The dog that didn't bark

As Sherlock Holmes noted back in 1892, sometimes it’s just as interesting when a dog doesn’t bark as when it does.

Last month I asked whether this week’s iPhone SDK would bring Flash support. It didn’t, and in almost all the coverage of the SDK intro nothing was said about this major gap (for Apple? for Adobe?) in platform compatibility.

Despite what Adobe boosters claim, Steve Jobs still feels that Adobe needs Apple more than Apple needs Adobe. Various accounts quoted him as telling shareholders Tuesday that PC-based Flash is too slow and Flash Lite is not capable enough to support today’s web. It’s not clear if Steve is being sincere, or merely sending a message diss’ing (or even promising?) Flash support. Adobe this week was noncommittal.

Interestingly, Sun took a quick look at the iPhone SDK and then promised to bring Java to the iPhone. That’s what I expected Adobe to do, so maybe Steve is right: the current Flash is suitable for the current iPhone hardware.