The following article was originally posted on April 9, 2010 at 5:27pm ET. By overwhelming request, and in honor of the Adobe’s killing of mobile Flash, we repost it here:
“By now you have surely heard about the new iPhone 4.0 SDK language that appears to make creating applications in any non-Apple-approved languages a violation of terms,” Lee Brimelow, Adobe Flash Platform Evangelist, blogs for The Flash Blog.
“Obviously Adobe is looking into this wording carefully so I will not comment any further until there is an official conclusion,” Brimelow writes.
MacDailyNews Take: Brimelow then inexplicably proceeds to comment further. This marks just the first of his many lies. Of course, in order to evangelize Adobe’s Flash, you have to be a liar.
Brimelow continues, “What they are saying is that they won’t allow applications onto their marketplace solely because of what language was originally used to create them. This is a frightening move that has no rational defense other than wanting tyrannical control over developers and more importantly, wanting to use developers as pawns in their crusade against Adobe.”
MacDailyNews Take: Whiners whine and liars lie and sometimes they’re one and same. We already explained this quite clearly earlier today: “Flash is a proprietary, resource-hogging, browser-crashing abomination and we don’t want ported software on our iPhones, iPads, iPods or Macs; software designed for the lowest common denominator is inferior to software designed to take advantage of individual platforms’ strengths.”
As John Gruber writes over on Daring Fireball, “My opinion is that iPhone users will be well-served by this rule. The App Store is not lacking for quantity of titles. Consider, for one example, Amazon’s Kindle clients for iPhone OS and Mac OS X. The iPhone OS Kindle app is excellent, a worthy rival in terms of experience to Apple’s own iBooks. The Mac Kindle app is a turd that doesn’t look, feel, or behave like a real Mac app. The iPhone OS Kindle app is a native iPhone app, written in Cocoa Touch. The Mac Kindle app was produced using the cross-platform Qt toolkit.” Full article here.
Adobe should understand programming for lowest common denominator implicitly because they long ago turned their backs on the very platform that made their company in order to design their apps for Windows, the lowest common denominator. That is why Mac users suffer with inferior Adobe software today. Adobe 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 they hoped, treating Mac users as second-class citizens while pimping inferior Windows PCs.
In addition, “The primary reason for the change, say sources familiar with Apple’s plans, is to support sophisticated new multitasking APIs in iPhone 4.0. The system will now be evaluating apps as they run in order to implement smart multitasking. It can’t do this if apps are running within a runtime or are cross compiled with a foreign structure that doesn’t behave identically to a native C/C++/Obj-C app,” Daniel Eran Dilger reports for AppleInsider. Full article here.
Brimelow continues, “The fact that Apple would make such a hostile and despicable move like this clearly shows the difference between our two companies. All we want is to provide creative professionals an avenue to deploy their work to as many devices as possible.”
MacDailyNews Take: So, Adobe doesn’t want to own the proprietary toolset to generate profits by controlling the Web’s multimedia platform. The charitable angels at Adobe just want to provide creative professionals with blah, blah, blah. Well then, Adobe should drop Flash into the dumpster where it belongs, and embrace the creation of cross-platform tools that enable people to deploy open standards, such as HTML5, that actually will work on as many devices as possible, including 85+ million iPhones, iPod touches, and iPads.
Brimelow continues, “Many of Adobe’s supporters have mentioned that we should discontinue the Creative Suite products on OS X as a form of retaliation. Again, this is something that Adobe would never consider in a million years. We are not looking to abuse our loyal users and make them pawns for the sake of trying to hurt another company. What is clear is that Apple most definitely would do that sort of thing as is evidenced by their recent behavior.”
MacDailyNews Take: Adobe won’t do that because they’d go under. Real creative professionals use Macs. Adobe can’t live off Windows sufferers trying to use pirated copies of Photoshop or mangling amateur video with Adobe’s craptastic Premiere.
Brimelow continues, “Personally I will not be giving Apple another cent of my money until there is a leadership change over there. I’ve already moved most of my book, music, and video purchases to Amazon and I will continue to look elsewhere. Now, I want to be clear that I am not suggesting you do the same and I’m also not trying to organize some kind of boycott. Me deciding not to give money to Apple is not going to do anything to their bottom line. But this is equivalent to me walking into Macy’s to buy a new wallet and the salesperson spits in my face. Chances are I won’t be buying my wallets at Macy’s anymore, no matter how much I like them.”
MacDailyNews Take: Adobe’s Platform Evangelist relegates himself to second-rate media services and that’s supposed to be some big statement? A big joke is more like it; we’re certainly laughing.
Brimelow continues, “Now let me put aside my role as an official representative of Adobe for a moment as I would look to make it clear what is going through my mind at the moment. Go screw yourself Apple.”
MacDailyNews Take: Pure class and absolutely nothing new: “Go screw yourself” is exactly what Adobe’s been saying to Apple Mac users for the last several years.
One of these two companies is screwed and it’s not Apple.
Now, somebody over there in lazytown had better give widdle baby Lee his bottle, he sounds desperate.
MacDailyNews Note: 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. The [US$29.99] Pixelmator is really nice and it’s built expressly for Mac OS X, not released as an afterthought that fails take advantage of many of Mac OS X’s core strengths.
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.
Related articles:
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
Apple and MDN you are total and complete hypocrites. What Apple is doing is probably going to spark an anti-trust lawsuit. Adobe has reached out to Apple to try and work with them to improve their mobile flash but Apple has refused (depriving their mobile customers access to 75 percent of web content that uses flash).
They are essentially trying to create a monopoly for html 5 by purposely blocking Adobe Flash and holding their content providers hostage by forcing them to switch over (even though many are ill equipped, have been using Flash for a decade, and don’t have the programming expertise to utilize html 5 which has much fewer development tools for it’s end users).
What you idiots don’t get – is Apple can force the mobile computing world that it has a chokehold on to abandon Flash, but desktops have and always will rule.
Microsoft sold 60 million copies of Windows 7 in 2010 alone. Think about that for a second. Windows XP, Vista, and now Windows 7 control 92 percent of the GLOBAL market share. The 5 percent share of Mac OS users is utterly inconsequential.
What I find even more ironic and hypocritical is that Apple continues to allow it’s Mac OS users access to Flash. If Flash is so evil, such a resource hog, so bad for the world – why isn’t it also banned on Mac OS. Think about that for a second you lemming brainwashed fanboy idiots.
In the end, Nobody gives a shit if Apple forces Adobe Flash out. The rest of the world will continue to use Flash whether you idiot fanboys, Apple, or MDN wants too or not.
P.S. MDN you talk a good game, but most of your videos are posted using flash and I can’t even access them in my iPhone as I read you lamenting about Flash. Hypocritical and stupid.
P.P.S Banning my IP address and deleting my posts won’t shut me up MDN. You are pathetic…
“For instance when opening a 50k PDF and waiting over 20 seconds for acrobat to activate and show me the PDF, I’ve already dragged it to apples preview application, read the PDF and closed it.”
This happens to me all the time. How can Adobe’s own product take so much longer to launch and load a PDF than Apple’s Preview?
Adobe needs to stop the bloat and get CS right, then replace Flash with a mindblowing HTML5 development tool that a designer could use. Adobe could own that market by offering the best product — they don’t have to own the platform.
If they don’t do it, something tells me Apple will.
@BiteMe, how exactly Is Apple creating an HTML5 “monopoly”?
It can’t be a monopoly if it isn’t owned by anyone, and is open to everyone.
Crazy how everyone who was mad at Apple for being so “closed” is now backing Adobe’s proprietary platform, and is mad at Apple for securing a future for the open approach.
If nothing else, the Adobe representative has demonstrated very juvenile behavior.
@MacNugget…
I’m with you there as far as Photoshop is concerned. Who else makes a world-class application that can approach it?
Yes, there are other applications out there with good features, but none that has the breadth and depth of Photoshop.
I’m not a fan of Illustrator… I sure wish Adobe would either resurrect Freehand or sell it to a developer who CARES about it.
What’s quite is funny is Adobe’s CTO, Kevin Lynch, has posted a fairly cool post, implying that Adobe aren’t too worried:
http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20100409/adobe-well-be-fine-without-apple/
But we have this blazingly hot post, showing that Brimelow, at least, is badly scared. It’s actually quite funny.
“This is a frightening move that has no rational defense other than wanting tyrannical control over developers and more importantly, wanting to use developers as pawns in their crusade against Adobe.”
It’s so overheated you almost see the steam coming out his ears.
It’s “frightening” – yes, we know you’re frightened, Brimelow!
There’s no just no “defense” but no “*rational* defense”.
It’s not just “control” but “*tyrannical* control”
Then we have these emotive terms “pawns” and “crusade”.
Brimelow thinks by piling up more and more extreme terms in a great heap, he’ll somehow force people to agree with him. And he has the cheek to use the word “rational”.
He just makes Adobe look weak and scared and dishonest. And all because Apple doesn’t want their platform to be “commoditized” by Adobe.
@ApplePi
“This is no different from how some banks and other websites block Safari for no apparent reason.
You all hate that, don’t you? Understand the issues, people, before you blindly put on your fanboy hats and wave hurrah.
If you don’t know anything about developing software you sound like an idiot on this issue”
Oh, it’s the same thing is it? There are a couple of surface similarities, I suppose: Apple and the Banks are both choosing to enforce their own platform and software decisions. But that is about all you can say.
So why would us “fan boys” say bully for Apple but be upset at banks? Maybe you should understand the issues first.
A bank website is on the open internet and is supposed to work on a standards compliant browser. That would be the professed aim. If they have “blocked” access to Safari for whatever reason, they can’ say it is for security or something (IE is the worst). It must be because they have been sold a crock by some blinkered “programmer” or company led by a salesman.
Apple’s platform is not the open Internet, and Apple’s stated aims and objectives are to create the best platform possible on their own device (which people are buying for it’s own sake).
People expect Internet banking to be, in fact, “Internet banking.” Just as they expect a phone to be, in fact, a “phone”. This would be like, if you bought the iPhone and got home and Apple’s all like, “what we actually meant was that you could make VOIP calls; OK, you can’t actually make real phone calls, but hey, what’s not to like? You can use it like a phone, can’ you?”
That’s my level of expectation for “Internet banking” worthy of the name. It is not my expectation for my moble device (my superior mobile device) to be able to run every half-a$$ed app from every crack-pot developer that wants to sell me an app. Sorry dude.
Firstly the comment from Mr Lee Brimelow, “Adobe would like me to make it clear that the opinions below are not the official views of the company and are entirely my own.”, are obviously a contrived smokescreen behind which Adobe is hiding to voice their own opinions. If Adobe really did not want Brimelow’s rant to be representative of Adobe’s true position then they could easily shut it down: either as his employer force him to remove the blog post, or, failing that, give him the pink slip. They have done neither – thereby making it patently obvious what their true position is. Which is good – because it shows that they are hurting with respect to Flash, and they can see that its days are numbered. Good, anyway they brought it on themselves.
The days of arrogant companies like Adobe or Microsoft ignoring (Internet) standards are coming inexorably to an end. I am not saying that Apple are saints, they are looking after their commercial interests, but they do not do that by hijacking standards (Microsoft 1) or by locking the Web into proprietary, poorly performing, platforms (Adobe 2).
Heck, Apple make a web browser rendering engine which they then share with the world. In comparison Microsoft spend years hijacking the web, forcing web developers to code websites to their abortion of a web browser (and try to spin that as a plus) and still with their latest iteration of IE can only fail with a score of 20/100 on the web standards Acid3 test (3).
Adobe is one of the worst companies in the technical space, cynically ripping off customers for years. To see that just compare prices of Photoshop between America and Europe (4). Do they think that people, I included being one of the people having been ripped off by them, would have any sympathy for them? Ha, they must be dreaming.
Anyway, to understand fully Mr Brimelow’s soapbox invective one only has to look at his title “Evangelist at Adobe focusing on [..] Flash, Flex, and AIR”. All of these Adobe products have the goal of, as stated in Adobe’s own words, of “Build [ing] cross-platform [..] applications”, and all of which are directly affected by Apple’s position regarding protecting their product (and customers) as stated in the iPhone OS 4 developer agreement.
Like any evangelist who discovers his ‘god’ (with a small g) is not really omnipotent he’s kinda unset. The truth hurts Lee, better get used to it.
To my mind this comment (5) below, referred to also by Gruber in Daring Fireball, sums up the issue with cross-platform layers/APIs well.
“In my experience so far with such ‘cross platform compatibility layers,’ they always produce results that water down each platform’s individual strengths and differentiations. And of course, instead of the developer being locked into the phone platform, they are locked into the compatibility layer’s platform.”
So Apple does not want itself, and users of its mobile space products, to be ‘beholden’ to Adobe, so? Should Adobe be surprised?
What goes around comes around, and it’s no longer 1997 guys.
———————————-
1 http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2010/04/iso-ooxml-convener-microsofts-format-heading-for-failure.ars
2 http://daringfireball.net/2010/04/iphone_agreement_bans_flash_compiler
3 http://acid3.acidtests.org/
4 Adobe Photoshop price: US online store $699, Europe online store $1,363 (based on EUR-USD currency conversion as at 10/4/10)
5 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1250946
I was good until somebody (Rike) brought up pagemaker. Then I was done. It was a world of hurt, a bag of shite, and the Adobe products that superceded it were.. one billlion times… better. We need a Godwins law for pagemaker.
Flash can get in through the backdoor for those who want it. Geohot just jailbroke the iPad.
http://iphonejtag.blogspot.com/2010/04/i-make-it-ra1n-on-themipads.html
BLOG UPDATE. CHANGES MADE AT REQUEST FROM ADOBE.
http://theflashblog.com/?p=1888
@BiteMe (A.K.A. “Marco” ?)
What Apple is doing is probably going to spark an anti-trust lawsuit.
Really? So, by trying to protect its reputation, and its users from crappy software, Apple will be open to an “anti-trust lawsuit”?
That’s like saying,
“We’re Moto-Z Car Manufacturer.
It’s come to our attention that oil company “Shill”, sells an automobile fuel that contains high levels of sugar, sand, and water.
We at Moto-Z are actively working to prevent our customers from having to use Shill-brand fuel in Moto-Z cars.”
– And then expecting an anti-trust lawsuit to come from the actions of Moto-Z.
BiteMe then writes,
The 5 percent share of Mac OS users is utterly inconsequential.
I won’t dispute your 5% claim. It’s unprovable either way, and it’s irrelevant.
What is relevant, is that Apple, and commenters on this story, have made no claims as to Apple’s market share being important to this issue.
Apple has not said,
“Waaah! We have 20% (or whatever) market share, and we deserve better treatment!!”
Apple is saying,
“We make great products for our valued customers, and we want our products to work optimally, and for our customers to be happy.
Adobe, your Flash product does not facilitate our goals at Apple.”
Do you see the difference, BiteMe?
(I doubt you do, or that if you do, that you care)
Also, if BiteMe wants to use the smaller marketshare of Apple as an excuse to treat Apple customers poorly, fine.
But if this “5%” marketshare is so inconsequential to the world of software, and to Adobe in particular, why this vitriolic response from Adobe, concerning the attempt by little wee, tiny, Apple, to ensure Apple products run smoothly?
Why doesn’t Adobe just say, “Apple who? … Oh, that Apple. Well, they’re so insignificant, they don’t really concern us.”
Instead, from Adobe, we read the screechingly infantile, “Screw you, Apple!”
– Sounds like Adobe thinks Apple is worth paying attention to.
BiteMe writes,
In the end, Nobody gives a shit if Apple forces Adobe Flash out.
– Interesting, BiteMe, because it certainly appears that Adobe “gives a shit”.
I understand your bitterness, BiteMe.
I once was like you.
I had invested so much money and energy and time into trying to make my Microsoft crap-boxes work, that to consider that Apple might be superior, was admitting that I had made a terrible, expensive, time-wasting mistake.
My ego didn’t want to accept that.
Neither does yours.
But when I was finally forced to switch, and I saw how my new Apple products made computing fun and easy, and my time productive, instead of being resentful that I’d switched, I was thankful that I had finally switched.
You will be too.
Adobe was once a great, innovative company. It still could reclaim it’s relevance. If you feel strongly that it’s policies and behaviour are flawed, you should communicate your opinion (politely!!!) to the Board of Directors.
http://www.adobe.com/corporateresponsibility/corporate.html
Thoughtful, civil arguments from customers can make a difference.
Hey Adobe, NO SOUP FOR YOU!!!
Zune Tang’s alter-ego?….
That’s a Professional spokesman for Adobe?! How embarrassing!
Another HUGE reason cross-compilers pose a difficulty is that the compiled code they generate can’t easily be checked for compliance to coding standards, the way source code can. Apple code must meet certain standards, and it can be challenging to do so with just any already-compiled binary.
Anyone who has tried to look at the output of any program that “translates” from one language to another or cross-compiles, has seen this. Garbage variable names for example: xy_16 = 4; l_23a = xy_16 / 2. HUH?
The generated output is gibberish to look at, impossible to understand or reverse engineer. You need the source code. And if the source code can be in any proprietary language or dev tool you want, then Apple has to have engineers on hand to know and be versant in lots of languages instead of one.
So once again there are often real, defensible reasons for the actions Apple takes. I say this as a 25 year software developer.
I have not worked with any other language than Basic (Q and GW). So I might be out to lunch on this but if you want to run an app that’s in a different “language”, doesn’t that take up more CPU due to “translating”, and could also cause instabilites?
Death to Adobe Flash.
I thought Adobe was for making bricks. Anybody up for a bricked iPhone?
I love how all of you try and defend the banning of Adobe under some banner of “we want to make the best products for our customers” and some how anti-trust behavior, is justifiable when there is a presumed altruistic motive?
Get a clue.
When Microsoft paired Internet Explorer with Windows, they made the argument that Explorer provided the most seamless experience for its Microsoft Windows customers, and under the auspice of providing the best experience for it’s customers, it paired the browser designed by Microsoft.
Note that Microsoft never banned you from using Flash, or another browser, they simply made you download it.
Microsoft was sued by the EU and forced to dismantle it’s Explorer from Windows and paid several hundred million dollars in fines.
Apple is doing something much worse. They are banning the use of Adobe in their products outright. Where are the “open development” people now to cry fowl?
Why do you assume Adobe will not try and develop their Flash product to make it better? Everything goes through development cycles? They have reached out to Apple but Apple flat out refuses.
Forcing people to use HTML 5 is creating an anti-competitive environment, the definition of a monopoly.
And why isn’t flash banned on Mac OS? Why don’t you fanboys try and answer even one of my points?
I bought Adobe Acrobat 4.0 about 10 to 12 years ago. I used it on Mac OS 8 and 9. When I switched to Mac OS X I was able to move Acrobat 4.0 over to a Windows machine since it was on a Windows/Mac disc for either platform. I’ve used it on both Windows Me (Horrible OS) and XP (SP 1 to 3). About 4 years ago, I downloaded a final update that made it fairly secure and, at long last, stable.
Acrobat 4 still does the job for me on the Windows side but waiting over 6 years for it to become stable on Windows was a sign that Apple and the Mac aren’t the only ones Adobe screws.
How come MDN removes posts that don’t agree with their opinion? I have had my post removed several time where I argue that iPhone should include flash as an option.
Is this your official policy MDN? Only Apple-ass-licking posts are allowed, the rest are deleted??
Truly utterly pathetic..you are like some stupid religious freak.
Brimstone
Lee Brimelow, Adobe Flash Platform Evangelist does a lot more than talk up Adobe products. He makes a damn good living teaching people how to use Adobe products. He uses many different teaching mediums. He influences thousands of web site designers and coders spreading flash throughout the internets.
He probably gets most of his money from Adobe but he has a really big dog in this hunt.
You can understand why he’s so pissed off. Apple is trying to kill off his livelihood.
I hope things get so bad that he has to attend someone else’s seminars to learn how to write Apps for Apple’s App Stores.
@ BiteMe,
HTML 5 is an open sourced, internet standard. How the hell can using an internet standard be anti-competative? Anyone can use it. Get your head out of your ass, man.
This is what Kevin Lynch, CTO for Adobe writes:
“I’ve been working with Flash for 11+ years and, lately, I’ve been considering developing for the iPhone in my spare time. My coworkers and I have several ideas for apps to write the simplest of which I could complete in Flash in about 45 minutes. Doing the same in Objective-C would take me months and it wouldn’t be nearly as well-designed, maintainable or stable.
We’ve been waiting for Apple to “thumbs up” the Flash/AIR packagers before we all shelled out hundreds of dollars to request Apple’s approval to write apps (which is ridiculous, BTW)! Now, given Apple’s latest moves, we’ll be keeping our money in our wallets and focusing our collective creativity on Android.”
I guess Adobe is giving up the fight, I mean why fight a war you can’t win. I really hope Apple is making the right call here, remains to be seen.
@ BiteMe,
Flash is not banned on Mac OS X because flash blocking software is readily available to all Mac users.
Points answered.
Here is a freebee. Adobe software has not worked very well on Macs for over 10 years. Whose fault is that?
Answer: Adobe.