"Go screw yourself Apple" says Adobe Flash Platform Evangelist

Apple had a great opportunity to build bridges, not only between itself and its customers but also with Adobe, by announcing it had finally done the right thing and included support for Adobe Flash when it announced new iPhone 4.0 OS features this week. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Apple did not grasp that opportunity but instead made it very clear that no such support will be forthcoming.

According to Lee Brimelow, whose official title at Adobe is that of 'Platform Evangelist' for Flash amongst other things, the new iPhone 4.0 SDK "appears to make creating applications in any non-Apple-approved languages a violation of terms" which would seem to put the kibosh on Flash for now. Unless, of course, you take the jailbreak option for the iPhone or even the iPad which should have a commercial jailbreaking application available real soon now by the looks of things.

Adobe is said to be "looking into this wording carefully" and will no doubt publish an official conclusion in due course. In the meantime, on his personal blog, Brimelow has been making his own feelings particularly clear. He's also made it clear, at the behest of his employers, that his opinions are his won and not those of Adobe.

Which is probably just as well as Brimelow says "Go screw yourself Apple". Stating on the one hand that is has nothing do with getting Flash player onto the iPhone, and on the other that Apple not only want "tyrannical control over developers" but also to "use developers as pawns in their crusade against Adobe" Brimelow calls the Apple decision to not allow applications onto the iPhone because of the language used to create them as being a "frightening move that has no rational defense".

OK, so Brimelow has done his best to try and separate his personal opinions from the official company line but you can bet that there is some ripe language being used behind closed doors at Adobe following this latest piece of anti-Flash face slapping from Apple.

[jameskatt]

Adobe screwed itself.

I agree with Apple.

Quality of apps is best served by programming using C, C++, Objective-C and X-Code.

Cross-platform middleware creates programs at the lowest common denominator - not taking advantage of what features makes the iPhone unique. Since the iPhone has a different form of multitasking than other platforms, for example, cross-platform middleware won't take advantage of this differentiation. When programmers program to the lowest common denominator then the progress of the platform is hindered.

Good programmers easily pick up new computer languages and tools. It is part of the job description. It took the programmers of Super Monkey Ball, for example, only a week to pick up Objective-C and X-Code.

Section 3.3.1 essentially then weeds out the bad programmers and the programmers who are NOT truly interested in programming to the strengths of the iPhone platform.

Consider Section 3.3.1 a test of a programmer's IQ and a test of loyalty.

Those that don't qualify can move on to other platforms - and there are many other platforms.

Apple isn't forcing programmers to not build for other platforms. That is silly. Programmers can simply use SDKs for each platform and develop for each one simultaneously.

If Adobe drops Mac OS X as a platform for Photoshop, then their profits take a huge hit and their stock price will take a huge hit. This will allow Apple to purchase 51% of Adobe stock and control all of Adobe.

Or, Apple can develop its own version of Photoshop for a much lower cost or even further the development of the cross-platform open-source Photoshop-clone, GIMP, so that GIMP can act exactly like Photoshop but can be obtained FREE on any platform and given the Apple brand. This would kill Adobe.

Remember that Adobe hastily created Adobe Lightroom when Apple created Aperture since Aperture intruded upon Adobe's photography territory.

Apple, with its strong branding, can easily hone in on Adobe with a Photoshop clone, should Adobe drop Mac OS X products.

Adobe, for example, tried to screw Apple with high licensing terms for Display Postcript - when Apple wanted to develop Core Graphics for drawing things on the screen for Mac OS X. Apple, instead, developed its own screen language based on PDF, much to Adobe's irritation.

Adobe can threaten Microsoft to remove PDF generation from MS Office - which MS blinked and removed. But they can't do that to Apple since Apple built its own PDF generator into the operating system.

Despite Adobe's complaints, Apple will NOT alter its vision of the future. Apple will NOT compromise on the quality of its platform. The quality of its platform is what differentiates it and makes it more valuable than its competitors.

Adobe screwed itself.

[happygeek]

Thanks for the comprehensive response, an interesting take from the Apple perspective.

[Garoad]

The Apple perspective is retarded. A "cross platform" language is not a crippled language. There are ways around this "impossible" issue. (Consider JMonkeyEngine for Java, a FULL--and yes, cross platform--hardware accelerated 3D game engine/SDK. Perhaps Apple is just too stupid or greedy to find good solutions, so they prefer to take the easy route? Or perhaps they're just trying to follow in Microsoft's footsteps and create a near monopoly market for themselves by subverting their customer's freedom?)

Cross platform developers like Java (not to mention ActionScript) dominate the market, and C/C++ programmers are becoming dinosaurs for a reason...

Interesting none of these "unique features" that Apple supposedly provides--which no other hardware manufacturer on the planet is "smart enough" to figure out how to do--aren't mentioned. Maybe it's because the "features" are absurdly patented by Apple, and they're too busy suing everyone else for "stealing their property"...

Sorry but once a company starts spending more time suing their competitors than producing better, lower cost products than their competitors, it's a sign of their decline (as long as lawyer/judge criminals don't keep propping them up with rewards from frivolous lawsuits...)

Apple is obviously scared of the fact that competent competition is still out there (Google, Adobe, Samsung, HTC, Nokia, Microsoft, Everyone, etc...) so they're using whatever underhanded, manipulative, dirty trick they can get away with to coerce developers and customers into giving them a monopoly.

I wonder if I have Steve Jobs to thank for that non-Flash based movie player that just froze and crashed my entire PC earlier tonight...

[Garoad]

http://i.i.com.com/cnwk.1d/i/tim//2010/05/13/adobe_flash_ad.jpg

Adobe: "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."

Apple: "You're only creating what we allow you to create, how we want you to create it. You cannot use your personal property to do anything on the web that we haven't approved of. (Or else?)"

Who's side do we take here?

[Garoad]

Oh yeah--and authoring code only once (with a consistent platform), not re-engineering the wheel over and over, is "kind of a big deal" for commercial application developers looking to access the largest possible market...

[Moschops]

C/C++ programmers are becoming dinosaurs for a reason...

That is so true. I can't think of a single operating system, huge application or multi-million dollar game from the last year that was written in C and/or C++.

[Garoad]

LOL - OS development and game development are tiny markets. Look at the job listings, it's obvious where the jobs are... hello? (Must be a C++ guy... ah yes I remember those days...)

[Junyah]

Adobe , you've been making real junk lately. Over priced and overburdened with problems, Lack of innovation and same old @&$' with some bad eye candy. Former Consumer (windows and Mac) perspective.

Go Play Outside, talk to people face to face, put gloves on or hit the mat for a real fight and shake hands and by each other a beer after.

[Moschops]

LOL - OS development and game development are tiny markets.

So true. It seems that no computers these days come with an OS. Microsoft went bust a decade ago. Nobody even uses an OS.

[MoZo1]

Adobe has two uses:
- Unaccessible homepage content for cheap ppl that cannot use CSS3 and JS: If you think accessibility is not an issue for you, just try using ctrl+f search. It is! What a text to speech engine cannot read, you cannot search.
- Reatarded programing language for cheap ppl that cannot really program. There is Java and JS. Depends on what you need. JS engines have became sophisticated, as it's browser specific, allowing even iOs to run a damn fast and stable JS engine, maintaining the expected quality, like never ever freezeng or hanging, when I'm on the go, and want to check an address fast just before the traffic light turns green. On the other hand Java has extreme good support for computation intensive tasks with threading, adapting well to the hardware you run it. On top of this it's damn stable, while even the simplest flash programs freeze about once-twice per hour.

Flash is a good way for ppl with limited knowledge to fill your 1600 resolution with a simple homepage, but has nothing to so on mobile devices that needs reliability with limited hardware. So I would prefer having one less site using flash than being able to use one more site on my iPhone.

"appears to make creating applications in any non-Apple-approved languages a violation of terms"

Sure, but it's not only Objective C: There is JS, the most general language of web which is extensible, and Apple did extend it. Flash again would be a cheap toy for script kiddies: http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#DOCUMENTATION/AppleApplications/Reference/SafariWebContent/HandlingEvents/HandlingEvents.html