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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."

6 of 497 comments (clear)

  1. Appedot : Suck My Cock, Stuff That Matters by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    Fucking your dead great grandmother while jacking off Steve Jobs!

  2. 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.
  3. 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.

  4. Re:Adobe also said... by nine-times · · Score: -1, Troll

    Yeah, pro-Flash and anti-Apple people talk as though Flash is a stable and established standard component of any mobile platform, and has been for years.

    In truth, there's a crippled version of Flash that has been running on some mobile devices for a couple years. Adobe is planning to release something better soon, but at this point, Flash stinks on every platform except the Windows desktop. After a couple years of Apple refusing to put the Flash player on any mobile devices because (among other reasons) Steve Jobs thinks it's a buggy, bloated, power-draining POS, Adobe proceeds to think up a plan which would have Flash developers submitting their Flash applications to Apple with a copy of the Flash player embedded. They don't bother to consult Apple first.

    It doesn't take a genius to guess what comes next. It's not surprising that they stopped development; it's surprising that they started development in the first place. I wouldn't be surprised if this is all a ploy by Adobe to get real Flash support on the iPhone. If Apple had accepted these Flash apps, then Adobe would have grounds to say, "See? You already have Flash running on the iPhone. Just expand support a little." Since Apple has rejected the whole plan, Adobe can complain about how close Apple is.

    Not that I approve of Apple's closed stance on the iPhone. It's just that, if you ask me, this is just two large companies vying for control over your computing experience. Adobe wants to create a massive metaplatform of Flash and PDF that runs on everything, and puts them in control over everything. Apple instead wants to retain control over their own devices..

  5. 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.