Steve Jobs continued his tour of media organisations to promote the Apple iPad with an Adobe-Flash-slamming appearance at the Wall Street Journal. Reports suggest Jobs fired off a volley in his continuing war with Adobe. Adobe slammed Apple for letting down iPhone users earlier this week.
Jobs popped up at the Wall Street Journal last month to persuade it that it didn’t need Flash and should focused on creating content for the Apple iPad.
Jobs allegedly repeated his attack on Adobe Flash from a recent Apple town hall meeting, claiming Flash is responsible for most crashes on Macs.
He went even further calling Flash a “CPU hog”, “a source of security holes” and a dying technology. Jobs said Apple doesn’t “spend a lot of energy on old technology”. He went on to compare Flash to other systems Apple got people to ditch like floppy disks.
Not only that but Jobs claimed that the Apple iPad’s 10 hour battery life would be battered if Flash was included, shrinking to a pitiful 1.5 hours. Given that playing constant video will hammer the iPad’s battery life anyway, that seems like a stretch.
Jobs apparently suggested that it would be “trivial” for the Wall Street Journal to ditch Flash. He suggested that it could switch to H.264 format videos which is supported by the iPad and Flash Player.
We’re not sure if Jobs mentioned that H.264 is patented and privately licensed. It also doesn’t have a system for easily creating interactive graphics which is a major requirement for most newspaper websites.
It seems the Apple vs Adobe grudge match is not likely to end any time soon. Adobe has a system for converting Flash apps to iPad and iPhone compatible versions but users are still looking for Flash on their iPhones.
What’s bugging us most is this: did Steve Jobs wear his funny hat to meet the Wall Street Journal?
