Slashdot Mirror
Adobe Stops Development For iPhone
adeelarshad82 writes "Adobe's principal product manager Mike Chambers announced that Adobe is no longer investing in iPhone-based Flash development. The move comes after Apple put out a new draft of its iPhone developer program license, which banned private APIs and required apps to be written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine. According to Chambers, Adobe will still provide the ability to target the iPhone and iPad in Flash CS5, but the company is not currently planning any additional investments in that feature."
Daring Fireball points out approvingly Apple's rebuttal to the claim that Flash is an open format, however convenient it might be for iPad owners. Related: The new app policy seems to be inconsistently enforced. Reader wilsonthecat writes "Novell have released a new press release in response to Apple's announcement that none-C/C++/Objective-C based iPhone application development breaks their SDK terms. The press release names several apps that have made it past app review process since the new Apple SDK agreement."
"Despite what their Facebook status says, we broke up with Apple first."
apple wants to control their platform. would it be better if Adobe controlled the development for the iphone and Apple had to beg them to make changes to take advantage of new features of new handsets?
That's complete nonsense, Steve Jobs would never be in the same room as a naked female.
Adobe discontinue all their software suites for the mac and change their updaters to uninstall everything remotely and everyone is very sad.
In all seriousness this is the best news I've heard all week. After having put up with Adobe's terrible Flash implementations on the Mac, I'm ecstatic that I won't have to put up with what would have been an even worse iPhone implementation.
It would be very funny if Adobe, just for spite, decided to stop making it's high end graphic design products compatible with Apple hardware. And figured out a way to make them not work via virtualization on Apple hardware as well.
I know, I know, they are publicly traded & would never cut off that revenue stream.
There is a war going on for your mind.
I think the title should reflect the article and contain "flash development". It is slightly misleading.
I hope Apple is starting to develop their own image editing software.... ..just sayin'
Seeing one closed off, 'play by our rules or gtfo' company, whining about another closed off 'play by our rules or gtfo' company is golden.
They must be banished from the compound and no believer may ever speak with them again.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Whats objective C? Why would I care? Is it another dumbed down programming language?
Apple just posted a 90% year-over-year profit increase in their best non-Christmas quarter ever. iPhone sales increased 130% year-over-year. AAPL stock price reached an all-time high today. Of course, these amazing results are without Flash on the iPhone. People (including myself) are enjoying native apps which were written in Objective-C. I don't think any consumer cares about seeing Flash on the iPhone anymore.
Maybe Adobe will finally stop bitching and moaning... awesome!
Adobe is instead focusing on other platforms, namely Android. Chambers said he will personally shift "all of my mobile focus" from the iPhone to Android, and that he has a particular interest in Android-based tablets.
Guess that means we'll be seeing more flash based porn apps?
Found here - namely 4 apps have made it through the app review process that signed the 3.1.3 clause.
Is there some deep, personal clash going on here? Did Narayen steal Jobs' girlfriend back in college? I can't help but think that enabling Flash on the iPad would only help both Apple and Adobe. I wonder how much business Apple is losing simply because of this lack of integration? (Nevermind no-multi-tasking or no camera or no wide-screen). Why give people one more reason not to buy i?
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If you make a product that competes with an existing or future Apple product, it will probably not be allowed to run on the iPhone. Most iPhone apps could run as Flash apps, which would cost Apple revenue, and that would delay construction of Steve's interstellar spacecraft (the only rational reason you need $100 billion vs $1 billion, in my mind, is if you intend to leave the planet; if you do anything else with it you're just an asshole).
I don't see why people are surprised at this. Just stay out of Steve's way and you'll be fine.
That said, I despise Flash. I don't want Flash on my phone unless I can block it by default.
This whole Adobe-Apple thing was conflicting for me for a while: do I cheer Apple on for killing Adobe's standards-busting, lousy-performance (very, very lousy performance) closed-source plugins, or despise them for their policy of locking down their devices (of which Adobe was just one of several innocent bystanders).
At the end of the day, I've decided to give my grudging approval to what Apple is doing: at least by forcing people into HTML5, they're encouraging the adoption of a fully standards-based internet. And even though people go on and on about Apple banning Flash because it forces people to stay locked into the App Store ecosystem, HTML5 offers many of the same capabilities, and there is not-- yet-- any indication that Apple will restrict Safari in this way. (Of course, if/when they do, then we can start complaining, but not before).
Dislike the Electoral College? Lobby your state to join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.
What would it take to get Adobe to quit infecting all platforms with their overhyped junk? Yes, yes, people love Photoshop. Just imagine that app, though, rewritten with a modern GUI toolkit and brand new underpinnings so that it wasn't a steaming pile. Now realize that it'll never happen because Apple fanboys have nothing on Adobe advocates and Adobe has no reason to spend development money making it better instead of adding shiny new features. (BTW, I'm not a Gimp fan, either - it's fully possible to dislike both apps on their own demerits.)
While I'm not a huge fan of Jobs, I sincerely thank him for driving a stake into Flash's corrupted heart. Would that the rest of Adobe's hoggish wares die with it.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Anyone else think it's hilarious how John Gruber is pouting about Gizmodo and the iPhone 4 leak? It's like he's a six-year-old who was just told by a drunk uncle that Santa and the Tooth Fairy are actually just his parents. "I want my sense of childlike wonder back! **waaaaaaaah!**
obviously no deficiencies vs. no obvious deficiencies
It would seem that every time I read an Apple story, it is about Apple fighting with someone to keep their eco-system pure or some sanctimonious blathering about what people want. Down the slashdot page there is a story about the iPhone and porn, or how they will keep your kids pure by withholding porn from the device. Okay... I get it, Apple products are closed entertainment devices. Not PC's (Apple's branding says so)... Fine, no flash, no firefox, no, no, no... Got it... will not buy an Apple product. Like most people, I like the look of some of their stuff, like most people, I won't buy any As for Adobe, Apple has said no flash from the beginning... so give it up. It's lousy on low powered stuff anyway and you better be gearing up for a new product because HTML5 is going to ultimately be the death of flash
This is ominous to the iPhone user. Next I expect to hear that ActiveX and Real will be booted from the iPhone, and then we'll never get anything done. The iPhone simply doesn't support ALL of the web.
And it doesn't stop there. I bet that MS-Office macros will be considered a programming language, and then will be booted off ot the Mac!
This is the END! I'm tired of these control games.
Of course, Apple could just be trying to do away with it, hoping HTML 5 takes more hold.
"I don't think it's selfish, to eat defenseless shellfish." -NOFX
Direct quote from Mike Chambers: "Because this is Flash, it is rather trivial to port games created with Flash that target the iPhone to target other operating systems, such as Android."
Which pretty much sums up the entire reason for 3.3.1. Did they seriously expect that, going in with this offering, they'd get no pushback from Apple? It's been abundantly clear from day one that the iPhone store is a closed platform, subject to the business ideals of Apple (i.e. make Apple more money). Any sane iPhone developer knew this going in, and really doesn't care (or they'd never have started).
I suspect the correct way to view the iPhone store is not "A horribly closed environment compared to e.g. Windows/the Web", but "A largely open market compared to the PS3/Wii etc". Closed platforms have existed for eons without the world ending, and they'll continue to exist in the future. The real novelty with the iPhone is it sits in the middle - neither open nor closed. People are freaking out trying to shoehorn it into one camp or the other, when it's just not possible.
Obligatory side picking: Apple. Just because I will be so very, very glad when I never have to see a Flash ridden site again. Also, because I'm enjoying the irony of the de-facto "Let's take an open environment like the web, and close it up" getting all angry over openness.
Democrat Nov'10
Before apple switched to Intel, they warned developers they ought to stick to the cocoa coding guidelines uber strictly. Those that apps that did were nearly just a recompile away from being native fat binaries for intel/ppc after switch.
Adobe took over 2 years to release native photoshop and acrobat readers. The only reason those apps even ran was because Apple had purchased the company Rosetta to make an emulator. If no emulator had existed then they would have lost photoshop!! Even then graphic arts folks were not thrilled to be having to retain their PPC computers just to run native.
You can see why apple would not want to have an adobe flash layer running apps on the iphone. Assuming adobe did not update the flash player for two years, apps would not even run on the platform switch. There might not be a suitable emulator that could run on a resource starved iphone.
Apple would lose a lot of apps. Consumers would be confused. And Developers would blame apple for the platform switch going so ugly.
Now is it reasonable to presume that Adobe is not using Xcode to develope their apps? yes. One might even speculate they are using adobe AIR or some other cross platform API since their apps run on many more platforms than xcode supports.
Why bet the farm on adobe's good will when they screwed apple over photoshop and Acrobat
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
When your enemies are fighting. Don't interrupt them.
Now there
Seriously, "no longer investing in iPhone-based Flash development" is not even close to the same thing as "Adobe Stops Development For iPhone."
Daring Fireball Quotes in his post “Someone has it backwards — it is HTML5, CSS, JavaScript, and H.264 (all supported by the iPhone and iPad) that are open and standard, while Adobe’s Flash is closed and proprietary,” but H.264 isn't open, 0n February 2, 2010 MPEG LA announced that H.264-encoded Internet Video that is free to end users would continue to be exempt from royalty fees until at least December 31, 2015. However, other fees remain in place and the license terms are updated in 5-year blocks.
If Microsoft tried to pull this off, lawyers would be tripping over each other to be the first to file an antitrust lawsuit,along with adobe and the slashdot community be up in arms. I really don't understand that because apple is anything but an open company and very much controlling. Is it just because they use open source as there OS that makes whatever they do OK here at slashdot?? To me whatever is wrong is wrong no matter who does it.
Jack of all trades,master of none
It is really interesting to see Adobe and Apple not getting along. For as long as I can remember the primary users of Apple hardware were "creative professionals". All of those users were using Apple because of Photoshop and the various other Adobe tools. Even when Adobe put their tools out for Windows, 99% of the creative professionals preferred to continue using them on Apple hardware. In much the same way that people claim, "I have a Windows box to play games on.", others would claim, "I have a Mac to do creative work on."
Now that Apple has had some success outside of their previously small, niche market, they seem to be taking a big crap on one of their largest supporters. It is an interesting example of power dynamics in the real world. Apple apparently doesn't lend much weight to their long term relationship, or what Adobe has done for them in the past. It seems to be all about Apple saying, "What have you done for me lately?"
This is legacy business, unfinished from the days of NeXTstep, fellas. ADOBE forced Steve Jobs to abandon Display Postscript on the NeXT operating system or pay a very dear royalty price to ADOBE to continue using postscript. Steve Jobs replied " Thank you very much" but " no thanks". The rest is just more of the same ADOBE.v.APPLE business relationship legacy.
The only reason Apple is doing this is to keep its store's apps, music, and video selling. If there was Flash, everybody would just play Flash games and stream Flash music and video -- just like they do on PCs.
But even after all of this grief it will mean nothing. Once web technologies evolve the web will be a foundation for apps, music, and video. Just like with Flash today but under a different name. Apple's store will just be a steaming pile. And for what? A few years of having your customers locked into your content?
The only result is slowing down innovation of the web. Unless you call moving to an open technology with none of the features 'innovation'. Nice job Apple.
It wouldn't be a problem if Apple developed an open technology to replace Flash. But they wouldn't do that because it would kill their store.
Why does Flash so suck much? I mean, with a company as large as Adobe that has had dominance for so long (with flash), you would think they would be working on making it usable so that the flash opposition would die down. Flash sucks so hard on Linux, and it is barely tolerable on Windows 7 (32 bit).
Two arrogant companies that both have the attitude "my way or the highway," now at each other's throats. It doesn't get any better than this...
Yeah! Flash is for ads and glitz. Little really useful stuff. Everything Flash can do I can do better with other tools. I dinged Flash a long time ago. The web is a much faster, less resource intensive experience without Flash.
I have never heard of this blog until recently. I find it's articles merely opinion, and sparse on any substance.
Furthermore, I label it a cowardly blog, as there is no option to comment upon these posts.
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So let's look at the criticism from Apple. Flash is not an open standard. Well neither the !@#$% is Objective-C. Nor the entire iPhone/iPad development process.
So let's cut with the BS Steve. This is about two things $$$ & market control. Honestly, Adobe should release Flash Player for jailbroken phones.
I'm convinced Apple refuses to support Flash because it would essentially undermine the App Store. I don't doubt that there may be other considerations, like security and control, but I'm convinced that's one of the bigger ones. Although, I will acknowledge that in the greater scheme of things it's somewhat irrelevant. On the other hand, I'm sure the advent of the iPad has brought the issue to the forefront what with many consumer likely expecting a user experience more comparable to a laptop, not the iPhone.
I do find it amusing that my antiquated, 5+ year old Sony tablet can view websites flawlessly where the amazing new iPad can't.
'nuf said.
Your friends are poor researchers because the iPhone and iPod Touch have never supported Flash. That's why the iPad flap was always so funny to me. It could be summarized as "Adobe is angry that Apple won't start supporting an app that it's never supported on its other portable platforms".
You don't understand what just happened between Adobe and Apple, then.
Apple's said plenty of times that it won't support Flash as an interpreter/runtime on the iPhone. I think everybody understood that.
What happened here is that Adobe took them at their word, and did something totally different: they wrote a compiler which takes content written using CS5 and targets *Apple's* runtime. FLA file in, iPhone Binary out. Not SWF, iPhone Binary. Doesn't need the Flash Player to run. Apple wouldn't have had to do a damn thing to "support" these applications.
So Apple changed their license terms and banned apps from the store that were created by another toolchain to target Apple's runtime.
And, for good measure, they also banned apps that are made by targeting Apple's tool chain from another language. So that way, Adobe knows they can't decide to build a version of Flash that takes a FLA file and emits an XCode project that's ready to build.
Of course, that means you can't do something like write in Scheme that compiles to C, either. Or for that matter, generate any code, really. If you're going to target the iPhone, you'll write all your C, C++, and Objective C code by hand like a real man, buster, and you'll like it.
Tweet, tweet.
Even when Adobe put their tools out for Windows
What you gloss over is that Adobe has gradually moved from a Mac-only developer, to a primarily Mac developer with some products on Windows, to a primarily Windows developer with some Mac products. Yes, (most of) the current Adobe lineup runs on OS X, but most of it (including Flash Player) are ugly, buggy, and slow.
Adobe has been screwing Apple's old sorority sister for years. Now Apple is throwing Adobe out of the apartment.
Just like the AJAX revolution but hopefully this one will go farther than a few web apps and a thousand headlines.
The Javascript revolutionaries will be in big trouble if Adobe actually fixes Flash which will probably happen long before HTML 5 is even close to comparable as an api.
that Adobe Photoshop is indeed a steaming POS. The features are decent but the MacOS 8-era interface is worse than horrible. Also agree that GIMP is no better in that regard, though in a different direction. Corel suite is the dark horse in that contest, mostly due to using a sensible, fast interface that uses the OS's own GUI toolkit (for the most part), and doesn't try to make every damn thing a layer just to manipulate it like a brush or an object. Also, Powerclip rocks.
There was a period where you only bought a Mac if you were a die-hard fan willing to go any length for the company or a creative professional. Before OS X took off creative professionals were the only business group that Apple could depend on. Without MS Office the Mac was a no-sale for just about every type of professional. Even today there is still a lingering perception among graphic artists that if you are going to run Adobe software you are better off getting a Mac.
Apple is snubbing one of their oldest partners which isn't wise given how much Adobe software is purchased by OS X users. It wouldn't surprise me at all if their creative suite for OS X jumps in price in the next few years or gets feature delayed.
"No third party programs can us video acceleration on OSX."
Ummm... more accurate to say that third party programs can't directly access the video hardware (and accelerators). But third-party programs use OpenGL and Core Animation and Quicktime and OpenCL all of the time, and all of those are accelerated.
And I'm willing to bet that giving Flash direct access to the hardware would have blocked future product development by Apple. Or at least made it much more difficult. Did you notice the discrete GPU switching and battery savings in the new MacBook Pros? That kind of thing is possible only because the OS is between the applications and the hardware allocating and controlling access to physical resources...
Which is the job of the OS, after all.
Besides, Flash video is just a red herring, as it still fails to explain why Flash sucks at something as basic as handling simple animation. A few web pages with Flash ads can pull my MBP battery life down by HOURS.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
There's a really interesting blog post I read recently that give more detail on the history of the relationship between Adobe and Apple. It walks the timeline from a decision Adobe made in 1996 (the birth of Mac OS X) to drop Apple as their primary development platform and move to Windows. Subsequently, every new application or major revision of an Adobe product was introduced for Windows first and followed months later, sometimes never at all, by a Mac version (I pinched some of that from the article).
You can read the full story here
Personally I have no sympathy for Adobe. As someone who now browses using Chrome with the FlashBlock extension installed, and having witnessed first hand the wonderful effect that has had on my laptop battery life, plus the reduced heat under my palms I sincerely hope I never cross paths with them again.
from doing the Flash to iphone porting.
Let's say that Adobe is wildly successfull and 10%+ of the available iphone apps are flash converts. ( I could easily see 50K flash ports )
Then say Apple wants to change the way they do things in OS 5 or 6 which will break all those apps.
Apple will be at the mercy of Adobe to update their software to work on the new OS or those apps won't work. ( Adobe seems to be on a 2 year release schedule )
If all the programs are written in Objective C, all Apple needs to do is update the compiler ( which they control ) and all the apps can be ported to the new OS without issue.
I understand exactly what happened; I just don't care.
And in turn, I don't care that you don't care. I do care, however, that you made a post that indicates and propogates misunderstanding about the matter.
"Adobe is angry that Apple won't start supporting an app that it's never supported on its other portable platforms".
Perhaps you should stop posting on the topic until you can bring yourself to care enough to make statements that are accurate.
And I still stand by my assertion that buying a iPhone for the explicit purpose of running Flash apps is a fundamentally bad decision.
We're not talking about Flash apps. We're talking about iPhone apps.
Tweet, tweet.
Actually, the commenter linked to in OP did not get it quite right.
.gif? There is a very real danger of the same thing happening to h.264, too. If we are going to promote open standards, then we should support FREE and open standards. h.264 is actually no less proprietary than Flash.
I did a search of the comments and I did not see anywhere where anyone else mentioned the fact that h.264 is NOT an "open standard".
Contrary to popular belief, h.264 is proprietary. The "owners" of it are allowing us to use it for now, but there has never been any guarantee -- or even promise -- that it would still be free tomorrow.
Remember what happened to
Guys, can we please just kill the verb "support" now please? Some people think that word means "implement." Some people think it might mean "maintain." Some people think it means "endorse" (that's pretty damn loose, but ok). And for some reason, a lot of people these days think it means "allow."
Apple usage of the word "support" briefly meant that they would not allow certain things in their own store. That's a very weird and seemingly dishoneset usage, but with the Reality Distortion Field and all that, well, it's not that radical. But now it means they'll ultimately go to court to prevent people from doing something. O
Once it gets to the second stage, "support" and "allow" are different enough that not even the dumbest most illiterate people could think the two words even remotely mean vaguely similar things.
So I don't get why people still think they're synonyms. But if people are going to abuse "support" like that, then I think we just need to totally kill the word so that people won't keep talking past each other. The word has so little meaning, that different people can say things that look like complete antonyms, and neither one will be exactly lying (though one will be near illiterate) so they can't quite get called on their bullshit. Once we remove the weasel word "support" from the language, then imagine how Just Some Guy would be able to write the parent post without either lying or admitting that Apple sucks and anyone who would buy their stuff would have to be stupid. It just wouldn't be possible. So, c'mon, for the sake of honest discussion: DEATH TO "SUPPORT!" The word has outlived its usefulness.
oh ya, thats because i won't install it.
serously i don't need flash games, and i don't need flash ads.
what else is flash used for?
Be seeing you...
obscured but clever. They are trying to force adobe into stopping design studio products for the mac. This way Apple can look like heroes when they release their latest and greatest competition and corner the market on designers everywhere. If Apple just launches it, they look like the asshole. It's kind of like getting your employee to quit because it doesn't make you look like the ogre.
So what happens when Apple needs to change an API and it breaks everyone's $6000 CS5 suite and every app that was compiled with it? Do you think the first thing Apple's customers are going to do is write an angry letter to Adobe asking them to please hurry up and correct their linker so that developers and recompile their code and push a new version of their app out to the store as soon as possible?
No, they're all going to call Apple and be like "WTF MAN I DID THE UPDATE AND MY APPS ARE GONE I WANT YOU TO REFUND ME FOR MY APPZ NOW!!!!". It costs money to take all those pointless phone calls, answer all those pointless emails, and deal with all those pointless BBB filings over something that Apple has no control over because Adobe needs to update CS5 and then developers need to recompile and then upload and then Apple has to re-evaluate and re-release and everyone has to download before things are fixed.
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
the answer of the old question about what really happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object.
And I still stand by my assertion that buying a iPhone for the explicit purpose of running Flash apps is a fundamentally bad decision
Right you are. I've had an iPod Touch, an iPhone and a whole string of other mobile phones none of whom supported Adobe Flash. As far as I am concerned the absence of Flash is a feature, not a shortcoming.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
It would be very funny if Adobe, just for spite, decided to stop making it's high end graphic design products compatible with Apple hardware.
This would fall squarely under the domain of the old saying about cutting off your nose to spite your face. The fact is, that aspect of the Adobe-Apple relationship is symbiotic. Apple's market has expanded beyond creatives, so it's not as strong a tie as it used to be, but that market is still profitable for both of them.
The other thing is, Adobe has plenty of other options. Here's what I'd do if I were running the company:
1) Hit other mobile platforms *hard*. Their public statements suggest they're doing this, but they need to make sure Flash Player 10.1 mobile is tight, doesn't take much longer to come to market, and supports as many features of the desktop runtime as possible.
2) Target HTML5. Again, they're doing this. But they could be doing more. For example, you may or may not know that an iPhone owner can actually cache an HTML5 app encountered on the web via Mobile Safari to their homescreen for offline use (in fact, this was originally the only blessed method of creating third-party iPhone apps). While this isn't an ideal method of taking advantage of the full capabilities of the device (no way to access geolocation features, accelerometer, and contacts, limited audio API, and you're running interpreted rather than native code), there's no gatekeeper. Particularly since Trudy Muller apparently just publicly reaffirmed Apple's commitment to HTML5, they could have CS5 target that. Heck, they could run their own App Gallery or Store that people visit through Safari. Now that could get interesting. Would Apple stay committed to HTML5 -- or would their QC impulses and control issues override that commitment?
3) Target OpenGLES/C/XCode. Personally, I think it'd be interesting to see whether Apple is really going to stick to their apparent policy of "originally" written Obj/C/++ code and if they're really going to go after libraries. If CS5 essentially generated a library that could be used in an XCode project, it'd be stepping into a grey area. I have no doubt that Apple has the disposition and capacity to selectively apply the 3.3.1 license clauses to single out Adobe and apps created in that way... but they'd have to at a minimum invest in a program to fingerprint binaries for something like this, or demand source inspection as a condition of approval, and continue to invest in PR to offset the problems here.
4) Continue to improve Flash as a Content Creation Tool.
#2 and #3 are risky. Particularly #3, of course -- Apple's at their most capricious as a gatekeeper, but even #2 is. It wouldn't surprise me at all to see Apple remove the ability to save HTML5 apps to the homescreen for offline use if they ever got a whiff of the notion that people would see it as a viable alternative. The PR fallout would be bigger, but ultimately, I think they don't care and won't care as long as they're as competitive as they are right now in the smartphone market. So what does Adobe announce? A strategy that's pretty much #1 and #4. No surprise. I'd love to see 'em go for the gusto, but the fact is that all of these approaches require investment, and nobody wants to put big investments in something that might be pissed down the drain by a capricious partner.
Tweet, tweet.
So what happens when Apple needs to change an API and it breaks everyone's $6000 CS5 suite and every app that was compiled with it?
Apple's changes to its mobile platform are going to break a desktop app?
Okay, I don't know what you're smoking there, but let's address the idea of concerns about forward direction of the platform and third-party compilers.
First of all, if we're talking about the APIs, particularly the documented APIs, then Adobe's compiler isn't going to have a problem that every iPhone app is going to have when it's time to move them on. An app built in XCode that relies APIs that go away or change is going to have to be re-built using new APIs as surely as an app built in Flash is.
If we're talking about changes at the binary level that aren't really about library calls -- opcodes, data alignment and bit/byte order, stuff like that, or even stuff related to how the code executes in the context of the operating system -- then yeah, you have a genuine point. But the thing is, if that's the central concern, then all Apple has to do is require people to build their final binaries with Apple's toolchain. Make it a policy that third-party tools have to use XCode as an intermediate target.
Of course, as I pointed out, rather than making it a policy, Apple outright bans it as an option. Which would seem to imply this isn't a QC/compatibility issue. It's a control issue.
Tweet, tweet.
seriously now, this won't be just another apple tv, cube or air, the ipad is a huge blunder and leaving out flash may be acceptable to some iphone users, who are capable of convincing themselves of anything, but allow me to introduce you to the "rest of the world" - these folk just want their websites to work, and like it or not, flash is the defacto standard for web animation.
ffs its the most distributed piece of software in history!!!! he really has allowed greed and malice to get the better of himself this time, and its beginning to show.
forget the missing gps, the missing usb, the laughable battery life when compared to ebook readers. only an apple fanboy could buy this stinker.
even with 100,000 times the number of apple fans on this site it still wouldn't wash with people who just to do what they need to do on the web.
i reckon this will be jobs' legacy, to take on adobe, google and microsoft and inevitably, to lose badly.
when jobs was presenting the ipad he looked quite gaunt and unwell to me - i think he knows he's running out of time, and maybe he wants to go down in flames. its looking that way.
Seeing one closed off, 'play by our rules or gtfo' company, whining about another closed off 'play by our rules or gtfo' company is golden.
Flash has some particularly closed bits (client-server communication protocols and Sorenson codecs, IIRC), but in general, it's relatively open. SWF has a published (though arguably incomplete) format.
You could theoretically implement your own version of their runtime, though that's proven difficult, but implementing other tools which target Adobe's runtime is not only allowed, it's been done with MTASC and Ming and a handful of others. And the basic Flex SDK is open source.
Not to mention that Adobe doesn't insert itself between developers and deployment, and they've done plenty to signal that when the HTML 5 revolution arrives, they're happy to target that as well.
All in all, they're doing pretty well on the "openness." And they're almost inarguably doing more to reassure the world they're committed to a growing platforms where developers have options than Apple is.
Tweet, tweet.
Unfortunately, they're just bundling the Flash VM in an app with the bytecode for the app.
Do you have a cite for that? While this isn't necessarily incompatible with Adobe's statements that "CS5 build[s] applications for iPhone that are then installed as native applications", this isn't the word on the street (which is that the bytecode doesn't run on a VM but is actually targeted to native code).
Tweet, tweet.
It's been 13 years and they still haven't done it lock, stock and barrel.
They did with CS5, and Apple's chosen a curious way to welcome them to the finish line.
The iPhone OS platform isn't going to be held back like the OS X Cocoa proper platform.
You know the funny thing is, this may be about a relationship soured by Adobe camping out on Carbon, but it's certainly not about policies that are going to help Apple avoid that problem in the future. The fact is, the deprecated Carbon APIs and aging codebase of today is the blessed API and freshly-updated C/C++ source of yesterday. And today's approved APIs and fresh Obj/C/++ code are tomorrow's deprecated API and legacy codebase. If anybody ever produces something that embodies the killer app for Apple's mobile platform as fully as these media creation and publishing tools did for Apple's Desktop, Apple's insistence on some particular API today isn't going to have an extra ounce of power to move the third party along to another one.
And then there's the fact that they're apparently prohibiting XCode as an intermediate target, which can't have a thing to do with your argument.
Tweet, tweet.
if Adobe actually fixes Flash which will probably happen long before HTML 5 is even close to comparable as an api.
No if there. Flash has poor performance is because it has no real competitor. You can be sure that bug fixing in Flash will closely following the development of HTML 5.
I went & read his blog & made several comments.
Nothing rude or inflammatory but direct to the point.
Result?
This chambers guy deletes out any pro apple comments from his blog entry.
Nuff said?
Adobe is a LAZY company. Full of lazy (if not outright stupid) people that sit on cash cows like Photoshop while at the same time never think about innovations again.
Where is my 64-bit flash again?
Why the adobe update prompts me there is an update but after I click OK it just tells me it failed, EVERY f**king TIME?
For companies like Apple that rely on innovation and delivering products that people actually want (I never bought an Apple product except two ipods as presents, but I can see why people like them), stay away from companies like Adobe. They'll drag you down to hell.
"Adobe isn't totally removed from these technologies, however: its Flash Player includes H.264 support, and its AIR technology has built-in HTML and CSS support through inclusion of the WebKit browser on which Apple's Safari is based."
What a stupid thing to say. Clearly the writer either doesn't understand technology, or is attempting to make nice with Adobe. The tone of the article implies the latter.
That was awfully nice of them... maybe soon they'll stop developing for everything else, too.
there is only 1 reason to have flash on a iphone. and that's so all video sites work. but i don't blame flash for this theirs other formats out there sites can use. html5 being the newest and best and guess what the iphone supports it. but sites keep using the cpu hogging flash dispite the advances in other formats. even sitees that are still using flash like youtube they have iphone versions of there sites. and many sites have free apps to make the iphone work like tv.com point is if a website is eyther to lazy to make a app or have html5 version of the site for the iphone then its not apples or flashes fult.
Flash is where most of the content is on the web. Like it or not, you have to deal with that. Apple is not going to force all the existing content into HTML 5 so kindly stop with the incoherent fanboy ranting. Content is far more important then innovation, I can list a dozen innovations that went nowhere because they were too incompatible.
and clean the froth off your keyboard.
The GP is 100% right, as soon as flash is available on Android handsets people will use Flash for mobile gaming, watching video's and what not. Google doesnt care about this as they dont want (or care if) their customers are beholden to Itunes. Apple on the other hand wants its customers to be beholden to their revenue stream.
A future without a past is not a future. With flash and HTML5 I have the past, present and future of the web, not a limited subset of it.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
The move comes after Apple put out a new draft of its iPhone developer program license, which banned private APIs[...]
This had better mean "Privately developed APIs", not "APIs developed by Apple or included in the SDK". Having never used it I could be wrong, but I'm willing to bet the SDK doesn't include Newton, Bullet, or ODE. What if I want to use Irrlicht to make a game? Does that count as a private API? and if so, are developers expected to create their own engines from scratch?
I guess this spells doom for Unity3D(they've been proud of their "cross-platform" capabilities, although the devs are oddly disdainful of suggestions that they support Linux) and MonoTouch. Out of a mixture of curiosity and ignorance, what does Apple gain by forcing developers to use their specified programming languages and APIs? It seems to me that attracting varied types of developers only serves to broaden the marketplace, and shouldn't be treated as something to be squashed. Am I missing something here?
I see it as a war of two close-source technology with its own policy. Let them fight, we all will be using HTML5 and SVG very soon anyways.
Adobe isn't ending iPhone development. They'll still produce their own iPhone apps.
They're just ending development on their Flash recompiler. (Which is kinda silly, I think, as they could probably salvage the work somewhat by modifying it to turn Flash apps into standalone OS X apps.)
September 2011: Looking for Cocoa/iOS work in Boston area Cocoa Programmer Quincy, MA
Adobe is in a relationship with Google and it's complicated.
Well, maybe they're similar in concept (Monotouch compiles to native bytecode, just like Adobe was planning to do).
However, the philosophies underlying the Monotouch and Adobe approaches are very different. With the CS5 compiler, Adobe was trying to provide an easy way for flash developers to port their flash content originally written somewhere else.
With Monotouch and Unity3D, most apps written with those tools aren't ports at all but are original,iphone exclusive apps. Check out the monotouch and unity app galleries. Most of the games for iphone aren't ports at all, and the unity games particularly appear to have a higher level of polish that your typical iphone games.
Monotouch uses the same UI builders and OS widgets that xcode/cocoatouch does. They aren't trying to *hide* the specifics of the platform (with exception of the programming language itself). On the other hand, CS5 was/is all about porting your existing flash apps -- maybe there's some iphone specific piece but for the most past you write to adobe's ui widgets.
Hopefully Apple will support open source alternatives.
I found this blog post very insightful: (Why Steve Jobs will never put adobe flash on iPhone OS devices) http://franciscokattan.com/2010/03/07/why-steve-jobs-will-never-put-adobe-flash-on-iphone-os-devices/
- Mad, ingenous - they've both left you puzzled -
I'm happy that apple refuse non-native apps on the iPhone whatever the reason.
Using flash or java to create apps is an easy way to make money without taking care of the device specs (thus without taking care of the consumer).
Just like games that are common to many platforms. they use lowest common denominator. The result is often crap. (not to speak about intermediate layers (flash machine, java machine) that drains batteries.
As for Adobe, their technology is crap. If they want to prove I'm wrong, then they just have to release the 64bits version of flash. More than 2 years of 64bits BETA version only available for linux... What a shame!
Today, most sold computers have 64bits processors but are shipped with 32bits windows because of the lack of 64bits flash. what a shame!
And at last: flash is used 99% if not 100% for Ads. So that is not a big loss for iPhone which has apps for the rare sites that use flash for non-Ads purpose.(more over those apps adds support for iphone sensors like GPS. a native meteo app that 1st look where you sit before querying the weather is far far better than a browser that runs a flash app that ask where do you live to deliver weather).
As for comparing iPhone OS and androïd regarding native apps (iPhone) and virtual machines apps (androïd:java and flash). Just compare 3D games. both platforms have comparable hardwares, but when it comes to iPhones games, the reactivity, the 3D rendering, the smoothness are lightyears ahead Androïd java/flash games (which, for easy of proting, represent the majority of games).
That should be then a there a reason for UK people not to buy any Apple devices.
Why doesn't Adobe create a version of Flash that takes an XCode project and emit an FLA file?
Like anyone can even know that
Although there are certainly some technical issues with Flash in mobile, this was a calculated business decision by Steve Jobs. Technical issues are only excuses by the Apple camp. Apple decided to ban Flash because the Flash Platform would hurt Apple's ability to differentiate its devices. Check out this perspective: http://franciscokattan.com/2010/03/07/why-steve-jobs-will-never-put-adobe-flash-on-iphone-os-devices/ Note also the reasons behind Apple's support for HTML5 in the comment thread (despite the fact that HTML5 would also tend to hurt the iPhone's ability to differentiate). Although I'm a former Adobe mobile employee, this post represents only my personal opinion.
For a company as paranoid and legally abusive as Apple to make any claim that something that goes on the iPhone, iPad, ad nauseum must not be proprietary would be laughable if it wasn't true.
Adobe did not port Photoshop, BUT they do have Lightroom which is a fantastic product! I have been using it since Version 1.0, and it is ready to enter version 3 (beta testing now)... and I will upgrade to that one too! If you use a digital camera, esp. one that produces RAW format images, you should not be without Adobe Lightroom!
I just installed a game onto my iPad from a Linux-based server, run by a developer who created the game on a Linux workstation, using free tools, and wrote it to the open HTML5 API. The game not only runs on iPad, but also iPhone/iPod, other mobiles, and on the desktop: Safari, Chrome, Firefox, Opera, and IE-with-Chrome-Frame. It runs from local storage, doesn't need a Web connection, and on iPhone OS the icon appears on the home screen next to App Store apps. Of course HTML5 apps are not managed by Apple, they have no involvement other than they built the device and the open source WebKit engine. The developer may not even own an Apple device, but he's making great apps for Apple users.
What Adobe is saying to that developer is: to be more open, buy Windows ($399) and Flash ($599) and recode your game from the open HTML5 API to proprietary Flash API, deploy it as a Flash binary, and it will run in some versions of FlashPlayer on Mac and PC, and no mobiles.
If you're buying that bullshit, then you don't know WTF you are talking about.
The iPad is overflowing with video and with games. It's not obvious on a PC, but many, many Flash-based sites are detecting iPad and showing HTML5-based content. So where you may imagine that we're seeing gaping holes, we're not. I watched the CEO of Adobe in a video on the Fox Business Report website explain that iPhone OS users can't see video on the Fox Business Report website because Steve Jobs is a bad man. But I was watching that on my iPhone. The Adobe CEO doesn't get that the Web has been on mobiles for 3 years and there's no FlashPlayer. Websites have adapted already. An Adobe evangelist, the same one who said "screw you, Apple" put together a list of 10 websites iPad users can't view, but when tested, it turned out 8 of the 10 could be viewed not just on iPad but also iPhone. Adobe is just in deep denial about the world's need for Flash.
So the lack of Flash on iPad has been good for Linux, good for the Web, and good for iPad users.
And it's not like we have a choice anyway: there is no fucking FlashPlayer for mobiles. It simply doesn't exist. Even if Steve Jobs was a rabid Flash fan, the thing simply does not run on ARM yet. All the Apple bashing Adobe is doing is trademark denial.
Was your comment supposed to be intelligent, crashDOUCHE? Clue - it's not, you brainless waste of sperm. Your father would have done better (if you know who he was, but I doubt it as your ho mama probably bopped every man around for a nickel a pop, lol) if he shot his wad on the floor instead of up your stank mama's twat.