Adobe Launches All Out War on Apple Over Flash

by Terrence O'Brien on May 13, 2010 at 05:05 PM

We've been wondering where the skirmishes between Apple and Adobe would lead, and today we were shocked (pleasantly so) to see that Adobe had decided to launch an all-out PR assault on Apple. Adobe bought a full-page ad in the Washington Post and a banner ad on our sister site Engadget. Both read, "We [heart] Apple," and then continued: "What we don't love is anybody taking away your freedom to choose what you create, how you create it, and what you experience on the Web."

Clicking on the ad leads to an open letter from Adobe chairmen Chuck Geschke and John Warnock. The pair espouse the importance of open markets and an open Web, painting the battle with Apple in terms of consumer and developer choice:

We believe that consumers should be able to freely access their favorite content and applications, regardless of what computer they have, what browser they like, or what device suits their needs. No company - no matter how big or how creative - should dictate what you can create, how you create it, or what you can experience on the Web.

The letter ends with the Adobe co-founders declaring that no single company controls the Web.

In case you need a quick refresher, here's how the feud between Apple and Adobe has played out thus far. Apple has refused to allow Flash on its mobile devices. To make matters worse, Steve Jobs has made a habit of saying some rather unpleasant things about Flash publicly, going so far as to blame it for the majority of OS X crashes. Ever since, Jobs and Adobe have been firing salvos back and forth, exchanging accusations of stifling innovation and of failing to properly serve consumers. Most notably, Steve Jobs posted a letter explaining his opposition to Flash, loaded with shockingly un-self-aware complaints about Adobe's closed and proprietary systems. Adobe called Jobs out for his smokescreen, and implied that the turtleneck-wearing CEO was simply trying to lock developers into the iPhone platform (an accusation with which we're inclined to agree).

All of these things understandably annoyed Adobe, but some quiet changes to the developer agreement, updated for iPhone 4.0, were really what turned Steve Jobs from impudent CEO to villain. The agreement includes a clause that reads:

Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine, and only code written in C, C++, and Objective-C may compile and directly link against the Documented APIs (e.g., Applications that link to Documented APIs through an intermediary translation or compatibility layer or tool are prohibited).

Effectively, that puts an end to Adobe's work-around for Flash on the iDevice lineup. The company has been supplying developers with tools that allow them to translate applications created with Flash and Air into versions that are compatible with the iPhone. The new clause would prohibit developers from using that feature.

Despite The Next Web's proclamation that Adobe needs to "suck it up" and move on, we think Adobe has legitimate reason to continue this battle, and we're glad they are. Adobe has an obvious business interest in making sure Flash remains relevant, especially as smartphones become more ubiquitous. We're not huge fans of Flash [author's note: As a Linux user, it is particularly frustrating], but blocking developers from using Adobe's translation tools makes it much harder for applications to be created for several platforms at once. In fact, it would actually block several highly anticipated products, such as Wired's impressive-looking tablet edition, which was built with Adobe Air precisely so that it could be ported easily to multiple devices and platforms.

By preventing developers from using Adobe's translation tools, Apple is hoping to force programmers to create applications exclusively for the iPhone. This would obviously give a huge advantage to Apple in the market, but the tactics being used are rather draconian. Considering Apple's track record though, it comes as little surprise. [From: Engadget and The Next Web]

Tags: adobe, adobe air, adobe and apple, AdobeAir, AdobeAndApple, advertising, air, apple, business, flash, ipad, Iphone4.0, stevejobs, top

Comments

Twisted SpeechMay 14th 2010 2:37AM

Neutral

I agree with you whole heartedly, Terrence. But I ponder this to you. Is it just me or does Steve Jobs seem to be acting more and more lately like Bill Gates was back in the 1990s? Instead of working with Adobe to resolve all of the OS X crashes, though I never had that problem on my Apple that I had before it stopped working completely. Jobs just acts like some punk trying to monopolize the PC world and spouts stupid obscenities to the media about how it's all someone else's problems and not their own. Kind of like how BP is blaming the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico on everyone else but themselves. I think Jobs and Adobe both need to grow up and just work the kinks out and move on like most civilized people would do.

Terrence Cain
Big Spring, TX.

Dislike

Report

BobMay 14th 2010 12:21PM

Neutral

I'm a big PC fan, and was a flash developer for years, and unfortunately Jobs and Apple couldn't be more in the right here than they are.

What's even more concerning is that fact that Adobe's CEO is simply contradicting himself in his open letter:

First he says this:
"in an open market, the best products will win in the end"

The he goes on to say this:
"We believe that Apple, by taking the opposite approach, has taken a step that could undermine this next chapter of the web"

This is a contradiction because if the open market wants multi-platform open systems, then it will choose not to purchase Apple's products because Apple doesn't allow that.

By Adobes CEO's own definition and business philosophy (i.e. open market wins) Apple has no ability to "undermine this next chapter of the web", because If their product is not superior, then consumers will not buy it.

The Adobe CEO is a walking contradiction. The fact of the matter is that it is both about technology, and business model. And further, as much as it pains me to say being an avid PC and Adobe fan, their system is not open as he would like you to believe, nor is it superior.

Apple is 110% in the right with their model, and if I were the Apple CEO, I wouldn't let Flash on my unit either until Adobe addressed the concerns that community feedback has reported for the last 8 years.

Dislike

Report

UberSilMay 19th 2010 12:32AM

Neutral

I don't think the question necessarily is Adobe but the developers that Adobe has allowed to come to the table.

The ability for Flash to be ported to so many different operating systems makes it something like Google Translate. Sure a machine can translate latin to english but the quality of what's read versus what's written is most assuredly at question. The issue becomes even worse when you attempt to translate something from on base form such as Cyrillic to Latin. It becomes a near incomprehensible mess.

This programming can normally be punched through by way of power but it does not take advantage of coding designed to overcome certain hardware shortcomings. And making the programming pool and release pool more accessible merely allows less capable developers able to release lower quality products which is an unfortunate side effect of making lower cost programs.

Apple has always had higher quality graphical systems with the same quality mathematical models (in fact graphics take the most intensive mathematics many times) than IBM and IBM clones. Even using Intel chips and Nvidia graphics the systems are much higher quality. I can attest to this because I use both an Apple laptop and a Toshiba laptop that are both very similar in hardware ability.

Steve Jobs is completely correct in saying that Flash is causing issues with OS X. My wife is forced to play such Flash based games like Farmville on the Toshiba despite her preference for the Apple. Zynga, and companies like them, are of absolutely no help in helping her figure out how to remedy this issue for her.

Not to mention that Apple is starting to support OpenAL which stands for Open Audio Language, like OpenGL, which is a good thing considering the massive number of proprietary codecs for audio. There's something like 16 codecs alone for simple mp3 encoding and Lossless encoding is worse.

And finally we can bring the fact that HTML5 has been around for as long as Flash but was just not nearly as well developed at the time. I've programmed websites in it and they ran amazingly fast on systems seven years and older.

No the fact that is that Flash has become heavily verbose and the ability to let a machine do the work that a person should has resulted in poor coding that robs users of the quality in programming that they deserve.