Adobe CEO Narayen: Feud with Apple is over

“Adobe Systems CEO Shantanu Narayen said his company’s flap with Apple over the software used in websites is over,” Pui-Wing Tam reports for The Wall Street Journal. “Apple last year criticized Flash and Apple CEO Steve Jobs banned Flash from iPads and iPhones.”

“In an interview at the D9: All Things Digital conference, Narayen was asked about the argument Adobe had with Apple last year over software known as Flash,” Tam reports. “On Thursday, Narayen said of the episode with Apple: ‘Yes, the argument is over from our point of view.'”

MacDailyNews Take: Because you lost.

Tam reports, “Jobs has endorsed an emerging standard on the Web called HTML 5, which is being developed by a consortium that Apple is a part of, alongside Google. Narayen said Adobe now ‘welcomes the evolution of HTML and are actively contributing to it’ with typographic and design expertise.”

Read more in the full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: Sleep tight, Shantanu.

Related articles:
Adobe’s Flash still not on Apple’s iPad, and that’s a good thing – May 24, 2011
Study: iOS users view 80% of mobile video – May 23, 2011
Apple CEO Steve Jobs was right about Adobe’s Flash – May 2, 2011
Adobe capitulates on Flash, adopts Apple’s HTTP Live Streaming for iOS – April 16, 2011
Firefox VP: Adobe Flash is doomed – March 11, 2011
Steve Jobs posts rare open letter: Thoughts on Flash – April 29, 2010

49 Comments

  1. Funny, an “argument” requires two participants. Adobe’s been flapping their lips solo on this for quite a while, as Apple has remained pretty much silent and simply gone their own way.

    It’ll be interesting to see if Adobe truly embraces open HTML5 technologies, or if they try to wedge their proprietary Flash into it along the way.

  2. I sure hope not. The future is html5.

    If Apple holds true to “Skate to where the puck will be” going backwards to flash makes no sense. If Apple included flash, you can bet Adobe R&D into html5 tools would stop completely.

  3. Yes Adobe does suck. But at least they make software that allows you to professionally author a Blu Ray disc on a Mac. (even though you need a PC or Blu Ray player to test it) Without Adobe’s software you can only make a very basic Blu Ray with very limited menu options.

      1. Well, Canadian Thomas, until iTunes or Netflix or cable or other “download” offers true 1080p resolution and proper surround sound, I would contend that Blu-Ray remains the premium product, and it is doing fine. Sounds to me like you don’t know what you’re missing.

        1. long live the 240 disc blu-ray jukebox! it only takes 6 years to load all the menus!

          seriously I own blurays and i can literally start a load of laundry, make a snack, eat the snack, look around for more snacks, take a nap and sweet I am ready to watch the bluray…6x the picture, 6x the sound, 6x the wait for ads, previews, and a f*&#$ ad for BLURAY! seriously!! I watching you on a bluray…don’t sell me on what I already own…no one wants that…

          my apple tv using my powermac g5 as a media server runs instantly…if that is the future of bluray…it is going to see a kick aside for my ATV..

      1. Looks like your wish has begun:
        MACWORLD “FreeHand Users Sue Adobe for ‘Killing’ the Application”
        macworld.com/article/159949/2011/05/freehand_lawsuit.html

  4. Haha. The Ferengi makes it sound as if they won the argument over Apple. Argument is not over folks. Adobeass is still pushing FLASH hard to displace HTML5 & Apple. Don’t NE fooled by that Ferengi! lol

  5. Actually, the really interesting part of this is how it kneecaps all those other tablet/smartphone platforms that tout Flash “compatibility” as a feature that differentiates them from iPad.

  6. Well, that was over in a flash.
    The argument was just a flash in the pan.
    Apple collected it’s pound of flash.
    Adobe and its flash are like the emporer and his new clothes.
    Please no flash photography.

    Ah, the puns they just write themselves!-)

  7. Apple did not “ban” Flash from iOS. Apple just did not support it. Thankfully, that decision “banned” 80% of the ads on websites from polluting the iOS web-browsing experience. Unfortunately, ads follow the money…

    1. Yes, what’s up with that? STEVE JOBS BANNED FLASH FROM THE IPHONE!! Like there it was, working so great on iOS, and mean ol’ apple…

      Tech writers need to stop saying “banned,” and start saying “Chose to not support.” Is it THAT HARD?

    2. How about “Apple did sit around waiting for something that didn’t exist for over a year, and still acts like a power-hungry beta version on mobiles now”?

  8. “Nothing is over until WE say it’s over! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?”

    John Belushi as Wild Bill Kelso from the 1979 motion picture: 1941.

  9. I strongly disagree with that statement, there is no such thing and the war (which Apple started) being over until we can run Flash in iOS browser!!

    Adobe might be satisfied with the outcome of the European Competition Commission constraining Apple to allow the conversion of Flash apps into native iOS apps (Adobe sells tools), we web apps developers and our clients will not consider the war remotely over until we can run our apps in the browser free of Apple’s approval and tax (we make apps that we intend to be web based when we want to and native when we decide so). No one should control the web and I feel kind of betrayed by Natrayen’s statements ever since the beginning of the conflict!

    Keep in mind Shantanu that Flash is nothing without the developers community and we do not necessarily share your corporate and commercial interests!

    Check my response to Steve Jobs’ “Thought on Flash”:
    http://www.applethoughts.org/blog/thoughts-on-apple-flash-developer-responds-to-steve-jobs-tho.html

      1. You listen to Jobs too much, tests shown HTML5 slower and more battery consuming than latest generation Flash, Apple wants to sabotage the browser to force users into native apps taxed at 30% that’s the bottom line, and you are carrying the water, I call it the Apple Unpaid Press Office and will be extensively blogging about it with names and examples very soon. Keep trying, Flash is starting to dominate the mobile space this year the same way it dominated the web for a decade.

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