Apple vs. Flash - can we peace them together?

The fight between two giants Apple and Adobe over Flash on the iPhone OS has all the trappings of a major industry rift. With its leader at the helm Apple is on the mission to destroy Flash from the horizons of modern world.

However, what might seen as a war between two old rivals, which battle takes its roots from early days of the Mac actually can harm to development of whole Internet future, especially mobile Internet. Flash, for all its flaws, is ubiquitous to the Web and essential to rich interaction on a huge number of sites. Were it not barred from the iPad and iPhone, it would be one of the shortest paths to creating rich Internet applications that run across multiple mobile platforms.

Many experts believe such technology dissection could lead to an Internet future of multiple, non-compatible platforms, which will hamper to the development and innovation.

The role of community

While the roots of this long-standing battle take its origins back 1989 when Adobe and Apple fought over scalable font technology, which Adobe jealously guarded the role of community and users of their technologies has never been such an important and deciding.

The Internet and Social Media have proved to be a great communication and leverage platform for people to speak out, to stand for their believes and to contribute or prevent things they favorite or disapprove. Latest presidential Election in US, and in Iran, earthquake in Haiti, rescue operation in Chile, and many other prove that we move closer and closer to community driven media, not corporations.

The recently coined term "social authority" gain significance. The community respond has seen many victories such as Facebook policy changes. So I wonder if the community power is already powerful enough to contribute to the peace between Apple and Adobe for the good of all!

By barring Flash from the most popular and exciting mobile devices in existence, Apple denies developers and users an opportunity to create and consume applications that can provide a consistent user experience across platforms. Moreover, this war might lead to further division between platforms and standards, which is not good for both developers and users.

InfoWorld already proposed its plan to reconcile the two. The four-point plan for peace could allow Flash on Apple's mobile devices. Here is its explanation. There are some others initiatives from conscious organizations. So, all we wonder if it has a chance to work? and how we can make it work?

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