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Adobe Stops Development For iPhone

Posted by timothy on from the flash-in-the-pad dept.

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."

4 of 497 comments (clear)

  1. Next step... by sm284614 · · Score: 0, Troll

    Adobe discontinue all their software suites for the mac and change their updaters to uninstall everything remotely and everyone is very sad.

    1. Re:Next step... by CharlyFoxtrot · · Score: 1, Troll

      Don't forget the fact Adobe didn't have an intel version of Photoshop ready until well after the platform switch, basically giving Jobs the finger during a critical transition back when they were holding all the cards.

      For that matter, it's not like they have a real copy of Flash for any phone yet, let alone the iPhone. Even if Apple hadn't had prevented it, there's no real garantee it would be anything but vaporware yet.

      This is a point everybody seems to miss: Adobe don't even have a released version of Flash for Android yet (it's supposedly coming in the second half of this year) nor for Windows Mobile 6.5 or 7. The hottest tech market in years and Adobe botched it badly. The truth is they didn't give a shit about Flash for mobile devices until Apple made them hot again and they didn't have the code to push out there and capitalize on the current controversy and so they have been reduced to whining and begging through the media.

      With (Apple-backed) HTML5 now doing all kinds of cool shit Flash's days are numbered anyway (and about time too).

      --
      If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.
  2. Does anyone care about Flash on the iPhone? by jmcbain · · Score: 1, Troll

    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.

  3. Re:Something deeper by Xyde · · Score: 0, Troll
    Adobe released a feature that allows you to export an app created in Flash CS5 (not the Flash Player client) as a native iPhone app. This meant you could export an iPhone app that includes ZERO bits of Flash that could then be submitted to Apple's AppStore and appears like every other app.

    Umm, iPhone flash apps are nothing but a statically linked Flash Player binary blob -- you actually believe Flash CS5 is magically translating everything into Cocoa Touch events and native system calls? LOL. Honestly, just stop repeating this lie. How could anyone could be so brazenly disingenuous? The juxtaposition between an engineering fantasy like this vs. the cold hard reality of their demonstrated coding laziness and utter incompetence makes it completely self evident.