Re: Apple makes even Microsoft look good.
Er, no. Sorry.
Flash has always been a massive resource hog – especially on Apple's computers. That latter point is the main reason for Jobs' rant: Adobe had years to sort out the major problems with their applications, but they never did. Adobe took years just to port their Creative Suite applications ported to the Intel versions of OS X – years after every other f*cking developer, large and small, and including Microsoft managed it!
Why the hell would Jobs trust them to organise this particular piss-up in a brewery when they've never shown any ability to pull it off? Adobe have become lazy, coasting on the fat of their ever more bloated (and staggeringly overpriced) applications and resting on their laurels. Ever since they ate Macromedia, they've had so little competition to speak of that they're not even trying any more. They've lost their hunger and that's not going to end well for them.
Flash has only ever been viable on full-fat desktops. It requires so many resources to run properly, even Adobe themselves have finally admitted defeat and thrown in the towel. There will be no mobile Flash releases for Android either. Flash is dead. It had a good innings, but it is an ex-platform and has no place in today's web developer's toolbox.
Any website that still requires Flash is doing it wrong.
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As for Mr. Allaire's argument that HTML5 is the future: Unfortunately, as a certain Dutch brewer's marketing department might say, "Sschtop! HTML5 isn't ready yet!"
In the meantime, the underlying medium itself, the fabric we call the Internet, is trundling along just fine and works perfectly well as a means of getting data from a server to a client. So that's what developers are doing: using what works, applying tried, tested techniques, and getting the bloody job done.
And client applications should be tailored for the platforms and devices they run on! That's just basic GUI design. They must also be responsive and that's something HTML5 still isn't ready to deliver, due to high latencies and inconsistent availability of suitable bandwidth around the world. Not everyone on the planet has ready access to broadband – be it fixed-line or even GSM.
This is a transitional stage. The IT industry is full of those – I'd argue it's now a never-ending series of them – so either deal with it, or take up forest husbandry.