Jobs has instead praised HTML5 and the video codecs available on it, which a growing number of sites using to serve video to mobile users with iOS devices. Jobs has criticised its as 'proprietary'. The move will however be seen as continuation of Apple's - and particularly Steve Jobs's - campaign against Adobe's Flash Player, which the company views as the source of browser instability, security weaknesses and excessive CPU usage, as well as adding complication when keeping versions up to date when they have to be shipped on physical media, as new OS releases are. And in hacking contests to try to break Mac OS X security, the Flash plugin has been the preferred route of breakins. The company has also deprecated its Java runtime, hinting that it will not include it in the next version of Mac OS X 10.7 due to ship next summer, although that is not definite.Įven demonstration models of Apple machines in Apple Stores will not include Flash, which may surprise casual browsers.Īpple's exclusion from the desktop and laptop computers of Flash - which is already banished from the 'iOS' devices, iPhones, iPod Touches and iPads - became clear when testers discovered that the new MacBook Airs unveiled by Steve Jobs on Wednesday could not play Adobe Flash content including YouTube.Īn Apple spokesperson said: 'We're happy to continue to support Flash on the Mac, and the best way for users to always have the most up to date and secure version is to download it directly from Adobe.'Īpple was criticised last year when it shipped earlier versions of its Snow Leopard OS which included an older version of Flash Player which included known security vulnerabilities. Those who don't may find that video sites like YouTube and Vimeo do not work - although the sites could serve HTML5-compatible video codecs that Apple's Safari can play - but also that huge amounts of video and animations on smaller sites do not function because they use Flash player and do not have non-Flash codecs. The surprising and unannounced move means that buyers will have to figure out how to download the player and plugin on any of the computers that they buy - a process which Apple has not simplified by including any 'click to install' links. Some rights reservedĪpple has escalated its war with Adobe's Flash Player by stopping including the browser plugin on the Macintosh computers that it sells.

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