Well we all know Adobe is the new Microsoft…

I think Apple is going a little overboard here, BUT by sidelining Flash again here they are pushing developers away from Flash, which can only lead to less Flash use in open web development, which, in turn, bodes better for Apple’s Flash-free platforms… and the open web itself.

When Flash finally dies it will be a good day for the world. There is little I dislike more than Flash.

/$0.02

It’s called HTML rosco.
Anyone can use HTML to make a web app and then they are free from control issues of thr app store.

Apple is NOT out of line, come on people, try and see the big picture. Apple is the only tech company out there with REAL vision and a focus on creating a better experience for it’s users. Do you really think we’re going to be running stupid Flash wrappers on rich content along with other ancient computer concepts (too many to list here) in 10 years? If it wasn’t for Apple and it’s innovations, we’d all be using crappy HP computers bought from idiots in blue shirts running bloated Windows and all of the crapware that goes with it. Sorry to say but Adobe is part of the problem.

Keeping tight control of software development for their devices is exactly what Apple should be doing. It protects the quality of the user experience of their products. It’s exactly why they are who they are.

Apple have made the same mistake they made in the 90s. They are capping their potential.

Firstly the comment from Mr Lee Brimelow, “Adobe would like me to make it clear that the opinions below are not the official views of the company and are entirely my own.”, are obviously a contrived smokescreen behind which Adobe is hiding to voice their own opinions. If Adobe really did not want Brimelow’s rant to be representative of Adobe’s true position then they could easily shut it down: either as his employer force him to remove the blog post, or, failing that, give him the pink slip. They have done neither – thereby making it patently obvious what their true position is. Which is good – because it shows that they are hurting with respect to Flash, and they can see that its days are numbered. Good, anyway they brought it on themselves.

The days of arrogant companies like Adobe or Microsoft ignoring (Internet) standards are coming inexorably to an end. I am not saying that Apple are saints, they are looking after their commercial interests, but they do not do that by hijacking standards (Microsoft 1) or by locking the Web into proprietary, poorly performing, platforms (Adobe 2).

Heck, Apple make a web browser rendering engine which they then share with the world. In comparison Microsoft spend years hijacking the web, forcing web developers to code websites to their abortion of a web browser (and try to spin that as a plus) and still with their latest iteration of IE can only fail with a score of 20/100 on the web standards Acid3 test (3).

Adobe is one of the worst companies in the technical space, cynically ripping off customers for years. To see that just compare prices of Photoshop between America and Europe (4). Do they think that people, I included being one of the people having been ripped off by them, would have any sympathy for them? Ha, they must be dreaming.

Anyway, to understand fully Mr Brimelow’s soapbox invective one only has to look at his title “Evangelist at Adobe focusing on [..] Flash, Flex, and AIR”. All of these Adobe products have the goal of, as stated in Adobe’s own words, of “Build [ing] cross-platform [..] applications”, and all of which are directly affected by Apple’s position regarding protecting their product (and customers) as stated in the iPhone OS 4 developer agreement.

Like any evangelist who discovers his ‘god’ (with a small g) is not really omnipotent he’s kinda unset. The truth hurts Lee, better get used to it.

To my mind this comment (5) below, referred to also by Gruber in Daring Fireball, sums up the issue with cross-platform layers/APIs well.

“In my experience so far with such ‘cross platform compatibility layers,’ they always produce results that water down each platform’s individual strengths and differentiations. And of course, instead of the developer being locked into the phone platform, they are locked into the compatibility layer’s platform.”

So Apple does not want itself, and users of its mobile space products, to be ‘beholden’ to Adobe, so? Should Adobe be surprised?

What goes around comes around, and it’s no longer 1997 guys.

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1 http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2010/04/iso-ooxml-convener-microsofts-format-heading-for-failure.ars
2 http://daringfireball.net/2010/04/iphone_agreement_bans_flash_compiler
3 http://acid3.acidtests.org/
4 US online store $699, Europe online store $1,363 (based on EUR-USD currency conversion as at 10/4/10)
5 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1250946

Flash is a dying technology, no wonder they are upset.

Yes. Apple is out of line with this one for sure – and Apple will likely loose in court if push comes to shove. But c’mon Adobe….you should be killing of flash before anyone else…cs5 shouldn’t be generating iPhone apps…it should be generating html5/javacricpt/etc. Do this and ignore Apple !

OMG you all blinded by apple… I cant believe humans could be so crazy.

Dont you people have other god beside apple?

Apple is the new microsoft and you still did not open your eyes to see it.

I’m not gonna justify any side of that quarrel. But Apple position seems to be more convincing. I can only imagine how buggy those apps made with Adobe Flash might be and what consequences they might cause. If you believe that any interactive designer working with Flash can create a decent and efficient iPhone/iPad app think twice.

Adobe wants everyone to believe they are being singled out by Apple but in reality, the new iPhone OS 4.0 restrictions have more to do with ensuring their new multitasking APIs will work correctly and anything that requires a runtime or has been cross-compiled will not behave the same way as a native C/C++/Obj-C application.

How come only like 3 people have noticed that Apple wants to make sure multitasking works, and that it’s going to require that they have all apps with that capability built in, which is not going to happen with cross-compiled crap from adobe?

As for the guy asking about C, I really hope you’re kidding.

Adobe already screwed itself. They already got stern warnings from Jobs back in 2007, that they really needed to revamp that garbage-cow Flash crap that is mucking up all Apple devices (Mac browser crashes report that the #1 troublemaker is Flash) as well as the unacceptable performance on iPhones, etc.

Adobe had 3 years to do something about it, but instead they chose to “get defensive” and stonewalled. I suspect that Adobe leadership made foolish predictions back in 2007 because they probably (just like Microsoft Steve Ballmer) they probably thought that the Apple mobile platform (iPhones, iPads) would never succeed and therefore Adobe had no motivation to “get with the program”. Abode was stupid if my hunch is correct. They were thinking in 2007 “Why they hell should we invest so much to re-write our decade-old proven software for this iPhone platform that looks like a toy and will never be a market success? Why should we spend the time and effort to do all that?”

Morons. You gambled, and you lost, morons.

Now, three years later, they are near-completely shut out from all of Apple’s mobile device platforms (iPhones, iPad, etc).

iDavey said: “I understand business, but this is dirty. Apple is seriously getting scared and seeing the past happen again, so instead of truly just making better products, they strongarm developers and Sue manufacturers to basically deter them by way of fear.”

WTF??? What you see as “scared,” I see as smart business. Adobe has refused to get with the program and make flash work better. I don’t want flash, I don’t need flash to bring my devices down.

Just as Apple doesn’t have to use/allow Adobe’s painfully slow flash to bog things down, Adobe doesn’t have to write software for the Mac platform. So maybe CS5 will be windoze only.

Not to mention, the Flash used to create apps and the flash on desktops are not the same beast. So this “its buggy anyways” crap is ignorant to say. Loads of apps you’ve used have been created with these tools from Adobe and others. So a lot of you should Learn a bit before yelling things that don’t go with the matter at hand.

Quote: “Yes. Apple is out of line with this one for sure – and Apple will likely loose in court if push comes to shove.”

The tactic of losers in business is to be a cry-baby and hope that Big Government courts will bail them out. This is a communist/socialist tactic, and a detriment to true innovation. If a loser company (Adobe a perfect example) is unable to compete, they will then be a cry-baby and cry until the government steps in to intervene.

The longer I follow this Adobe-Apple gripe, the more it looks like a laughable big ass soap opera extraordinaire. Add to that the fanboi hordes of either camp. Fuck Apple, I stopped to buy their products 3 years ago, and I proudly started with a Performa in the early 90ies. Recent news about censoring newspaper apps on the iPad confirm my decision.

HTML5 and canvas is not making rich web apps possible in the way Flash can do things. Adobe should side with Google and Microsoft to create a unified way for rich web apps. That would be something.

Paranoia. Apple dumped flash with the first iPhone now, iPad is following suit.

When I had a Blackberry it didn’t have flash either. Flash has too many problems to be compatible with mobile devices. Instead of crying and moaning about it they should work on a better flash for mobile devices.

Apple wants innovation. Not cry babies and sore losers.

Apple has chosen to take a very closed development system and approval process ostensibly to guarantee the quality of apps on its rapidly evolving Mobile Lite Line-up of devices. All well and good but there are many who would say the quality among 150,000 iPhone +iPad apps has huge numbers of apps that are a cut below the Normal Curve in performance and innovation- which is to say iAds will have plenty of “Apps” And also it can be said Apple has certainly pioneered some of the key innovations in this new Mobile Lite market that Wired has praised profusely. And with iPhone, Apple has lead the way on.

But remember 3 salient points. One, Steve Jobs initially opposed the idea of apps on the iPhone. Two, others have had this vision too with the likes of Kindle and other eReaders, increasingly innovative Netbooks, Palm and Android devices, plus game consoles becoming Web and media presentation devices. Three, by taking a high risk closed ecosystem:
“Thou shalt develop only with our tools”;
and “Thou shalt only be able to release apps that meet our approval including the draconian ‘no apps with functionally similar to any other’ which only we get to decide upon the degree of similarity”;
and “Thous shalt sell those apps and media only through our stores/outlets”
Apple is taking a very risky approach to the market. It is setting itself up for a much more probable quick fall either by:
1)Many competitors entering the market and able to price lower than the premium margins charged by Apple;
2)or by tripping off antitrust action as Apple employs techniques of exclusion more predatory than those that got Microsoft in the federal courts in 1998 to 2000;
3)or by just falling behind in innovations as it cuts out design ideas and process improvements engendered through Flash, Java, Silverlight and several other generator technologies which have been declared “persona non grata” in the iOnlyKnowtheBestDevelopmentTechnologies designated by the guy who originally rejected 3rd party Apps on the iPhone.
And we have no better proof that Apple can and has fallen seriously behind the Mobile Lite innovation curve with the announcement of iPhone OS4. Most of its “features” are really “Me too” catch up fixes to the OS like multitasking, support for files and folders, uniform mail inbox, different background colors and/or images attachable to different workspaces, security and VPN enhancements, etc.
And for those who suppose that Apple’s Mobile Lite has an unsurmountable lead look at what is happening in the Smartphone marketplace:
1)Android in November 2009 to February 2010 gained 5.2% to 9.0% while Apple dropped slightly by 0.1% to 25.4%;
[http://www.comscore.com/Press_Events/Press_Releases/2010/4/comScore_Reports_February_2010_U.S._Mobile_Subscriber_Market_Share]
2)Android had 9000 new apps added in March ;
[http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/08/android-market-gets-9-000-new-apps-in-march-world-domination-ca/]
3)There are dozens of new Android powered devices due out this Summer and Fall. Now quantity is not quality; but there may be a few Droids, EVOs and Nexus ones in those Dirty Dozens.
However Android is not the only entrant. There is Google Chrome OS based Mobile Lite Devices; a flock of very good eReaders++; a wave of Taiwanese and Chinese Mobile Lites powered by Snapdraogons and Nvidia Tegra 2s; the HP Slate Touch PC, and game consoles gone Web and media connectors.
The bottom line is that Apple does not have a 2-3 year lead in the Mobile Lite marketplace but more like 2-3 quarters if that.
But the most serious concern is that Apple and Steve Jobs has fumbled big innovation leads before [think Apple II and Lisa/Mac]. By taking the high risk approach of a closed development and content marketing system, Apple is sewing the seeds of its own products destruction yet again. Cutting off Flash, Java, Silverlight and a host of other development software means that some great ideas will not just be missed but also will likely appear first in competitors products that are more open to development tools.
But there are other losses as well. Software companies whose tools have been rejected will not be happy campers and will likely strike deals with competitors. Developers who have found that there work done on these tools are “out of bounds” will now likely defect to competitive platforms.
In sum, iPod/iPad/iPhones closed and proprietary may indeed engender innovative products plus massive sales growth and profits in the intermediate term but long term they could spell downturn or even a Palm-like disaster. Now the problem for Steve Jobs and Apple is that in the hyperaccelerated world of mobile, gadgets and computing, the long term is at best 1-3 years.