I read an open letter from Steve Jobs today about why Apple isn’t going to allow Flash on the iPad, iPod Touch or iPhone. I thought I would write a response.

1. “Open”: True, Flash products are 100% proprietary. So what? You don’t have to use Flash. But if someone wants to spend the money to develop in Flash, they should be able to. If HTML5, CSS and JavaScript are as great as Steve Jobs says they are, they will eventually win out over Flash. Unfortunately, every web developer knows that web standards aren’t really true standards, but recommendations that not every browser follows. And even when every browser follows, they tend to have different implementations. The good thing about products such as Flash and Silverlight is that they display the same in every browser and their plugins are free.
2. “Full Web”: Adobe’s statement is true. Jobs completely ignores this and chooses instead to focus on what Adobe didn’t say. So what if almost all of the video is available in H.264? The point is, a lot of sites still use Flash instead of H.264 and Apple isn’t going to support Flash. Plus, something Jobs doesn’t mention is that H.264 is not the standard. He wants it to become the standard, but it remains to be seen if patent issues could pose a big problem for this even happening. Jobs doesn’t refute the “whole web” statement, he just doesn’t think it is that important.
3. Reliability, Security and Performance: This is true, but you face these same issues even without Flash. First, you will always have programmers who write horrible code that causes frequent crashes. I’ve used several iPhone Apps that crash all the time, and I simply made the decision to uninstall them. I remember when iTunes first became available on Windows and how horribly it ran. I decided to uninstall it until they released a version that ran better. Imagine what it would have been like if Microsoft had decided to not allow anyone to install iTunes anymore.  Second, browsers are constantly discovering security holes—yes, even Safari—and regularly release patches to close them. Even without Flash, you still have security issues that need to be fixed, just in the browser itself instead of a plugin.
4. Battery Life: This is also true, but Jobs is speaking only in regards to video. He doesn’t mention using Flash to create Apps. In regards to the Web, if people want better battery life, they can always avoid sites that contain Flash, or simply disable Flash in the browser, but it should be their choice to do so, not Apple’s.
5. Touch: Jobs states that if developers need to rewrite their websites to use touch, why not use HTML5, CSS and JavaScript instead. Jobs assumes that a Flash developer understands HTML5, CSS and JavaScript and that they will have to completely rewrite their sites in order to support touch. In reality, most developers will find it easier to just add touch functionality—available in Flash 10.1—than to completely scrap all their earlier work and rewrite everything in HTML5, CSS and JavaScript and then have to test it across multiple browsers.
6. Platform: Jobs says this is the most important reason, but I think he misses the point here more than any other place. Why shouldn’t a developer be able to develop on another platform such as Flash or .NET? If their platform is slow to adopt new enhancements it is a developer issue, not an end-user issue. There is no guarantee that someone developing on the Apple platform will use new enhancements when they are released. Plus, both Flash and .NET have plenty of open-source communities full of people willing to pick up the slack and develop libraries and tools that take advantage of enhancements even if Adobe and Microsoft don’t.

Jobs concludes by saying, “New open standards created in the mobile era, such as HTML5, will win on mobile devices (and PCs too). Perhaps Adobe should focus more on creating great HTML5 tools for the future…”

Jobs makes an assumption that HTML5 will win, but has no concrete proof to support this claim other than he would like to see it happen. And as I mentioned before, even if it does win, it will be a recommendation, not a standard.

Also, why should Adobe completely change its business just because Steve Jobs thinks something is great? If HTML5 is really that amazing, Adobe and Flash will lose, not because they people aren’t allowed to use it anymore, but because developers will start using better tools.

In the end, the real battle will not be between Adobe and Apple. It will be between Apple and the people who are trying to decide whether to buy from Apple or from another company. To this point, people feel that Apple offers enough benefits to justify buying from them in spite of what they are lacking. Only time will tell if this continues. Let the games begin!

I just posted a review of Seth Godin’s new book on Amazon, but thought I would also post it here with a few extra thoughts.

I, like several others people, donated some money to a charity and was able to read an early release of this book. Seth is a brilliant and creative marketer. Why send your book to a bunch of critics who often have unpredictable taste when you can send it to your fans instead? 

It is no surprise that there are so many 4 and 5 star reviews for this book since most of these reviews are from people who received an early release of the book, just as I did, and are likely already fans of Seth. Plus, by requesting something in return—a donation to a charity—he was able to better ensure that these people would actually read the book since they had already had an investment in it. I checked the Amazon reviews of the book the day it was released, and already there were around 100 five-star reviews compared with a few four-stars, one three-star and one one-star.

Not only this, but these people are likely already Linchpins themselves and are going to be very receptive to this book because they already have a connection. It’s always exciting to read a book and say, “Wow, that’s me!” or “So that’s why I think that way.” I think this book does a decent job of encouraging people who are already Linchpins—people who are the glue that holds a society or company together by their creativity, adaptability and generous spirit—to continue to do what they are doing. I’m not sure that anyone else, other than someone teetering on the edge, would find the book near as riveting.

What I Liked

The first third of the book is really good. I flew through it and found it very inspirational. If you are already a Linchpin, you will probably love this part of the book. He tells you that you are a genius, discusses how American society has been built on cheap replaceable labor, and explains the mindset of Linchpins and why they are better able to survive and flourish during difficult times.

I thought he had some great examples of people who go out of their way to show generosity and integrity. It certainly made me take more notice of these types of people in the world around me and appreciate them more.

I also liked his reference to Steve Jobs saying, “Real artists ship.” It is great to see people who are able to fight through adversity and actually deliver a product or service rather than just wishing they could.

What I Disliked

About midway through the book he began talking about your lizard brain and the resistance. Maybe I’m fueling the resistance by saying this, but I guess that is what keeps this from being a one-sided critique. Seth basically divides the brain into two parts, the lizard brain or limbic system, which is all about survival, fear, anger and resistance, and your creative brain or cerebrum, which is, as Seth puts it, the newest and most sophisticated part of our brain that is always overruled by the other parts.

Throughout the book, Seth encourages you to completely ignore your lizard brain and focus on the creative, artistic part instead. He makes it seem like one part of your brain is evil and the other part is heroic. If the cerebrum is so much more advanced and sophisticated, why is it so easily defeated?

I prefer to think in terms of each part of your brain having a purpose and dedicated function. Think of it like career specialties. A mechanic may be a brilliant mechanic who knows everything there is to know about cars, but ask him to do brain surgery and you are going to have some issues. It doesn’t mean he is stupid, it just means he is out of his specialty.

The same thing is true of your brain. Fear can be an extremely good motivator and when channeled in the right way, it can actually stimulate creativity. However, if allowed to completely take over it can be paralyzing. The same thing applies to the creative side of your brain. If all you do is sit around in brainstorming sessions, you may come up with some incredible ideas, but you’ll never actually accomplish anything.

The right boundaries and constraints actually fuel creativity. Have you ever been to a really good concert? Great bands are very creative, but they know when to use their creativity. Imagine going to a concert where everyone decided to show off all their skills at the same time. You might think it was interesting for about five minutes, but after a couple hours you would probably start throwing things.

Regardless of whether you agree with Seths thinking or not, toward the end of the book, he laments the NO FEAR motto as, “either disingenuous or stupid.” To be fair, I think he is talking about recognizing your fear and managing it, but after his tone earlier in the book it comes across almost contradictory.

Much of the latter parts of the book make it seem as if Seth is trying to be convincing, but either not certain of the best way to do it, or else uncertain of what he really thinks himself. For instance, in one place he says, “None of us knows the absolute truth, of course, but the goal is to approach a situation with the least possible bias.” Not ten pages later, he talks about people ignoring the truth by deciding to stay in their homes during a hurricane—easy to say in hindsight with the New Orleans tragedy, but what about before then?

He also tells a story of how no passengers wanted to ride home with him in a rental car instead of remaining on a delayed flight and assumes that most of the people wanted to have a reason to blame the airline for their situation instead of themselves. In reality, these people made a choice—just as he did—but it wasn’t the choice he wanted them to make so therefore they must be wrong. After all, he knew the truth of the situation and they didn’t.

Conclusion

I know it may not seem like it from this review, but I actually have a lot of respect for Seth and have found a lot of his writing to be very insightful and inspirational. If you are already a dedicated person and worker, you will probably find the first part of this book very encouraging. If your only reason for existence is to make a lot of money or just go to work, collect a paycheck, and go play, I doubt this book will change your outlook on life.

Seth does practice what he preaches. He’s been working on this book for over 10 years and he finally shipped! I think the timing may have been dictated more by the current state of our society rather than his understanding of how to communicate and inspire the remedy.

I have to admit that I was looking forward to the announcement of the iPad. After Apple completely changed the way we think of mobile phones I was curious to see if they how they might reinvent the tablet. Unfortunately, I was greatly disappointed.

What is this better than?

Surfing the web?

Apple claims this is “the best way to experience the web.” Really? Um… where’s the Flash support? I realize that Flash is past its prime and the web is moving forward, but Flash is still a huge player and featured on a ton of sites. This is slightly annoying on my iPhone, but unforgivable on the iPad.

eReading?

So this thing is supposed to kill the Kindle? I do believe that eReaders are going to vanish from the marketplace—at least in their current form—in the next few years. I think people are interested in a device that does everything and eReaders are only good for reading books and doing some web surfing.

One thing the eReaders do have going for them currently is the eInk. It’s as easy on your eyes as printed pages of a paper book because it is not a backlit display. The iPad doesn’t have this technology. Apple claims their screen is pleasing to the eye, but I’m just not convinced.

Work?

Forget productivity. The iPad doesn’t allow multitasking. It’s basically an over-sized iPod touch. It lacks a USB port—are you kidding me?—so you can’t just connect a flash drive or external hard drive and drag and drop your files. If you want to transfer files, you’ll have to do it through iTunes or an App. 

And speaking of hard drives… the largest hard drive you can get for the thing is 64GB. And did I mention you can’t just hook up a USB drive for added space? I do think they’ll have an adapter you can buy, but how lame is that? I love the idea of have to carry an adapter around with so I can use my flash drive.

The iPad also lacks a camera so you can forget video conferencing via Skype or anything else unless you bring along a separate camera… and adapter. And since it is app-driven, I won’t be working in Photoshop anytime soon. I know they have an app for that, but seriously, it’s not even worth talking about. Plus, it’ll be a pain to transfer my files. I guess I could always just e-mail them to myself.

Conclusion

I know that Apple is selling this thing below the previously rumored $1,000, but I’m going to take a long look at the competition—no, the iPad isn’t the only tablet on the planet—before I even think about buying this. And if the competition doesn’t have anything worthwhile, I’ll probably just wait for version 2.

I’ve been reading Seth Godin’s new book, Linchpin, which should be available on January 26th in the event that you are curious enough to take a look. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I donated some money to the Acumen Fund, and in response, Seth mailed me his book a few weeks early so I could write a review of it.

I have a confession to make, however. I’m a really slow reader—even of Godin’s books. And since, as a result, I may not be finished with the book in time for it’s release, I figured I would offer some glimpses as I go.

Tonight as I was reading I kept thinking of a linchpin I encountered today. It was lunchtime and my family and I decided to eat at a little place called, Trolley Dogs.

I didn’t notice anything too out of the ordinary at first other than a good variety of hot dogs for less money than you would spend on a meal at McDonald’s. As I’m looking at the menu, some guy standing next to us tells us that he spent hours creating it by hand.

The next thing I know, the guy is standing behind the counter wearing a weird-looking hot dog hat and describing the different ways he can make your hot dog. You would think that Superman just ran to his phone booth, except he hopped out as Hot Dog Man instead. 

He took our order and told me how wierd I was for ordering an Italian Sausage with krout—something about Italian mixed with German—and offered the correct pronunciation for giardiniera at my request.

During our meal, the guy, whose name is Joe and owns the place with his brother, continually checked on how we were doing, bussed tables, brought out a bowl of Goldfish crackers for my 2 year-old son and also made him a balloon animal.

When I was about to go and find a knife to cut up my son’s hot dog, he told me to sit down and had a hot dog brought out for him that was cut up to look like two octopuses. He told us that he was experimenting with some different combinations of toppings and hoped he could figure them out before he weighs 300 lbs.

Why is he a linchpin? Because he took lunch at a hot dog place and turned it into an experience; unscripted, from the heart, full of joy. How many people at other restaraunts do that? How about companies in general? How often have you dealt with someone behind a counter or on the phone who was just doing their job to collect a paycheck?

Who knows? Maybe you’re that person.

After lunch today, I think the world needs more people like Joe, and from what I’ve read, Seth’s book goes a long way toward inspiring us to answer the call.