What Bothers Me About The Apple vs. Adobe Issue#
First things first. It always amuses me when people publicly make blatantly false claims. Latest offender: Jonathan Fildes, writing about Adobe’s “We ♥ Apple” ad campaign. Let’s dig in.
But Flash is commonly used to build smartphone apps. As a result, developers commonly used automatic translation tools - some built by Adobe - to convert Flash code to run on Apple gadgets.
These allowed developers to make applications once and then distribute them for use on various phones and operating systems, including Apple’s iPhone.
Uh, which apps and “Apple gadgets” are these? Since 2001, Apple’s only two platforms have been Mac OS X and iPhone OS. Of these, only Mac OS X has ever supported Flash. So, if by “developers commonly used automatic translation tools… to convert Flash code to run on Apple gadgets”, you mean “developers commonly write Adobe AIR apps for Mac OS X”, then I guess you’d be right. But it’s not relevant, because it has nothing to do with the current smartphone/mobile market.
The thing that really gets me about this quote—and this whole situation, really—is that while Adobe constantly complains about Flash not being allowed on iPhone OS, they haven’t released a version of it for ANY major mobile OS. BlackBerry OS? Nope. Android? Nope. webOS? Nope. So the question is, if Flash is this great open cross-platform technology that Adobe is serious about pushing, then where is it?
The answer, of course, is that Adobe doesn’t care about Flash helping developers or being a cross-platform tool as much as they care about it being on iPhone OS. The only reason they’re even pushing it to other platforms now is to make Apple feel like they’re missing out on something—they’re doing it to force Apple’s hand. Adobe wants Apple to feel like they need to include Flash in iPhone OS.
Well, let me tell you a secret, Adobe: it won’t work. Maybe that time spent adding a Flash-to-iPhone-app compiler in CS5—something you knew Apple would have an issue with—would have been better spent adding Flash support for platforms that actually want it?
So I have no sympathy for Adobe. They’ve done a lot of complaining about Apple being anticompetitive and restricting developers’ choices, but they haven’t done anything to actually give developers the choice they preach about. If it’s really so important to let developers choose between platforms, then why can’t they choose Flash on any platform?
You’ve had two years. It’s still not ready.
If you don’t like the fact that Flash is rapidly becoming less relevant, this probably isn’t the best way to go about rectifying that.
