First off, outside of being a normal Smartphone consumer, I really have no dog in this fight.  I’ve written some things in Flash before, but truth be told I try to avoid this platform because of the inherent usability and accessibility issues that surround it.  However, Flash has definitely found it’s niche in media: both in video players, as well as an audio player. I currently use Flash music players on Greenfoot‘s site, and there still isn’t really an open standards answer out there for music players.

I also do find it funny that Apple and Adobe are feuding, given their extensive history together.  I remember when design products like Photoshop were only available on the Mac, and what a big deal it was to have a Windows version.  Now, according to Steve Jobs, half of the Creative Suite tools are now on Windows.  I seriously believe that if Adobe never bought Macromedia in 2005, these companies would still be BFF’s.

Also if you know me, you know that I do have a disposition towards Apple – I cannot deny that. My difficulty with Apple is that they employ many monopolistic practices and actions, yet somehow get the tech media to view them through some rose-colored glasses.  They definitely know how to work the hype machine, and as someone who generally doesn’t like overzealous hype, it really bothers me. However, I think it’s important to tell you where I sit before I talk about where I stand.

Reading through the letter, there are a few things that stand out to me:

First, there’s “Open”.

Oh this is great, we’re going to get a lecture on Adobe’s proprietary from Apple, a company that wont’ let you install their OS on any device they don’t personally manufacture, while also employing a completely locked-down mobile platform where they are the sole gate keepers to what is allowed on that phone. Thanks pot, but I know the kettle is black.

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

Great, we’re glad you’re adopting HTML5, but at the heart of the matter is the fact that HTML5 still isn’t widely adopted on most browsers.  Firefox doesn’t currently support most aspects of it, while Internet Explorer has little support for it.  Whether or not the two major browsers should now be supporting it is debatable, but the fact is that the majority of the web still doesn’t have access to HTML5.  Apple is very forward-thinking, but you need to come back to the present on this.

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.

That’s great, but there’s a difference between the mobile web and the mainstream web, and the majority of the Internet still consumes the mainstream web through desktop browsers.

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.

This is a little ingenuous.  He’s right, much of the video is encoded in H.264, but much of today’s availability of H.264 is due to Apple strong-arming content providers into making this available.  iPhones are hot right now, and everyone wants their content to be made available for Mobile Devices. Apple’s resistance to Flash has forced YouTube and other providers to go through this route.  I took felt the above statement conveniently forgot this pandering, and is taking a “what a coincidence!” approach.

However, we’re talking video here. What about audio?  Aside from using some of the major streaming services, people who visit bands web sites typically haven no way to consume audio streaming from web sites.  There may be some standards conforming to video, but audio streaming still has a ways to go.

Another 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.

I love this, he completely sidestepped the issue and cast his reality-distortion-field so that you feel comfortable in their Walled Garden.   I have some fun games on my Droid, but you’re conceding that rather than have a ubiquitous game across multiple platforms, the answer is to splinter the game developer community.

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.

That may be true for Macs, but for Windows platforms Flash has been pretty stable.  The instability of Flash in Macs is because Apple has held tight reins in who can access their video hardware acceleration.  Apple is dragging it’s feet on Adobe’s coattails, then has the gall to complain about performance. I would surmise that Adobe’s problem with Flash on Macs is really Apple’s problem.

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?

Adobe definitely has been slow on their mobile strategy, it’s true, but Apple is hardly an innocent bystander in all of this.

Fourth, there’s battery life.

If Apple wasn’t so arrogant in their hardware by not allowing removable/spare batteries, this wouldn’t be an issue.  At this point people have accepted the trade off, understanding that if they’re going to have a snazzy phone, they’re going to need to recharge it at least once per day.  I ware down the battery on my Droid all the time, but I also have a spare battery for those days that I can’t easily recharge it.  Apple has created their own problem by not allowing removable batteries in their devices.

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.

As a developer, I can tell you that it’s easier to enhance something you’ve already written than completely re-write it on another platform.  Also the “modern technologies” point is moot because (like it or not) the reality is that the majority of the web can’t use HTML5.  These are not “modern technologies”, they’re bleeding edge, and for many the risk still outweighs the reward.

Sixth, the most important reason. This 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.

Wait, a few paragraphs up weren’t you telling me that I should port my Flash app to HTML5?  You’re advocating HTML5, which isn’t conforming to the lowest common denominator.  Plus, I’m not really sure why you see Adobe as a competitor in this, aren’t they a consumer and a partner of your technologies?  This is the problem when you blur the line between owning the platform, and being the sole gatekeepers into the platform.  There is where comparisons to a certain board game involving Boardwalks come into play.

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.

I don’t understand how these goals can’t be accomplished without bashing Adobe.  If people want to have the best experience, then yes, use your native tools.  If an App sucks because it’s a crappy port, it’s the App’s fault. I think you need to give the intelligence of your customers a little credit here.   If an App sucks on my Droid, I delete it and avoid that App, I don’t chuck my phone out the window.

Flash 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.

So rather than let Adobe evolve their technology into the next platform, you’re just going to cut them off at the knees and dictate their business for them through your strong-arm tactics.  Very competitive.

This is definitely a complicated issue, and I in no way am I an Adobe apologist, but this isn’t as black & white as Steve Jobs would like you to believe.

Last weekend Bethany and I went out upgraded our smart phones over to Motorola Droids.  We didn’t stand in line or anything crazy, but as it turns out we were able to get pretty good discounts and buy them on Saturday.  A few weeks ago I wrote about how I was drooling about the Droid, and the opportunity to have a good smart phone experience on the Verizon Network.  After 5 days of using the device, I can saw that device definitely lives up to the hype and offers everything I was looking for.

My first entry in to the SmartPhone world was using the Treo 600.  The Palm had a really nice OS that I enjoyed using, but the 600 was a 2G device.  I upgraded to the Treo 700w, which was probably the single-worst phone that I had ever owned. It was a Windows Mobile phone that was packed into hardware that was too underpowered to run it.  That phone drove me nuts and as soon as I had a chance to upgrade, I did – to the HTC Mogel (or Verizon xv6800).  Windows Mobile didn’t really bother me at the time, but it served my needs.

Now, nearly two years after getting that phone, after the iPhone 3G and the application ecosystem, I grew increasingly frustrated with Microsoft’s lack of drive in the mobile space.  Windows Mobile was quickly becoming stale, and while there was a historically large application offering, there was nothing new and dynamic coming about.  You could tell that all of the great developers have moved onto bigger and better things.

Enter: the Droid.  This phone may not *yet* have the application offering, but it delivers a sleek, colorful mobile experience on a fantastic network.  This phone does everything that I want it to do, and does it very well.  It gives me the ability to use a keyboard, to multi-task, and to be able to tether if I’d like to.

Back to “5 Days in” and I am exceedingly happy with the device. I’ve discovered that most of the big apps (like Shazam and Pandora) have ported to Android and have a good offering there.  I love the phone’s performance and some of the little thing things that Android does to make an awesome experience.  For example, I really like my “Contacts” interface, which combines my Google contacts with my Exchange contacts that I use on Outlook, without any duplication or redundancy.  To make things better, Facebook has imposed pictures onto all of my contacts, without screwing anything up on the Google or Exchange side.

The touch is definitely sensitive on the Droid, and coming from an older touch platform like Windows Mobile (that really never adapted from the stylus to the finger), it’s taken a little bit of getting used to.  One of the things that I’ve missed from my Windows Mobile phones (and a feature that Blackberry has) is the scroll wheel on the side of the phone. The “flicking” motion is nice, but something that I will need to adjust to when it comes to scrolling content.

There are a few things that I don’t like about the phone, but they are relatively minor things like not being able to accept/reject Exchange calendar invites in my email.  The keyboard is a little flatter than even my XV6800 and does take a little getting used to.  I remember switching from the Tero (which had one of the best keyboards ever) over to the XV6800, and I expect a similar adjustment time over to the Droid’s keyboard.  The on-screen keyboard works really well when I’m looking to do a search or enter in my password.

The camera is really nice as well.  I took a picture of our house using the Droid, then took the same picture with on Sony DSC-W290 12Mp Camera:

The first picture was taken with the Droid, the second being the camera.  You can definitely see the clarity in the camera, but the Droid seems to hold it’s own for a quick picture.

Bottom line: I believe the Droid is a big win for Verizon and their users.  I love having my phone on Verizon, and while the iPhone may still be the sexier device, the Droid – combined with the Verizon network – delivers a better experience that ultimately satisfies me as a Verizon customer.

The iPhone looks great, but the experiences that my friends have with the AT&T Network has deferred me from  getting an iPhone.  I own the Verizon xv6800 (which is basically a rebranded HTC Titan), which I have been mostly happy with.  However, Windows Mobile drives me crazy.  The fact that Microsoft doesn’t seem to put any serious development into the Windows Mobile roadmap really leaves me wondering if I’m riding on a sinking ship.  The fact the Microsoft has taken this long simply  to release Windows Mobile 6.5 – let alone 7.0 – is pretty appalling.

At the end of the day: It’s the Apps, stupid.  iPhone has all of these great apps that you read and hear about, that are capturing the attention of the Smartphone consumers market.  Android looks to have a promising app ecosystem, especially with the fact that they have a free SDK and an open platform.  Now, if they can continue to build up their compelling App inventory, we may have a viable competitor.

The key to this whole thing is Verizon.  Verizon, which is notorious for crippling their devices, will need to let Android to have free reign over the hardware to make this successful.  They have the strongest network by far, which has been the compelling reason for keeping me as a customer.  If I can have a phone that has access to the GPS, allows tethering and lets me do all that my hardware is capable of – Verizon and Motorola will have hit one out of the park.

Now I’m simply left to wonder if this will be my next phone.  I’m up for a renewal discount next month, maybe this will be it.

Case in point, Gizmodo posted a prediction that AT&T may impose a cap on data usage for the iPhone customers.  AT&T justifies this by saying that 3% of their smartphone users (which are iPhone users) use 40% of the Smartphone Data.

Sometimes I wonder if AT&T is happy with the deal they signed with the devil – in this case Apple.  AT&T got a lot of new customers over being the exclusive iPhone provider in the US, but somehow they failed to understand that when you have one of the most feature-rich phones out there that boasts the largest applications store, you’re going to see increased data usage.

I’m on Verizon and don’t have an iPhone (I have a Windows Mobile phone, which I have a love/hate relationship), but I can tell you that my data usage far outweighs by voice usage, and the sooner that Wireless Carriers realize that the better off they’ll be.  Instead they’re going to start battling customers, imposing these continued caps and restrictions – pages directly from the record industry’s playbook.

I understand that bandwidth isn’t free and these carriers aren’t a business but there are two issues that I have: 1) Carriers lock their customers into their contract and have sneaky ways of keeping you tied down with these new terms. 2) In the case of Telcos, the government provided them money to expand their networks, and they spent that money but seemingly can’t manage contain without “managing the network” steps.

I’ve been tempted with getting an iPhone, but the psychological barrier of breaking my contract, combined with a few other application issues have prevented  me from offering Apple more than a passing thought.  I’m also mostly happy with my XV6800, but I’m not a Windows Mobile koolaide drinker.  What Apple has done with the iPhone UI is phenominal, and it’s crazy to think that Windows Mobile 6 holds a candle to it.

When I saw this article come through my RSS Feeds, "12 reasons to buy Windows Mobile phone instead of iPhone 3G" I just had to weigh in and clarify some of the spin job (as well as truths) of these points that Windows Mobile phones are superior to the iPhone 3G:

1. 3rd party applications in iPhone 3G cannot run in background: only one application can run at any given time in iPhone 3G so no background running of applications possible! In Windows Mobile phone several (many) applications can run at the same time so it is possible for example to simultaneously run in Windows Mobile: a) downloading a 50 MB MP3 file with a podcast, b) IM chatting with somebody including native Skype client for windows Mobile or native Live Messenger from Microsoft, c) edit Office documents, d) browse Internet, e) make a phone call, etc.

This is a blessing and a curse.  While the "no background" applications renders things like mobile AIM all but useless, Windows Mobile falls under the perils of allowing too many processes to run at the same time, at the cost of call quality/stability.  The Treo 700w was so bad that I made Mobile Task Manager a hotkey on my phone, regularly shutting down applications after I used them.  The extra memory in my XV6800 hasn’t forced me to get as bad, but there have been time’s when Bethany’s Motorola Q becomes horrifically slow from too many running applications. Windows Mobile also doesn’t recycle the memory very well, so I’m still forced to reboot my phone at least once per week.

2. iPhone 3G has resolution of only 480×320 what is 2 times less than VGA (640×480) and W-VGA (wide VGA = 800×480) used in several Windows Mobile phones, what practically means: you can read more text on the display at once and everything is sharper

This may technically be true, but resolution isn’t anything without the UI to back it up, and Apple’s UI is excellent.

3. camera in iPhone 3G is inferior to camera in many Windows Mobile phones: it has only 2 megapixels compared to 3 to 5 megapixels in Windows Mobile phones and it does not have auto-focus – also present in many Windows Mobile phones

This varies between phone models. When I bought my XV6800 4 months ago, it was the best Windows Mobile phone on Verizon’s market, and it’s camera is 2 megapixels. I still believe no mobile phone camera comes close to replacing a real camera, it’s a nice supplement to have on the go.

4. One cannot record videos with built-in camera of iPhone 3G, what is possible up to resolution of 640×480 pixels and 30 FPS (frames per second) in Windows Mobile phones

True, I just tried to take a video with my phone and it worked well.

5.  iPhone 3G supports HSDPA of maximal speed only 3.6 MB/second, while some Windows Mobile phones (including HTC Touch Diamond) suppport HSDPA of speed 7.2 MB/second

This may also be technically true but for US consumers this all comes out in the wash.  As long as the iPhone’s not Edge then that’s good enough.  I’ve been mostly happy with my EVDO phone speed, although I’m anxiously awaiting the next revision.

6. iPhone 3G does not have exchangeable battery that all Windows Mobile phones have, but only built-in battery so if you run out of battery you cannot replace it to prolong battery life – as it is possible with Windows Mobile phones

This is the biggest issue I have with the iPhone.  The first thing I did after buying my new phone was buy a second battery. I still charge my phone every chance I get, but there are rare instances when I don’t have spare power available, and it’s typically when I want my phone the most (e.g. football games, concerts).

7. original (i.e. from Microsoft) Office Mobile is built-in in each Windows Mobile phone and allows not only for viewing but also for editing of Office documents, so there is no need ot buy 3rd party software for it

True. The experience hasn’t changed much since 2000, but it’s true.  While carrying a laptop around, I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve used mobile Office to edit documents.  Most of the time I’m just better off firing up the laptop.

8. there is much more 3rd party applications (programs) for Windows Mobile: over 20,000 compared to 500 for iPhone 3G

This is a bit unfair considering Windows Mobile is 8 years old. While there are some apps that I can’t live without (Pocket Quicken, PDAnet, and Evernote), I can tell that the hype & innovation is flocking towards the Apple side of the yard, and I personally think it’s only a matter of time before the Apps I need are in the iTunes store.

9. to make applications for Windows Mobile one needs either PC computer or Mac but to make applications for iPhone 3G one needs to buy a Mac computer – if you don’t have Mac computer then you cannot develop applications for iPhone 3G

This is true and lame for the Apple platform, but most end-users don’t care about this.

10. most Windows Mobile phones come without SIM lock so they can be used at any operator in given country and with SIM cards from abroad (important when traveling and you want to use local prepaid SIM card to avoid International roaming fees) while iPhone 3G has SIM lock and can work with only this operator at which it has been purchased

The reality of this is that many users on Verizon or Sprint are using CDMA and are just as hard to unlock as the iPhone.  I can’t speak much for the international usage needs

11. iPhone 3G has capacitive touch-screen meaning that it must be used with fingers and that it cannot be used with stylus or fingernails (what women like)

This is when you spin a limitation into a "feature". Windows Mobile doesn’t have multi-touch.  I use my fingers to touch the screen 10x more than I ever use the stylus.

12. iPhone 3G has no physical keyboard or keypad, so users have no choice but to use virtual keyboards on the display while Windows Mobile offers phones in various form-factors, including such that have both touch-screen and a physical QWERTY keyboard

This comes back to the personal preference as a user. I can tell you that I love my QWERTY keyboard, and the tactile interface makes typing exponentially efficient.  However, I’ve typed on both the Windows Mobile keyboard and the iPhone Keyboard, and the iPhone keyboard is far superior to the touch-screen keyboards from Windows Mobile.

While some of these points were valid, the list failed to highlight some of the iPhone’s biggest deficiencies: namely the fact that you still can’t copy & paste text, nor can you send or receive MMS messages.  Depending on your needs, Windows Mobile may better serve than the iPhone, but let’s be honest – the iPhone is more than a viable competitor in the smart phone market.