Fallout From Apple's Exclusion of Flash-to-iPhone Export Continues

[MacRumors]

Apple's decision to alter its iPhone developer licensing agreement yesterday to apparently exclude such offerings as Adobe's forthcoming Packager function of Flash Professional CS5 that would allow developers to export Flash content into the native iPhone format has continued to rumble throughout the industry today, with voices weighing in from all over about the impact of the decision and Apple's motivation for making the change.

Lee Brimelow, a "platform evangelist" for Adobe shares his thoughts (via TiPb) on his semi-official TheFlashBlog, referring to Apple's decision as a slap in the face to developers.

What they are saying is that they won't allow applications onto their marketplace solely because of what language was originally used to create them. This is a frightening move that has no rational defense other than wanting tyrannical control over developers and more importantly, wanting to use developers as pawns in their crusade against Adobe.

An additional claim that "Apple has timed this purposely to hurt sales of CS5" has been redacted from Brimelow's blog entry at the request of Adobe, but not before it was captured by TiPb. Adobe's Creative Suite 5, of which Flash Professional CS5 will be a part, is scheduled for introduction next Monday.

Brimelow notes that he has decided to boycott Apple products "until there is a leadership change over there" and states in no uncertain terms how he feels about the situation.

Now let me put aside my role as an official representative of Adobe for a moment as I would look to make it clear what is going through my mind at the moment. Go screw yourself Apple.

But whether Apple's move is solely a shot directed at Adobe as Brimelow and others have contended appears to be up for debate, as AppleInsider notes that it may have more to do with the multitasking features being deployed in iPhone OS 4.

The primary reason for the change, say sources familiar with Apple's plans, is to support sophisticated new multitasking APIs in iPhone 4.0. The system will now be evaluating apps as they run in order to implement smart multitasking. It can't do this if apps are running within a runtime or are cross compiled with a foreign structure that doesn't behave identically to a native C/C++/Obj-C app.

"[The operating system] can't swap out resources, it can't pause some threads while allowing others to run, it can't selectively notify, etc. Apple needs full access to a properly-compiled app to do the pull off the tricks they are with this new OS," wrote one reader under the name Ktappe.

Whatever the reason for Apple's adjustment of its licensing terms, tempers are certainly flaring in the protracted dispute between the two companies.

Article Link: Fallout From Apple's Exclusion of Flash-to-iPhone Export Continues

[Grimace]

I love it! Let the war begin!

Your proprietary platform is not as cool as my proprietary platform!

[mk_in_mke]

I read pro flash, pro HTML5... users are between the rock and the hard place... May this forum and the related post bring us the real reasons behind the fight... Is Apple Right? Is Html5 the new standard? Is Flash a resource hog? Guys thanks for helping

[NebulaClash]

Typical lies:

What they are saying is that they won't allow applications onto their marketplace solely because of what language was originally used to create them. This is a frightening move that has no rational defense other than wanting tyrannical control over developers and more importantly, wanting to use developers as pawns in their crusade against Adobe.

No, there is indeed a rational defense for this stance: Flash is a proprietary standard controlled by a single company that Apple has no say over. HTML 5, in contrast, is an open standard that anyone can use.

Here's another rational defense: Unless you are very careful in your development, Flash is a resource hog that would downgrade many user's experiences. Moving to HMTL 5 is a better choice.

You may disagree with both thoughts, but they are not irrational even if you disagree. So he lied.

[miles01110]

If I was Adobe I'd be removing Mr. Brimelow as an "official representative of Adobe." It's one thing to be unhappy, it's another to go on a childish rant capped off with a "go screw yourself." Someone hasn't graduated from high school yet...

[Colrath]

Is Adobe being a sore loser?

First it's the, "You can't live without us."

Now this?

[chatin]

Apple making all the right DRM moves to ensure quality content.

[marksman]

I like that his rant got censored by Adobe. HAHA.

If Adobe was smart they would remove the whole blog. Maybe even fire the guy. It is not his position to be antagonistic towards Apple. He made a big mistake and stepped out of line.

[Great Dave]

Originally Posted by Grimace

I love it! Let the war begin!
...

I hate it!

I do think that Apple is acting in a monopolistic, tyrannical way.

Wait.. maybe I shouldn't say that... Apple legal might stop me.

[justinfreid]

I'm sure Apple can make a (shaky) technical case for its insistence that developer's use only in house tools, but that begs the question: Is it right to put developers in such a position, where the load of implementing Apple's version of multitasking is on their shoulders?

[BaronStein]

I could've understood Adobe if they were right. But then truth is, flash definitely sucks. A performance hog and most importantly is the main reason for web dirtiness. I'm not a fanboy, just a guy who has definitely witnessed Flash's unnecessity.

Go screw yourself Lee Brimelow...

[Ganesha]

If Adobe build some great HTML5 tools it will make billions.

[gt1948]

heard when they are shipping the 3G iPad?

[Drag'nGT]

Why does Adobe act like developers can't write in Obj C, C, C++? They act like Flash should always be the standard when it's the most in need of being overhauled to the point it's a completely new product.

[timtom10001]

I was wondering, will the iPad be the end of flash? Or will Flash but an end to the iPad and down the road the end for apple?

I mean it's foolish to think that adobe alone will hurt Apple's market/revenue, but as designers and advertisers move away form macs due to it's lack of support for Adobe people will migrate...

I know people will start saying "look at the iphone and ipod with no flash support", but down the road someone will have to give...

What do you think? who will eventually give in?

[Ochyandkaren]

Good reason for him to switch back to Windows.
AH!


… To developers?
Or to one-sighted Flash developers.

Good riddance!

What a tantrum! Want to make money out of the iPhone?
Go make your phone and arm it with Flash.

[strike1555]

What many buffoons who defend Apple cannot seem to understand (and don't know the first thing about programming, so their opinion shouldn't really count anyways), is that the effect of this is far beyond just flash. Phonegap, Unity, eg....are also all gone.


Adobe should "accidentally" release a jailbroken flash and pull ALL mac products off the shelf and restrict support.

Then laugh as Apple sales plummet.

[Art Mark]

Personally I don't really like Flash, as a Dev environment or whatever they are calling their scripting environment now.

I have not had one issue with my iPhone or my iPad where I have hit something I wanted that was in Flash. And I think THAT is what makes Adobe freak out. They have been very busy trying to convince the world that the web isn't the Web unless you run their script-kiddy productions. And a lot of so-so talent has bought in and created an economy built on charging large sums to reexport Flash games to various clients.

The truth will be obvious. Either the Apple products are failing in the marketplace because they lack Flash support or Flash isn't REALLY that important to the Internet. At least not as important as Adobe wants it to be.

[Great Dave]

Originally Posted by NebulaClash

Typical lies:

No, there is indeed a rational defense for this stance: Flash is a proprietary standard controlled by a single company that Apple has no say over. HTML 5, in contrast, is an open standard that anyone can use.

....

Look, I am not a Flash fan either, but...

Adobe hasn't closed down Flash so much to only support development on Adobe's platform...

You can create Flash files in a number of programs - Corel, Swish, Swift, etc.
There used to be several open source development projects to to replace Flash Generator, Flash Server, etc.

Adobe never threatened to sue them or lock them out.

Apple closing off developers and saying you can only use what Apple says, sucks!

[codo]

Too bad for Adobe, really.

I'll maybe have some sort of sympathy for them when Flash on OS X isn't utterly repulsive. See you then, Adobe.

[Ochyandkaren]

Originally Posted by mk_in_mke

I read pro flash, pro HTML5... users are between the rock and the hard place... May this forum and the related post bring us the real reasons behind the fight... Is Apple Right? Is Html5 the new standard? Is Flash a resource hog? Guys thanks for helping

… Like when people will fight for THEIR interest?

 and Adobe are fighting for theirs.

At least  offers a free weapon (HTML5, Javascript, C++. …), why Adobe cannot do the same?

[spatical]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7D11 Safari/528.16)

If there really are some particular aspects of a non-apple approved language or development tool, then why not specify those aspects and require apps to meet those specifications.

A complete dis-qualifaction of all other methods of building apps will surely stop some developers from making iPhone/ipad apps. Doesn't Apple boost the high number of apps every News event? This seems to go against their ideal of making iPhone apps easy to write.

[bspero]

Hey all,
I think people are not getting what this means. It is not about running Flash on the iPhone. Nebula, Baron, etc. are talking about a totally different issue. This is about using the Flash IDE to build native iPhone applications. Not Flash running in a browser. It's about mandating that you use certain development tools to create a product. Like, mandating that somebody use the Flash IDE to create .swfs or something. I can't deny that there may be some technical reason behind this that we don't know about, but with CS5 planned for a demo on Monday, it really is just pissing on Adobe. Rather than coordinating with them to help more people build applications, they are blindsiding them and deliberately derailing plans for their new CS5 suite. It really does suck.

[Drag'nGT]

Originally Posted by timtom10001

I was wondering, will the iPad be the end of flash? Or will Flash but an end to the iPad and down the road the end for apple?

I mean it's foolish to think that adobe alone will hurt Apple's market/revenue, but as designers and advertisers move away form macs due to it's lack of support for Adobe people will migrate...

I know people will start saying "look at the iphone and ipod with no flash support", but down the road someone will have to give...

What do you think? who will eventually give in?

Apple will win. Look how many iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad owners obviously don't care about Flash. Look at how the market has moved based on what consumers buy. With Apple's current line of products and the volume of customers, we (consumers) will dictate what the developers will need to learn in order to write their paychecks.

I hate to see technology (real technology) come to a dead crawl because of people's stubbornness to change.

[GoodWatch]

Resistance is futile.......