A lot can change in two week’s time.
Per Mashable, in that span of time, Adobe has gone from touting its technology for building Flash applications that run on the iPhone to canceling future development of that technology.
When Apple altered the terms of its iPhone 4.0 software developer kit license, it effectively blocked Adobe’s move. But in his Tuesday announcement that Adobe will cease future development of the Flash-apps-on-iPhone technology, Mike Chambers, Adobe’s principal product manager for the Flash platform, offered the following quote outlining the conflict between Adobe and Apple:
“As developers for the iPhone have learned, if you want to develop for the iPhone you have to be prepared for Apple to reject or restrict your development at any time, and for seemingly any reason,” Chambers said. “The primary goal of Flash has always been to enable cross browser, platform and device development. The cool web game that you build can easily be targeted and deployed to multiple platforms and devices. However, this is the exact opposite of what Apple wants. They want to tie developers down to their platform, and restrict their options to make it difficult for developers to target other platforms.”
The company also disclosed in a regulatory filing that its business could be harmed if the iPhone and iPad don’t support Adobe technology with one report stating that the company could be considering legal action against Apple, too, according to one report.
Recently, Adobe also gainded an ally in competing against Apple: Google.
“Fortunately, the iPhone isn’t the only game in town. Android based phones have been doing well behind the success of the Motorola Droid and Nexus One, and there are a number of Android based tablets slated to be released this year. We are working closely with Google to bring both Flash Player 10.1 and Adobe AIR 2.0 to these devices, and thus far, the results have been very promising,” Chambers said.
The upcoming Flash Player 10.1 and related AIR 2.0 programming foundations are currently in private beta testing stages for Android and the software, which is scheduled to arrive this quarter, will work on a variety of other phone operating systems, including Windows Phone 7, the BlackBerry OS, Symbian OS, and Palm’s WebOS.
“I think that the closed system that Apple is trying to create is bad for the industry, developers, and ultimately consumers, and that is not something that I want to actively promote,” Chambers said. “We are at the beginning of a significant change in the industry, and I believe that ultimately open platforms will win out over the type of closed, locked-down platform that Apple is trying to create.”
The Adobe technology for bringing Flash-derived applications to the iPhone is now effectively irrelevant at the very moment when Adobe is bringing it to market in its CS5 product line.
“There is no technical reason that Flash can’t run on the iPhone,” Chambers said.
One reply on “Amidst harsh words, Adobe cancels Flash port work for iPhone OS”
ergh adobe make me sooo mad. FLASH IS A CLOSED PLATFORM! THEY WANT TO TIE DEVELOPERS TO THEIR PLATFORM!!! My god they just spin lies.
Apple is only interested in having quality software on the platform, no different than xbox or playstation 3 (which also ties developers to a certain set of tools). Flash is crap.
And FLASH IS CLOSED! It's proprietary and it is restricting. HTML5 is not.
When will people see that they are just whining and complaining because their little proprietary controlled locked down world is falling down around them, and it's all due to ONE OS – the iPhone OS. From one company.
People, open your eyes to the truth. Adobe would like nothing better than to lock everything down into a Flash world. And we as consumers would pay for this with the continuing rubbish you get from Flash games and the like. If you think that Flash games are better than iPhone or iPad games you're an idiot. So much for this wonderful world of Adobe Flash that they think is going to be great for 'choice' and consumers.
And this whole rubbish about no technical reason – ever noticed how most Flash games and such use the MOUSEOVER state? THere is a huge hurdle to bring Flash to touchscreen devices in effective ways. It's not designed for touchscreens, and developers would have to rethink everything even if Flash was on the iPhone. So it wouldn't be a design once deploy everywhere solution ANYWAY!!!!! So why not redesign using Apple's superior tools and get a superior product that people will pay money for???! How many people pay for Flash games?? None??? How many people buy iPhone apps? Billions??
Stupid Adobe