I'll iPhone You.

Now, JavaScript is no Cocoa, and CSS is no Core Animation. I’m not saying web apps are peers of native apps, on any current system. But you know who is saying that? Google.

The truth is that people don’t buy consumer electronics for the quantity of features. They buy it for the quality of experience.

For technical users, having more features means a better experience. So-called power users are harassed and annoyed by limitations, by the inability to do something they want to do. They feel a thrill when they’re empowered to do some useful new thing.

But for most users, having more features degrades experience. People suffer information overload and its ugly cousin, runaway gadget complexity. They’re harassed and annoyed, not by limitations, but by features they can’t find or figure out, and by problems they don’t understand. They feel a thrill when gadgets perform basic tasks without fail or hassle.

The iPhone vision of the mobile Internet’s future omits controversy, sex, and freedom, but includes strict limits on who can know what and who can say what. It’s a sterile Disney-fied walled garden surrounded by sharp-toothed lawyers. The people who create the apps serve at the landlord’s pleasure and fear his anger.

I hate it.

I hate it even though the iPhone hardware and software are great, because freedom’s not just another word for anything, nor is it an optional ingredient.

The big thing about the Web isn’t the technology, it’s that it’s the first-ever platform without a vendor (credit for first pointing this out goes to Dave Winer). From that follows almost everything that matters, and it matters a lot now, to a huge number of people. It’s the only kind of platform I want to help build.

Apple apparently thinks you can have the benefits of the Internet while at the same time controlling what programs can be run and what parts of the stack can be accessed and what developers can say to each other.

I think they’re wrong and see this job as a chance to help prove it.

The equation is simple. Adobe wants to make money selling tools, so it needs our customers’ clients to pay for work done with the tools. Clients won’t pay if their customers can’t see the work made with the tools. Therefore customers, clients, and by extension Adobe need a way to see the work, be that videos, interactive pieces, or anything else. Flash has stepped in to fill some gaps heretofore left by other technologies. It is, however, just one possible means to an end—always has been. Adobe will of course continue to invest in making Flash better, and it’ll keep investing in other ways to help creative people reach customer eyeballs. It’s not a zero-sum game.