That sudden surge in battery life your mobile device experienced yesterday was probably just a psychosomatic reaction to the news that Adobe is ceasing development of mobile Flash.
To be perfectly frank, the Macalope’s kind of going to miss the Flash War. We had some good times, didn’t we? Mostly thanks to the high-minded rhetoric of Adobe’s representatives, like Lee Brimelow.
Go screw yourself Apple.
Ah, it does put one in the mind of a young Oscar Wilde, does it not? Oh, where have you gone, heady days of April 2010?
OK. OK. Water under the bridge. Bygones, etc. Time to move on.
The good news is that while people have been talking about how this is a victory for Steve Jobs or Apple, John Gruber correctly assesses that it’s a victory for everyone. Not the least of whom is Adobe itself. Adobe’s finally realized that instead of propping them up, it’s better to murder your darlings and then be the one to replace them.
Isn’t this great, though? How often do we have a situation where everyone is a winner?
Well. OK. Not everyone. It turns out there is one collection of losers in this: the pundits who said that the lack of Flash was some kind of detriment to iOS-based devices, without mentioning that Flash is battery-draining dog of a user experience. See, while they should have known better than to lose their cool like they did, Adobe’s representatives are paid to promote the company’s products. Pundits aren’t.
So, here’s to you the Yankee Group’s Christopher Collins and PC World’s JR Raphael and InfoWorld’s Paul Krill and venture capitalist Fred Wilson (tip o’ the antlers to Kontra) and…
You know, the Macalope’s not sure he’s got time to go through the whole list before intelligent shrimp evolve into land dwellers and use their genetically engineered collective consciousness to annihilate our way of life. He does want to give kudos to Dan Frommer, though, for skewering himself.
Besides, this is a time to look forward, not back. So let us join hands as we march in unison toward our bright, open, HTML 5-based future.
Although, if anyone knows how we can start a war on Adobe Updater the Macalope is all ears.
[Editors’ Note: In addition to being a mythical beast, the Macalope is not an employee of Macworld. As a result, the Macalope is always free to criticize any media organization. Even ours.]