“Adobe Systems Inc halted development of its Flash Player for mobile browsers, surrendering to Apple Inc in a war over Web standards as the company surprised investors with a restructuring plan,” Jim Finkle reports for Reuters.
“While the matter might seem like inside baseball for the average person, it is likely to improve the browsing experiences of tens of millions of iPhone and iPad users,” Finkle reports. “That is because Adobe’s decision means Web developers who currently use Flash tools to produce Web content will likely move over to the newer HTML5 technology, which Adobe embraced on Wednesday.”
Finkle reports, “Adobe’s concession to Apple and its late founder Steve Jobs, who famously derided Flash as an inefficient power-hog, came as the design software specialist warned that revenue growth will slow next year… At one point in the battle, Steve Jobs wrote a nearly 1,700-word “manifesto,” calling Flash unreliable and ill-suited for mobile devices. Adobe retaliated by taking out newspaper ads saying Jobs was just plain wrong.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Nobody fscks with the Jobs.
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Beleaguered Adobe pulls plug on Flash; axes 750 jobs; shares drop – November 9, 2011
Adobe ceases development on Flash Player for mobile, refocuses efforts on HTML5 – November 9, 2011
Adobe obliterated Flash themselves by never releasing a good mobile version.
They needed little help from Apple on the demise of the tech
Flash has always sucked. It sorta made sense in the days when javascript engines were slow, and video using standards was harder… but it has alway sucked, and been popular with “developers” who weren’t willing to get their hands dirty with real programming.
That’s right. Adobe has only themselves to blame, not Apple, or the phone makers, or the carriers and their insistance that until you’re using Flash on your cell phone, you’re only getting half of the true web experience.
Jobs created that “put up or shut up” moment and everyone in the industry looked over at Adobe and said, well, you gonna let him get away with that and Adobe’s Shamu fell on his sword.
Honestly, if that wasn’t Adobe’s worst display of leadership, I don’t know what is.
Adobe’s CEO squandered millions trying to give life to Flash mobile, only to realize Jobs, who is an outsider, was right.
Adobe needs a change in leadership and attitude.
tru
dat
Adobe got Jobsed
Flash in the pan. 😉
(What, what? *Someone* was going to say it!)
Back in a Flash.
….still waiting.
You might say they hit a flash point. 😉
This is a great moment for web technology and all the people who use it.
They are hoping AIR will replace Flash. It’s another POS and I hope others realize how bad it is and avoid it like the plague.
Yyyyyyyyyyeeeeeaaaahhhh. How’s it going chefpastry…. Did you get the memo? Flash is dead. Nnnnn K. If you could go ahead and inform all your other Flash developers from now on that Flash is dead…. That would be gggggrrrreat. NN K?
I don’t think you understood what I wrote. Either that or I have no idea what you’re talking about.
So Adobe will put out a two page newspaper ad saying that they are SORRY and admitting to be WRONG and LYING to the public about FLASH working great for Android and other POS devices?
“While the matter might seem like inside baseball for the average person, it is likely to improve the browsing experiences of tens of millions of iPhone and iPad users”
Fucking bullshit. This will improve browsing experience for everyone since better technology will replace Flash on the web. Also bullshit because, frankly, lack of Flash support has never really affected my browsing experience. I’m not sure why the tech press clings to the flawed notion that Flash support is critical to a good web browsing experience.
But, but Android has a much bigger user base, so why would Adode abandon Fash because of a minority platform?
You gotta wonder?
Because flash sucks on android.
This is Adobe finally admitting they just can’t make flash a contender in the mobile space.
With 63% of mobile browsing coming from iOS you have to wonder about the Android market share numbers? Certainly site developers and advertisers see that iOS has the lion share of the market, hence they are dropping Flash.
Steve should have charged for giving all this business advice.
How is Flash dead if I use it to create a cartoon animation and export it as an mp4 or mov or whatever. It’s the output that counts. Only n00bs think it’s all about video.