Adobe Fumes Over Apple Snub

(CBS)  An escalating technology rivalry with Apple may be about to cost Adobe serious change.

Adobe's Flash remains popular with 96 percent of U.S. Web surfers having installed the video software installed on their computers, according to researcher StatOwl. But in a new filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Adobe raises the potential impact to its business by being locked out of the iPad and iPhone.

"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 Friday in its filing.

Apple forced the issue in what appears to be a tweak to its governing third-party iPhone development.

Here's the relevant paragraph:

"Applications may only use Documented APIs in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any private APIs. Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine, and only code written in C, C++, and Objective-C may compile and directly link against the Documented APIs (e.g., Applications that link to Documented APIs through an intermediary translation or compatibility layer or tool are prohibited)."

English translation: Developers must create programs directly for the Apple operating system on the iPhone, a stipulation that essentially elbows aside Adobe's latest cross-compilation system for Flash apps as well as other so-called intermediary software products.

ZDNet's Larry Dignan on Apple-Adobe:

While CEO Steve Jobs didn't make any mention of a change during his product demonstration for the press held Thursday at Apple headquarters, Adobe management was quick to discern a shift. In a blog post, Adobe group manager Adrian Ludwig wrote that "there's something important missing from Apple's approach to connecting consumers to content" when it came to the iPad.

It looks like Apple is continuing to impose restrictions on their devices that limit both content publishers and consumers. Unlike many other ebook readers using the ePub file format, consumers will not be able to access ePub content with Apple's DRM technology on devices made by other manufacturers. And without Flash support, iPad users will not be able to access the full range of web content, including over 70% of games and 75% of video on the web.

If I want to use the iPad to connect to Disney, Hulu, Miniclip, Farmville, ESPN, Kongregate, or JibJab -- not to mention the millions of other sites on the web -- I'll be out of luck. Adobe and more than 50 of our partners in the Open Screen Project are working to enable developers and content publishers to deliver to any device, so that consumers have open access to their favorite interactive media, content, and applications across platform, regardless of the device that people choose to use."

Is Apple within its rights to mandate the restriction? The company does not comment about its policies but the news has sparked speculation whether it will push Adobe to force the issue in court. Developer Hank Williams summed it up this way:



"I don't think there has ever been a case like this because only Apple could make such a ridiculous attempt to control how developers work. But what is interesting here is that allowing this provision to go to trial may put the entire App Store concept under a legal microscope. Because it seems to me there is a reasonable risk that not only is ...(it) restraint of trade, but that the entire "you can only sell apps on iPhones and iPod touches that we approve" thing is found to be restraint of trade. Wouldn't that be tasty. Adobe, and/or class action lawyers start your engines!"

[niuxx]

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[brianbwb2011]

Both companies are trash.

If they take this to court, both should be fined for wasting the courts' time.

Adobe has a very annoying habit of installing its own ASIO drivers on your system, regardless of whether or not you have a superior version tailored to your high-end (and high priced) pro audio interface. Then it forces your entire computer to default to it, the only way to reclaim your drivers back is to hack your system, and manually eliminate Adobe's drivers, after which you find that your Adobe app works even better without their generic, buggy drivers.

They also, like Apple, charge charge exponentially high prices for software like Premiers Pro, After Effects, and Flash pro, and there is no way they can say that they have to recover R&D, because the products have been on market for a decade or more, and upgrades are nothing but a few "bells and whistles" demo-version bloat from 3rd parties, bundled into their old product, or a simple port to the new OS version, such as M$ Windows Fistup, or M$ Windows minus7.

Apple, on the other side, is nothing but a backwards-speaking PC (processor by Intel, btw) with a closed hardware system that cannot be customized by the consumer, at a price more than twice that of a comparable but modular Intel PC, and more than three times the cost of a comparable but modular AMD PC, and because of their closed architecture, cannot run the large majority of applications on the market, without a software "emulator". Now how stupid is that?

Remember those overpriced iPhones, for which the consumer cannot change a defective battery? Someone had to explicitly make the decision to jack consumers for money to service that which any child normally could.

Now comes the glorified iTouch, called the iPad (that must cost about $5 for the R&D on that idea) that cannot even perform like a computer costing less than half the price. Seems like Jobs thought consumers wouldn't need multitasking, or USB based peripherals.

Both companies are reaching the end of their usefulness, and are more and more being relegated to being super expensive but defective toys, catering the shrinking market that chooses to afford them.

They can both bite the big one, and they won't be missed.

[jbelkin]

Yea, forcing developers to use a COMMON LANGUAGE like C (and variants) or HTML - yea, that's a real tragedy and requires a court order VERSUS a proprietary programming app like FLASH owned 100% by Adobe - what exactly is your complaint? Apple forces you to use the English language to program? You have to upload via the internet versus some private transmission format? The checks Apple sends developers are too large? Adobe dug their own grave by not updating their technology and now is whining that people might not want to buy their $3,999 updates? Isn't there a tiny violin app NOT programmed with flash we can launch?

[darryl365]

RedDeath25 you are so on with your assessment. That iPod with 70% of the mp3 market is certainly a niche product. iTunes music store, which sells more music than any other distributor on the planet, is definately a niche. Let's not forget that little iPhone niche product they've got going. Oh yeah!!!! That niche of app store they have, that in less than 2 years, have more apps available than every other mobile platform combined, a niche product for certain.
Apple, with a market cap of over 216 billion, trailing only Exxon and MS as the most valuable companies in the US. Surely they are going to quietly disappear any day now. Those 95 million people that have bought iPhones and iPod must all be zombie-like followers. What idiots.. Too bad they can't all be as astute as you..

[bruce789]

Locked out of hulu.com for tv using osx panther, not sure who's to blame but they won't show commercials to more limited audience. I remember the big windows crashes with flash, you had to reload operating system.

[ToolMangler1]

I believe that the hackers will get ticked over Apples "better than thou" attitude and start writing viruses that are Apple specific.

[GeraldPiwowar]

Flash in the pan. Good riddance to a buggy player that never "played well" with Windows or Internet Explorer. Adobe has attitude which needs a dose of reality.

[rwsmith29456]

That sounds more like something Microsoft would do.

[bsmi021]

This is just one more time in a long history of apple pulling back into its self and turning a blind eye to all the people who could buy and use there products. I have never purchased a apple product because of there attitude toward people who question them.

[apuan777]

Apple won't allow flash on its phone because the concern over security. The iPhone is wide open and can be hacked very easily. Flash would just make the security hole larger.

[bsmi021]

Oh and people think that apple is so good, and virus free you could not be more correct that apple software is wide open for trouble in all types

[billpl-2009]

100% untrue

Flash runs in a sandbox (or Apple's case...a bunker)

They don't want Flash because Apple won't be able to control the "look & feel" and the content


....it's all about "Control"