Steve Jobs attacks Adobe Flash as unfit for iPhone

NEW YORK (AP) — Apple CEO Steve Jobs is going on the offensive against Adobe's Flash technology. He says it has too many bugs, drains batteries too quickly and is too oriented to personal computers to work on the iPhone and iPad.

In a statement today, Jobs laid out his reasons for excluding Flash — the most popular vehicle for videos and games on the Internet — from Apple's blockbuster handheld devices.

He cited "reliability, security and performance," and the fact that Flash was designed "for PCs using mice, not for touch screens using fingers" as some of the reasons Apple will continue to keep the program off its devices.

But he said the most-important reason for excluding Flash is that it puts a third party between Apple and software developers. That means developers can take advantage of improvements from Apple only if Adobe upgrades its own software, Jobs wrote.

Apple has been criticized for the omission of Flash, which limits what the iPhone can do because some games and videos require Flash.

But in his rebuttal, Jobs said that with an abundance of media outlets offering their content on iPhones and iPads, "Flash is no longer necessary to watch video or consume any kind of Web content."