The war of words between Apple and Adobe over the Cupertino, Calif.’s company decision to block Flash apps on the iPhone has reached a breaking-point. Adobe now says it will court other handset makers, including Apple-rival Google.
“We’ve done everything we can,” Adobe vice president David Wadhwani told the Wall Street Journal Wednesday. Wadhwani said its relationship with Google continues to strengthen as the San Jose, Calif. software maker courts Android-based smartphones following the public split-up with Apple.
In a comment to Adobe’s blog post announcing its decision to drop attempts to assuage Apple, Andy Rubin, a Google vice president for Android said the Internet giant would embrace Flash for its cell phones.
Wednesday, Adobe said it would drop trying to get Flash approved for Apple’s iPhone.
We will still be shipping the ability to target the iPhone and iPad in Flash CS5. However, we are not currently planning any additional investments in that feature.
“It’s frustrating to see this happen,” the Adobe executive said.
Mike Chambers, an Adobe product manager in charge of Flash, suggested the break-up was Apple’s fault. “I think that the closed system that Apple is trying to create is bad for the industry, developers, and ultimately consumers, and that is something that I want to actively promote.
Apple shot back at Adobe’s suggestion the problem was Cupertino’s desire to keep the iPhone platform closed. The software maker claimed Apple will reject apps not using the company’s own APIs.
“Someone has it backwards – it is HTML5, CSS, JavaScript, and H.264 (all supported by the iPhone and iPad) that are open and standard, while Adobe’s Flash is closed and proprietary,” Apple spokeswoman Trudy Miller replied.
[via Wall Street Journal and 9to5 Mac]
