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."

11 of 497 comments (clear)

  1. Adobe has invoked the anger of Father Steve by elrous0 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.
  2. Is there a downside? by Just+Some+Guy · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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?
  3. Re:Apple is the lesser of two evils here by MobyDisk · · Score: 3, Insightful

    by forcing people into HTML5,

    This has nothing to do with HTML5. This is about Adobe compiling Flash to objective-C.

  4. Re:Does anyone care about Flash on the iPhone? by balbus000 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Exactly.

    People don't care about Flash, and they don't care about an open app store. The iPhone does what they want it to do.

    I don't care that I had to mod my original X-Box so that I could run XBMC, watch DVDs without buying the remote, or backup my games to run off the harddrive. At the time of the purchase, I was aware of the features (and limitations) of what I was buying. I have an iPhone and don't want an Android. I use the web browser to look up things randomly, IMDB movies, listen to Pandora, etc. What am I missing out on? If I need anything else, I have a perfectly capable desktop and laptop.

    I'm not trying to flame, can someone answer: What kind of apps do you use on the Android that aren't available on the iPhone, but are so important that you have to use them immediately, and can't wait until you're back on a desktop/laptop? (But of course if you can answer that question, then buy an Android, ignore the iPhone and move on)

  5. To quote by jvillain · · Score: 4, Insightful

    When your enemies are fighting. Don't interrupt them.

  6. Re:Hilarity by Achromatic1978 · · Score: 4, Insightful
    I love how you mentioned Aperture and Final Cut, and forgot the three, three-and-a-half elephants in the room, InDesign, which is far and away pretty much the only page layout game in town, Illustrator, Flash (for many graphic designers are required to work extensively, if not exclusively, with Flash, whatever the average Slashdot geek might fume about)... oh, what was that other one you didn't mention... oh yeah...

    Photoshop.

    Yeah, if there was no Photoshop for Mac, millions of designers would ditch the foremost image edit suite in the world for what, exactly? Or would they ditch Mac? "Adobe screwed", indeed... *eyeroll*

  7. Re:Apple slows down innovation on all fronts by je+ne+sais+quoi · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Really? REALLY?! You're trying to tell me that flash is innovation on the web?! FLASH!?! Are you high? Your comment is entirely devoid of any reason and sanity. Do you know who developed webkit? It was Apple, they forked konqueror. Now webkit runs half the browsers out there. Safari, which also runs on webkit, is, in their words:

    The first browser to support HTML5 audio and video tags, Safari helps developers create media-rich sites that don't require additional plug-ins.

    From where I sit, html5 is the innovation and the future of the web here, flash is holding innovation up because it's being forced to do things it was never designed to do. Apple is pushing the world forward by releasing us fro relying on a plugin that relies on a single manufacturer, i.e., Adobe.

    --
    Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the war room!
  8. Re:Adobe also said... by diamondsw · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This! (Where are mod points when I need them?)

    Apple has always been very clear about not allowing non-native frameworks on the iPhone OS - they've disallowed all interpreted code since the introduction of the first SDK (no Java, Flash, .Net, and so forth). Adobe tried to pull an end run by precompiling the Flash - and Apple said no. Bitchy and controlling perhaps, but not unexpected in the least. Anyone who pinned their hopes or business on this was a fool.

    What I've wondered throughout all of this is what Adobe's executives were doing all this time. Either:
    1) Having discussions with Apple, and ignoring Apple's response ("no"),
    2) Ignoring Apple entirely because they saw no concern with the plan, or
    3) Ignoring Apple because they knew the answer was "no", but thought they could force Apple into a corner.

    No matter how you slice it, Adobe was foolish to pursue this in the first place - Apple is not going to cede control of this platform, for better or worse. In many way's it's similar to Palm's antics last year syncing the Pre with iTunes by masquerading as an iPod. They had to have known it was an extremely risky idea, and instead of doing things the Approved Way, they played a game of brinkmanship with their user base.

    --
    I don't know what kind of crack I was on, but I suspect it was decaf.
  9. Re:Adobe also said... by Dr+Herbert+West · · Score: 3, Insightful

    right... because no one has ever designed a Flash app optimized for touch screen. Guh.

  10. Re:Hallelujah! by Enderandrew · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Everytime someone complains that Flash is terrible on Linux, I have to remind people that Flash is just terrible on every platform.

    --
    http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
  11. We're talking about iPhone apps. by weston · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.