“Apple Inc. and longtime partner Adobe Systems Inc. are at a flash point over the iPhone,” Ben Charny reports for Dow Jones Newswires.
“Since its debut in late June, the iPhone’s exalted mobile Web browser has been off limits to nearly all videos delivered over the Internet. That’s because the browser isn’t compatible with an Adobe-made media player, known as ‘Flash Player,’ which is used to view Internet videos,” Charny reports.
Charny reports, “Adobe’s patience appears to be wearing thin. ‘No one aside from (Apple Chief Executive) Steve Jobs has any idea if or when it’s coming,’ Ryan Stewart, Adobe’s chief spokesman for its Internet-based applications, wrote on his blog last week. ‘Everyone I talk to doesn’t know anything.'”
“The iPhone’s history is already marked by Apple’s demands scaring off would-be Apple partners, including No. 2 U.S. cell phone operator Verizon Wireless, jointly owned by Verizon Communications Inc. and Vodafone Group PLC, and China Mobile, Asia’s biggest telecom. Now it appears the same tactics are straining Apple’s relationship with long-time partner Abode,” Charny reports.
MacDailyNews Take: Complete load from Charny. Just because Verizon et al. blew it and couldn’t make deal for the device that is transforming their industry, doesn’t mean that Apple “scared off would-be partners.” As for China Mobile: Apple CEO Steve Jobs told CNBC on January 15, 2008, that rumors of on-again, off-again negotiations with China Mobile are simply untrue; just a single China Mobile rep. has flown out to Cupertino only once. There are no ongoing negotiations, just a first meeting, Jobs explained. Jobs wants iPhone in China, but details will come later. This is nothing more than a case of piss poor “reporting” from Charny.
Charny continues, “The stand-off could resolve by the end of the month when Apple’s due to release iPhone software tools that may include a way to make the iPhone compatible with Flash Player. That’ll certainly cheer investors; any ensuing Adobe/iPhone tie up will erase a lingering concern and certainly lift Apple’s beleaguered shares. But failure to end the stalemate raises the volume on the issue, and puts even more strain on the two companies’ relationship.”
MacDailyNews Take: Beleaguered?! Apple’s shares are trading at $123.30, up 46% from their opening price of $84.65 one year ago today. Adobe’s shares, by the way, are trading at $35.16, down 14% from their opening price of $40.09 one year ago today. The only things beleaguered here are Charny’s logic and credibility.
Charny continues, “iPhone sales seem to be taking a slight hit as a result of the kerfuffle, though no formal study’s ever been made. The lack of Flash Player is though an oft-cited reason why someone wouldn’t buy it, according to a number of different Apple online user forums.”
MacDailyNews Take: More made up crap masquerading as “reporting.” Charny is a joke.
Charny continues, “The closest Apple has come to addressing the issue was shortly after the iPhone’s release, when Jobs, in a widely-circulated published interview, said Flash Player would ultimately make it to the iPhone. With both companies keeping mum since then, it’s been largely left to outsiders to suggest why the two aren’t yet seeing eye to eye… Around 2002, Adobe dropped support for Apple’s Macintosh computers, and then introduced several other software products that were only compatible with Microsoft software.”
Full article, Think Before You Click™, here.
Charny is absolutely horrible at his job. Adobe never dropped support for Apple’s Macintosh computers. Without Apple Macintosh computers there would be no Adobe today.
The only Mac products Adobe ever dropped support for were products that Apple did such a better job with that Adobe simply couldn’t compete. See Final Cut vs. Premiere (which is back on the Mac, by the way).
Back in January 2007, six months before iPhone’s release, The New York Times’ John Markoff interviewed Apple CEO Steve Jobs who said in reply to a Flash on iPhone question, “You don’t need to have Flash to show YouTube. All you need to do is deal with YouTube. And plus, we could get ‘em to up their video resolution at the same time, by using H.264 instead of the old codec.”
Apple has since prompted Adobe to support H.264 in Flash either directly or indirectly (see related articles below). Perhaps Jobs wants even more from Adobe before he grants them access to the hottest mobile device on the planet?
