Adobe’s Flash products are 100% proprietary. They are only available from Adobe, and Adobe has sole authority as to their future enhancement, pricing, etc. While Adobe’s Flash products are widely available, this does not mean they are open, since they are controlled entirely by Adobe and available only from Adobe. By almost any definition, Flash is a closed system.
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Apple has many proprietary products too. Though the operating system for the iPhone, iPod and iPad is proprietary, we strongly believe that all standards pertaining to the web should be open. Rather than use Flash, Apple has adopted HTML5, CSS and JavaScript – all open standards. Apple’s mobile devices all ship with high performance, low power implementations of these open standards. HTML5, the new web standard that has been adopted by Apple, Google and many others, lets web developers create advanced graphics, typography, animations and transitions without relying on third party browser plug-ins (like Flash). HTML5 is completely open and controlled by a standards committee, of which Apple is a member.

) r7 L/ h1 I6 ]" O3 K' hApple even creates open standards for the web. For example, Apple began with a small open source project and created WebKit, a complete open-source HTML5 rendering engine that is the heart of the Safari web browser used in all our products. WebKit has been widely adopted. Google uses it for Android’s browser, Palm uses it, Nokia uses it, and RIM (Blackberry) has announced they will use it too. Almost every smartphone web browser other than Microsoft’s uses WebKit. By making its WebKit technology open, Apple has set the standard for mobile web browsers.
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Second, there’s the “full web”.
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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. YouTube, with an estimated 40% of the web’s video, shines in an app bundled on all Apple mobile devices, with the iPad offering perhaps the best YouTube discovery and viewing experience ever. Add to this video from Vimeo, Netflix, Facebook, ABC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, ESPN, NPR, Time, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Sports Illustrated, People, National Geographic, and many, many others. iPhone, iPod and iPad users aren’t missing much video.

% K$ ~! _2 q8 y! O) ?8 O5 PAnother Adobe claim is that Apple devices cannot play Flash games. This is true. Fortunately, there are over 50,000 games and entertainment titles on the App Store, and many of them are free. There are more games and entertainment titles available for iPhone, iPod and iPad than for any other platform in the world.


Third, there’s reliability, security and performance.

Symantec recently highlighted Flash for having one of the worst security records in 2009. We also know first hand that Flash is the number one reason Macs crash. We have been working with Adobe to fix these problems, but they have persisted for several years now. We don’t want to reduce the reliability and security of our iPhones, iPods and iPads by adding Flash.

In addition, Flash has not performed well on mobile devices. We have routinely asked Adobe to show us Flash performing well on a mobile device, any mobile device, for a few years now. We have never seen it. Adobe publicly said that Flash would ship on a smartphone in early 2009, then the second half of 2009, then the first half of 2010, and now they say the second half of 2010. We think it will eventually ship, but we’re glad we didn’t hold our breath. Who knows how it will perform?


* y! [% @5 i. a# y9 KFourth, there’s battery life.

; I6 b4 g6 [0 G% R0 qTo achieve long battery life when playing video, mobile devices must decode the video in hardware; decoding it in software uses too much power. Many of the chips used in modern mobile devices contain a decoder called H.264 – an industry standard that is used in every Blu-ray DVD player and has been adopted by Apple, Google (YouTube), Vimeo, Netflix and many other companies.
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Although Flash has recently added support for H.264, the video on almost all Flash websites currently requires an older generation decoder that is not implemented in mobile chips and must be run in software. The difference is striking: on an iPhone, for example, H.264 videos play for up to 10 hours, while videos decoded in software play for less than 5 hours before the battery is fully drained.

When websites re-encode their videos using H.264, they can offer them without using Flash at all. They play perfectly in browsers like Apple’s Safari and Google’s Chrome without any plugins whatsoever, and look great on iPhones, iPods and iPads.
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Fifth, there’s Touch.

5 }8 ]2 W" N3 `3 m) zFlash was designed for PCs using mice, not for touch screens using fingers. For example, many Flash websites rely on “rollovers”, which pop up menus or other elements when the mouse arrow hovers over a specific spot. Apple’s revolutionary multi-touch interface doesn’t use a mouse, and there is no concept of a rollover. Most Flash websites will need to be rewritten to support touch-based devices. If developers need to rewrite their Flash websites, why not use modern technologies like HTML5, CSS and JavaScript?

Even if iPhones, iPods and iPads ran Flash, it would not solve the problem that most Flash websites need to be rewritten to support touch-based devices.

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Sixth, the most important reason.
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Besides the fact that Flash is closed and proprietary, has major technical drawbacks, and doesn’t support touch based devices, there is an even more important reason we do not allow Flash on iPhones, iPods and iPads. We have discussed the downsides of using Flash to play video and interactive content from websites, but Adobe also wants developers to adopt Flash to create apps that run on our mobile devices.
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, u/ H. t/ o) v! r' m$ l4 zWe know from painful experience that letting a third party layer of software come between the platform and the developer ultimately results in sub-standard apps and hinders the enhancement and progress of the platform. If developers grow dependent on third party development libraries and tools, they can only take advantage of platform enhancements if and when the third party chooses to adopt the new features. We cannot be at the mercy of a third party deciding if and when they will make our enhancements available to our developers.

& I; n% K' `% f) b/ ]$ j+ c8 E( v4 l3 BThis becomes even worse if the third party is supplying a cross platform development tool. The third party may not adopt enhancements from one platform unless they are available on all of their supported platforms. Hence developers only have access to the lowest common denominator set of features. Again, we cannot accept an outcome where developers are blocked from using our innovations and enhancements because they are not available on our competitor’s platforms.

+ _4 a2 `$ B  z" ~7 Y+ iFlash is a cross platform development tool. It is not Adobe’s goal to help developers write the best iPhone, iPod and iPad apps. It is their goal to help developers write cross platform apps. And Adobe has been painfully slow to adopt enhancements to Apple’s platforms. For example, although Mac OS X has been shipping for almost 10 years now, Adobe just adopted it fully (Cocoa) two weeks ago when they shipped CS5. Adobe was the last major third party developer to fully adopt Mac OS X.
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Our motivation is simple – we want to provide the most advanced and innovative platform to our developers, and we want them to stand directly on the shoulders of this platform and create the best apps the world has ever seen. We want to continually enhance the platform so developers can create even more amazing, powerful, fun and useful applications. Everyone wins – we sell more devices because we have the best apps, developers reach a wider and wider audience and customer base, and users are continually delighted by the best and broadest selection of apps on any platform.
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Conclusions.
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- d1 |$ k# a3 PFlash was created during the PC era – for PCs and mice. Flash is a successful business for Adobe, and we can understand why they want to push it beyond PCs. But the mobile era is about low power devices, touch interfaces and open web standards – all areas where Flash falls short.

3 j' C- [' o) m0 M4 @9 fThe avalanche of media outlets offering their content for Apple’s mobile devices demonstrates that Flash is no longer necessary to watch video or consume any kind of web content. And the 200,000 apps on Apple’s App Store proves that Flash isn’t necessary for tens of thousands of developers to create graphically rich applications, including games.

New open standards created in the mobile era, such as HTML5, will win on mobile devices (and PCs too). Perhaps Adobe should focus more on creating great HTML5 tools for the future, and less on criticizing Apple for leaving the past behind.

Steve Jobs
  P* U% t) v! Y+ L, L, _9 g/ rApril, 2010
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http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/

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　　苹果与 Adobe 的关系由来已久。Adobe 的创始人还在那如今已成传说的车库中工作时，我们就已经认识了。苹果是他们的第一个大客户，将他们的 Postscript 语言改为我们当时新推出的 Laserwriter 打印机所用。在很多年里，苹果都是 Adobe 的股东之一，拥有其 20% 的股权。两家公司通力合作，开创了桌面电脑出版业，其中有不少快乐的时光，但那段黄金时代一过，我们便分道扬镳了。苹果经历了濒死的过程，Adobe 凭其 Acrobat 产品进入了企业市场。今天，两家公司仍然同心协力为创意产业的客户服务——Adobe 的 Creative Suite 软件的顾客里，有大约一半是苹果电脑用家。但除此之外，我们几乎没有别的共同利益了。

　　我想草草写点关于我对Adobe Flash技术的看法，方便客户和批评者更好地理解为什么我们在iPhone、iPad和iPad上封杀它。Adobe曾经说，我们主要是为了保护程序应 用商店产品，出发点也是为了业务缘故，但实际上却是因为技术原因。Adobe声称我们是一个封闭的系统，而Flash是开放的，但实际截然相反。让我来解 释一下。

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　　首先是“开放”。

2 z+ _0 U. C8 c7 c0 F　　Adobe Flash技术是100%拥有专利的，这些专利为Adobe独享，而Adobe也对其未来发展、价格等拥有绝对控制权。尽管Adobe Flash技术广泛流行，这并不意味着它是开放的，因为它完全被Adobe控制，也只为Adobe而存在。无论从哪个方面来看，Flash技术都是一个封 闭的系统。
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　　当然，苹果也拥有许多专利性产品。虽然iPhone系统、iPod和iPad都是有专利的，便我们依然坚信：所有与网络相关的标准应该开放。因 此苹果放弃Flash而选择HTML5, CSS和JavaScript等开放标准。苹果的移动设备使用这些标准后都具有高性能、低功耗特点。HTML5这个新的网络标准已经被苹果、Google 及其它企业采纳，它让开发者可以开发出更好的图形、印刷及动画，不需要第三方浏览器插件(如Flash)就能转换。HTML5是完全开放的，它由一个标准 委员会打理，当然，苹果也是一个成员。
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　　苹果甚至还为网络制定开放标准。例如，苹果从一个开源的项目做起，打造了WebKit，它是一个完全开源的HTML5渲染引擎，它也是 Safari浏览器的核心，这个浏览器使用于我们所有的产品。WebKit已经被广泛接受。Google将它用于Android浏览器，Palm也用它， 诺基亚也用它，最近RIM也宣布将使用它。除了微软外，几乎所有的智能手机浏览器都用它。为了使WebKit技术更开放，苹果已经将它做为移动浏览器的标 准。

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　　第二点，关于“整个网络”。
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　　Adobe不断地说苹果的设备无法连接“整个网络”，因为75%的网络视频使用Flash。它们没有提及的一点是几乎所有的视频都有另一种格式 ——H.264，iPhone、iPod和iPad支持这种格式。Youtube估计占有40%的网络视频，苹果的移动设备都绑有应用，而iPad更是提 供了最佳浏览体验。除了Youtube，如Vimeo，Netflix，Facebook，ABC, CBS， CNN，MSNBC，福克斯新闻，ESPN，NPR，《时代》，《纽约时报》，《华尔街日报》,《体育画报》, 《人物》, 《国家地理》, 很多很多其它的公司都能支持，iPhone、iPod和iPad用户没有损失多少视频。
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# @) i" O  t* v　　Adobe的另一个理由是苹果的设备无法玩Flash游戏。这可能是真的。比较幸运的是在苹果的应用商店里有5万个游戏与娱乐应用，当中许多还 是免费的。iPhone、iPod和iPad的游戏会越来越多，远非其它平台可媲美。
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　　第三点，关于可靠性，安全性和性能。
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7 [* {0 C  N% i2 v$ }' f4 g- \　　赛门铁克最近指出，Flash在2009年创了安全记录之最。我们也有第一手资料，显示Flash是导致Mac死机的原因之一。我们曾与 Adobe合作，试图解决此问题，但它们还是坚持多年不变。我们不想为了Flash，降低iPhone、iPods和iPads的可靠性和安全性。

$ Z; b; T4 ~6 N& \　　此外，Flash在移动设备上并不能完好运行。按照惯例，我们数年来一直要求Adobe能将Flash良好运行于移动设备上——任何移动设备。 但依然无所进展。Adobe曾公开表示，Flash支持所有2009年早期推出的智能手机，然后是2009年下半年推出的手机，然后又是2010年上半年 推出的手机，现在，它们又要说2010年下半年了。我想它们最终会推出新品，可以庆幸的是我们不用耐心等待了。谁知道它的表现会如何呢？
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0 A9 c1 t9 G' m7 k　　第四点，续航时间
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　　在播放视频时，为了使电池续航时间延长，移动设备必须在硬件上进行解码，如果用软件解码会耗费更多的电力。现在的移动设备都包括一个解码器，叫 作H.264，它是一个工业标准，用于所有的蓝光DVD播放器，这个标准被苹果、Google，Vimeo，Netflix及其它许多企业接受。
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　　虽然Flash最近也将H.264列入支持行列，但是如今几乎所有的Flash网页都需要老一代的解码器，它无法在移动芯片上执行，所以只好求 助于软件。区别十分惊人：举个例子，在iPhone上H.264视频可以播放十小时，而用软件解码只能播放不到五小时。

( G, r: n! @- \4 _* i" |+ d" v/ U　　当网页使用H.264对视频再编码时，它完全可以不使用Flash技术。而且它们可以良好运行于苹果Safari、Google Chrome浏览器上，完全不需要插件，在iPhone、iPod和iPad上效果不错。


/ w) |- h3 A. E! l: u　　第五点，与触摸屏有关。

# s) ^0 M7 p* f+ D, e3 p5 O　　Flash是为电脑和鼠标设计的，而不是手指控制的触摸屏。例如，许多的Flash网页上有“翻转”功能，当鼠标移到上面时会弹出一个菜单或者 其它元素。苹果的革命性多触点触摸界面不使用鼠标，也没有“翻转”这种概念。许多的Flash网页为了支持触摸设备需要再编写。如果开发者需要重写网页， 为什么不使用更先进的技术HTML5、CSS或者JavaScript？
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　　即使iPhones，iPods和iPads能运行Flash，也无法解决这个问题，大多的Flash网站为了支持触摸设备还是要重写代码。
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　　第六点，也是最重要的一点。
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　　撇开Flash封闭而独断、技术缺点明显且不支持触摸设备等不论，还有一个重要的原因使我们不支持它。我们曾讨论过网站使用Flash播放视频 与互动内容的下降趋势，然而Adobe还是要求开发者接受Flash，开发应用并在我们的设备上使用。
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　　我们深知伤害体验，让第三方插足平台和开发者之间，最终会制造出低标准应用，它会阻碍平台的扩张和进展。如果开发者越来越依赖第三方开发的函数 库和工具，那么唯有在第三方选择新功能时，开发者才能享受到平台优越性。我们不能让第三方支配，不能第三方让开发者开发什么，才能开发什么。
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( s' |; h  U# ~1 F" ~　　更糟糕的是一旦第三方提供一个交叉平台开发工具，它们可能不会为单一的平台开发增加工具，除非工具能适应于所有平台。如此一来，以后开发者就只 能开发最低标准的应用。再次重申，禁锢开发者，使之不能使用我们的创新和增强产品，这是我们无法接受的结果，因为他们没有到竞争对手的平台去。

　　Flash是一个交叉平台开发工具。让开发为iPhone、iPod和iPad开发出最好的应用，这并非Adobe的目标。让他们为交叉平台开 发才是其目标，而且Adobe在增加苹果平台应用方面十分迟钝。例如，尽管Mac OS X已经推出近10年，Adobe直到两周前才完全接受，推出了CS5。Adobe是最后一个完全接受Mac OS X的第三方开发商。

) Y1 V. h6 ?" b　　我们的动机十分简单：我们希望为开发者提供最先进、最创新的平台，我们希望他们直接站在苹果平台的肩上，打造全世界最好的应用。我们希望不断增 强平台，让开发者创造出更让振奋人心、更强大、更有趣、更有用的应用。要多方共赢，我们卖出更多的设备，因为我们拥有最好的应用，开发者越来越拥有更广泛 的用户基础，用户也可以更开心地选择，选择的面也更宽。

　　总之，Flash适用于PC时代，为PC与鼠标而存在。对于Adobe来说Flash是个成功的业务，我们理解它为何希望能超越PC。但移动设 备关乎低功耗，触摸界面及开发网络标准，这些是Flash的短板。
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　　媒体雪崩，出路在于它们向苹果移动设备提供内容，这证明Flash不再是观看视频之必备，也非其它许多网站的必需。苹果应用商店的20万个应用 也证明Flash不是成千上万开发者的必需品，没有它同样可以创造更好的、更丰富的应用，包括游戏。
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3 ]7 Y- U0 w$ m# @　　移动时代的新开发标准，如HTML5，将在移动设备上获胜(电脑也将一样)。也许Adobe应该集中精力，为未来打造HTML5工具，而不是成 天批评苹果放弃过时的事物。

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　　史蒂夫·乔布斯
　　2010年4月

5 p- U* u- C# T" F. A  Z转自CNBETA：http://www.cnbeta.com/articles/109919.htm
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% L2 A+ p+ n6 h+ D: K1 m4 f( h[ Edited by sole on 2010-5-1 23:29 ]

2b6c3d729918489

汗...帮主直接发话就OK了..还找一通理由?