“‘To the extent new releases of operating systems or other third-party products, platforms or devices, such as the Apple iPhone or iPad, make it more difficult for our products to perform, and our customers are persuaded to use alternative technologies, our business could be harmed,’ Adobe said today in the filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission under a ‘risk factors’ heading,” Elstrom reports.
Elstrom reports, “The filing signals that tensions between Adobe and Apple are escalating as Apple Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs snubs [Adobe’s Flash]… Yesterday, Apple released new rules that force application developers to write programs directly for the iPhone operating system, not intermediary software such as Adobe’s products.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Tough Adobe. You should have focused more on Apple’s Mac instead of foolishly waiting for the platform to die and then, when it didn’t drop dead as you hoped, treating Mac users as second-class citizens while pimping inferior Windows PCs. Flash is a proprietary, resource-hogging, browser-crashing abomination and we don’t want ported software on our iPhones, iPads, or Macs; software designed for the lowest common denominator is inferior to software designed to take advantage of individual platforms’ strengths.
A bit of perspective: Apple is currently worth 12 times that of little, old, lazy, shortsighted, back-stabbing Adobe and Apple has enough cash on hand to buy Adobe – twice, with billions left over. Not that they’d want it. Although, it would be fun to take Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects, and Dreamweaver Mac-only and put the rest of the company out of its misery.
Ever launch Photoshop? The length of time it takes for that mess of spaghetti code to launch is one reason why we find ourselves using Pixelmator pretty much exclusively nowadays.
Note to advertisers: (including those who advertise via third-party ad networks and become, in effect, our advertisers): Your Flash-based ads are no longer reaching the most well-heeled customers online: 50+ million iPhone owners. They’re also not hitting brand new iPad users or 35+ million iPod touch users. If you care about reaching people with discretionary income, you might want to consider dumping your flash-based ads and moving to a more open format that people with money and the will to spend it can actually see.
Help kill Adobe’s Flash:
• Ask CNBC to offer HTML5 video via the customer support web form here.
• Contact Hulu and ask them to offer HTML5 video via email:
• Ask ESPN360 to offer HTML5 video instead Flash via their feedback page here.
• Join YouTube’s HTML5 beta here.
• On Vimeo, click the “Switch to HTML5 player” link below any video.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “David E.” for the heads up.]
Wasn’t Flash used in the past to hack into the Windows PCs? There is no reason to use Flash and it will not be missed.
Adobe has other good software products and they should continue to develop and market them. Dreamweaver works well for me but could use some simplification.
Need to get MLB to drop flash too.
Aside from other concerns, Flash applications often rely on the difference between mouseover and mouseclick. There’s no mouseover in a touch-based interface. Apple therefore has two choices to make: make the user angry that there is no flash, or make the user angry that this, that, and the other application seems to run but doesn’t work correctly.
The right decision: no flash.
That take? Facebook like.
“You should have focused more on Apple’s Mac instead of foolishly waiting for the platform to die and then, when it didn’t drop dead as you hoped, treating Mac users as second-class citizens while pimping inferior Windows PCs.”
AMEN.
If Adobe Flash wasn’t a memory hog and was totally awesome and didn’t suck… Apple still would block it. Its performance was an excuse SJ made to keep the platform closed.
Flash on the iDevices would mean developers could write apps in Flash that would run on the iPhone, thus bypassing the App Store, thus providing alternatives and choice on the iPhone.
Apple doesn’t like free choice… they only like multiple-choice… where they choose the options.
Apple’s move to block any 3rd party from using translation to avoid using Objective-C[rap] speaks volumes of how Apple dictates not only what goes on the phone but how people make their stuff. Next thing you know, they’ll be telling people that you can only develop apps in an iHouse.
Just been using Acrobat and InDesign today to try and create a fully accessible PDF. Absolute nightmare — Acrobat crashes, undo doesn’t work, it routinely screws up page layouts and tags go AWOL when you try to re-import single pages into Acrobat.
And why does this happen? Because these two apps are produced by a fat, lazy company that doesn’t have any competition in this area and, once again, is happy to treat it’s customers with contempt by releasing apps that they must know aren’t even fit for purpose.
Frustrating to use and disgraceful. Hopefully, someone will come along and ‘do a Jobs’ on them in this area too.
“If Adobe Flash wasn’t a memory hog and was totally awesome and didn’t suck”
But it is a memory hog.
And it’s not totally awesome.
And it does suck.
I was about to get my portable dvd player fixed. for $133, when I thought, “Why do I need it?” I’ll just use my iPad from now on. Sony – you can kiss off. iPads are replacing lots of devices.
Good take, MDN.
I feel as much sympathy for Adobe as I do for Rubenstein and Google. Make the traitors pay.
Surely Apple has to create HTML5 tools and software to allow us to more easily move away from Flash and indeed Dreamweaver. Both are a pig to use (thanks mostly to those interface devils at Macromedia) so it surely would not beyond the wit of Apple to give us an alternative. I already use iWeb for most of my web work despite its limitations at a professional level but it allows me to tackle an reproduce sites at a fraction of the time and cost that Dreamweaver, Freeway dictate allowing a whole new range of work to become practical. Build on that software add easy Flash alternative creative software and the world is their Oyster, and stuff a sock in the whingers mouths at the same time.
Why would Adobe spend so much resources on a Mac when it only controls 10% or less of the market?
Why waste time on something that only 10% of the world uses. It’s like selling something to the USA vs Canada.
Think about it. If Apple was at 30% marketshare I could see why they would be so concerned.
Risk?
No. Apple is not using buggy, power-hog Flash in their mobile devices and they aren’t going to.
In the late 90s, Jobs and his team went to Adobe to talk about support for the upcoming switch to OSX. Adobe’s empire was originally built by and for Mac users, by the way. Jobs was stunned when told that Adobe wouldn’t lift a finger for Apple’s new OS plans, that Apple was 2% of the market and no longer worth bothering with. All us Photoshop users had to wait for an OSX version when Adobe was finally forced to serve their Mac base.
It took even longer to get Quark to make an OSX version of their design program, which ironically led Adobe to introduce InDesign for OSX and grab more Mac users for themselves.
I understand Apple not wanting Flash on the iPad/iPhone/iPod for various reasons – primarily that it’s a battery and resource hog. I also understand how Apple could be upset with Adobe for dragging their feet on Mac optimized applications and Flash plug-ins. HOWEVER, banning developer apps that start with Flash or some other language, but are then converted to code which is accepted by Apple is BS.
Flash developers should be able to port their work over to native code that the iPad/iPhone/iPod accepts as long as it meets all guideline that apply to native apps. Users will decide if it does or does not perform with downloads and comments.
Hopefully all this drama will cause Devs to flock over to Android.
If Apple wants to play hard ball.. they need to take the risk of losing devs!
To everyone who said Adobe should make a version of Flash for OS X that doesn’t suck…
They can’t. On Windows, they have access to the hardware and all levels of the software in order to optimize Flash. On OS X, they’re limited and can’t do things like use the GPU for hardware acceleration.
I’m not defending Flash. I’ve always hated it with a passion, and I’m looking forward to when HTML5 is truly a viable alternative for everyone.
I manage a site with over 5,000 videos. I addition to our Flash based player, we’ve always provided the files in H.264 MP4 format as a download (and as a podcast through iTunes). So our site worked with the iPhone from day one.
Adobe eventually allowed Flash to play H.264 MP4 files, and that simplified our code and production since we only had to produce one file and not an MP4 and FLV file.
As I mentioned, HTML5 isn’t quite there yet for everyone. Developing a player with all the features one might already have in a Flash player may seem like an overwhelming task, especially when both players may be needed for now.
I’d highly recommend *at least* offering direct downloads of your videos and syndication through iTunes in H.264 MP4 format. This is relatively easy to do.
Adobe should embrace HTML5 and take the lead in transitioning people from Flash to HTML5 by providing tools and libraries to do so.
Jobs hinted to this in the Q&A;when he said they wouldn’t provide iAd tools, but people can use whatever HTML5 tools they want. Adobe, why aren’t your engineers working this weekend to release an iAd generator?
Alternatively, Adobe should be begging to be purchased by Apple.
@Bill
I disagree. We Apple-ites finally have a chance to have first-class software across the board, no ports. We’ve been suffering ported software forever. Native only on the iPhone is great news. Go Apple.
theloniousMac
Flash is a dated, propritary and closed technology that was at best only fair to poor even when it was relevant.
It is poor performing and riddled with serious security flaws. The web will be a much better place without it than with it.
People without vision are clinging to the past, just as they did when jobs dropped legacy serial and keyboard ports and the floppy disk.
Adobe has grown fat and lazy and is now squealing like an overweight suckling pig forced to actually forage for it’s self (rather than having it handed to them)
Hey adobe here’s a clue if your flash software was worth a crap apple would have to put it on or the market would react (and not buy)
It isn’t, they won’t and you might actually have write clean innovative and efficient software to make a living (what a concept)
I have always like ADOBE, primarily for Photoshop and still do. But since they bought Macromedia they have become hard to stomach. Choosing to milk Flash rather than turn it into a product that could move web development forward really pissed me off.
Mac may have only a small share of the world, but they have a large part of the DESIGN world, and that is where Adobe’s products are being used. That is why Adobe should pay attention to Mac users. I am a graphic designer and I use CS4 everyday. And I own ALL Macs.
Adobe needs Mac users. And Apple needs Adobe. Unless they just choose to buy them out! Then as MDN would say. Game. Set. Match.
Windows users beware if that happens. You will have a hard time getting professional level creative apps on Windows….
@Marco,
“Why would Adobe spend so much resources on a Mac when it only controls 10% or less of the market?”
By the end of the year, the iPhone OS will have well over 100 million users, and growing rapidly. It will represent the largest amount of mobile web usage and recipients of interactive mobile ads.
“Think about it. If Apple was at 30% marketshare I could see why they would be so concerned.”
When Adobe looks at who its customers are, what percentage of them do you think are on Mac?
Adobe needed Apple for Flash to survive. Microsoft wants Flash dead because of Silverlight. Google is no fan of closed proprietary tech. Firefox doesn’t embrace this either.
Adobe and M$ products are not allowed on my Macs. They either crash or slow down the system.
An overlooked point regarding Flash is the fact that whilst it is all-pervasive it also costs $699 from Adobe’s site. That is a big, big motivator for Adobe to keep the thing going.
And in answer to Marco’s posting earlier. Macs may have only 10% of the overall computer market, but are in the region of 45-50% of Adobe’s sales [probably more, since I haven’t seen figures broken out for a few years].
ROFLMMFAO!!!
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Fsck Adobe!! Let’s not forget how they have overcharged for Photoshop for years (I now use Pixelmator instead) and how they killed GoLive as well! And yes, Adobe has been anti-Apple for at least 15 years now. Go to hell, Adobe!
I can’t wait for Hulu to work on my iPhone!