iPad Vs Flash: Jobs Calls Adobe Lazy

Apple iPad Launch in Pictures

Apple CEO Steve Jobs defended his company's decision not to include support for Adobe Flash in his company's new iPad portable computing device.

Jobs said Adobe's multimedia graphics platform for Internet publishing is unstable and bug-prone, the result of "lazy" development procedures, according to a published report.

"They are lazy," said Jobs. "They have the potential to do interesting things but they refuse to do it," said Jobs, according to a report published by Wired last week.

"Apple does not support Flash because it is so buggy," Jobs reportedly said while speaking at a gathering of Apple employees.

Adobe last week said no Flash support means Apple's hot new tablet is incompatible with millions of Web sites.

"There's something important missing from Apple's approach to connecting consumers to content," wrote Flash marketing manager Adrian Ludwig, in a blog post. "It looks like Apple is continuing to impose restrictions on their devices that limit both content publishers and customers," said Ludwig.

"If I want to connect to Disney, Hulu, Miniclip, Farmville, ESPN, Kongregate, or JibJab—not to mention millions of other sites on the Web, I'll be out of luck," he added.

Adobe is developing a workaround. Its forthcoming Packager for iPhone kit will allow Flash developers to build apps that run on the iPhone and, by extension, the iPad.

The lack of Flash support isn't doing much to mute the buzz surrounding the iPad launch. And Apple insisted the device is plenty flexible—capable of running the more than 140,000 programs currently available on the Apple App Store.

"iPad is our most advanced technology in a magical and revolutionary device at an unbelievable price," said Jobs, at the debut event.

Pricing starts at $499 for the 16GB model, $599 for the 32GB model, and $699 for the 64GB version.

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