Steve Jobs reportedly labels Flash a 'CPU hog'

by Stevie Smith - Feb 19 2010, 06:44

The ongoing standoff between Apple and Adobe regarding the Flash video player took another twist this week following reports that Apple CEO Steve Jobs labelled the popular online player a “CPU hog” during a meeting with The Wall Street Journal.

According to a Valleywag report, Jobs tore into Flash while discussing the prospect of bringing The Wall Street Journal’s news content to Apple’s recently unveiled iPad tablet computer – which, much like the iPhone, does not yet carry support for Adobe Flash.

“We don’t spend a lot of energy on old technology,” the Apple bigwig is rumoured to have said regarding the Flash no-show on certain Apple devices, before then going on to say the Internet video player is a “CPU hog” that’s rife with “security holes.”

Reiterating the notion that Flash is a dying platform, Apple Insider claims Jobs then compared Adobe’s video player to other now-defunct technologies long-since abandoned by Apple – such as floppy drives, old data ports, and even the humble CD.

Jobs also apparently suggested use of Flash on the iPad would drag the computer’s battery life from 10 hours to a measly 1.5 hours. 

The latest flurry of Flash criticism attributed to Jobs follows similar negative comments he recently made during an Apple staff Q&A session. At that time, Jobs intimated that HTML5 was the future for online video content and blamed Flash for the majority of browser crashes suffered by Mac users.

While Apple has offered no official comment regarding the renewed attack on Flash, Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch has insisted that, while the Mac version of Flash isn’t as stable as the version used on PCs, the company is always working to better the platform by listening and responding to constructive criticism.

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