Steve Jobs and his Thoughts on Flash

Steve Jobs penned a controversial open letter titled “Thoughts on Flash” while he was CEO of Apple, criticizing Adobe Flash and outlining why it would not be permitted on Apple’s iOS hardware. Jobs’ reasons included poor security, high energy consumption, a lack of touch support, and a claim that Flash was effectively a closed system. Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen described the letter as an attack. Publications initially had varied responses to the letter, though tended to agree retrospectively that Jobs was right.