Adobe Acknowledges That Apple's Flash Prohibition Could Harm Business

[MacRumors]

Bloomberg reports that a new quarterly Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing from Adobe reveals for the first time that Apple's refusal to adopt Adobe's Flash platform for the iPhone and iPad could pose a material threat to Adobe's business.

The admission comes as part of the "Risk Factors" section of the report that typically offers "doom and gloom" scenarios in which the company's business could experience difficulty, but makes specific mention of Apple's potential effect on the company.

Additionally, to the extent new releases of operating systems or other third-party products, platforms or devices, such as the Apple iPhone or iPad, make it more difficult for our products to perform, and our customers are persuaded to use alternative technologies, our business could be harmed.

Bloomberg notes that earlier SEC filings from Adobe contained language noting that it wished to work with Apple on the iPhone platform but required cooperation from Apple in order to do so.

The dispute between Adobe and Apple over the inability for the iPhone, iPod touch, and now iPad to handle media in the Flash format has been well-known ever since the iPhone's original introduction in 2007, and thus it seems to be no surprise that Adobe may consider the situation at an impasse and consequently have adopted stronger language regarding the risk it poses to the company's business.

Interestingly, the filing comes just one day after Apple's iPhone OS 4 preview event alongside which the company released a modified developer licensing agreement that appears to prohibit the use of a feature in Adobe's forthcoming Flash Professional CS5 to export Flash content into the native iPhone format. Flash Professional CS5 is set to be introduced as part of Creative Suite 5 next Monday, and Adobe is reportedly looking into the change in Apple's developer licensing terms to understand how it affects the company's plans.

Article Link: Adobe Acknowledges That Apple's Flash Prohibition Could Harm Business

 

[Red Comet]

They're finally understanding what people want but it's too little too late.

 

[GFLPraxis]

Interesting. Stakeholders will want to see "risk factors" mitigated as much as possible...I wonder if Adobe is going to go to Apple and beg and plead, or start supporting a competitor heavily (Android?).

 

[sjo]

The admission comes as part of the "Risk Factors" section of the report that typically offers "doom and gloom" scenarios in which the company's business could experience difficulty, but makes specific mention of Apple's potential effect on the company

I smell yet another lawsuit brewing...

 

[Samuriajackon]

I smell yet another lawsuit brewing...

I'm gonna laugh my @ss off if Adobe goes down for this and Apple ends up consuming Adobe...

 

[MacSince1990]

Stupid Apple..

I'm gonna laugh my @ss off if Adobe goes down for this and Apple ends up consuming Adobe...

Why would that be funny? It would be another example of Apple's corporate douchery... Adobe's a decent company run by decent people.. Apple isn't.

 

[ProwlingTiger]

Maybe if Flash didn't suck so much...I wonder if Adobe will ever wake up and go, "Maybe it's us..?"

 

[Red Comet]

I smell yet another lawsuit brewing...

It's quite amusing since macromedia innovated flash long ago. It appears this acquisition is biting Adobe's sweet rump lol

 

[Peace]

They're finally understanding what people want but it's too little too late.

They're finally understanding what Apple wants. Not necessarily the people.

[edit]

I'd be willing to be if Adobe could port Flash using native Cocoa it would be allowed.

Unless it was just an advertising machine.

[/edit]

 

[TennisandMusic]

They're finally understanding what people want but it's too little too late.

Comments like this are so silly when you consider that, in general, people don't want Apple (based on sales numbers).

 

[Markov]

I honestly wish Apple would cooperate with Adobe and bring flash to the iPhone/ iPod touch/ iPad. I know the fanboy's will flame me for this one, but I honestly think Apple is too damn controlling sometimes. From what I've read, a majority of the iPhone/ iPod touch/ iPad users would be happy to have flash on their devices. I know I would...

 

[m85476585]

Good. Flash is possibly the biggest piece of bloatware ever written.

 

[ForzaJuve]

Flash drains my laptop battery

I am happy to read that others are looking into alternatives to flash because I have to admit that the cooling fan of my 2.2 GHz MBP with 4GB RAM starts going crazy every time I am on a website with flash. I check the activity monitor and as expected it shows at the top of CPU usage Safari Flash. Flash is always the most CPU intensive process and drains my laptop battery.

 

[MacSince1990]

Comments like this are so silly when you consider that, in general, people don't want Apple (based on sales numbers).

This.

And how is flash "bad"? It's actually really, REALLY good. A very good thing.

 

[Red Comet]

They're finally understanding what Apple wants. Not necessarily the people.

Yeah, you're right. People have complained for some time but Apple is being the loud speaker if you want to put it that way.

I really didn't think the iPad would be a driving force for everyone to adopt HTML 5; But it's like Apple has very powerful insight info.

 

[Raylai328]

Apple IS always a software company

...and it only running with Macs.

 

[AtariMac]

If I were Adobe I'd announce that CS5 will be the last Mac release. I'm betting Apple might be persuaded to change the stance on Flash.

Personally I think Flash blows on any platform, but Apple's stance on this seems extreme at times.

 

[Red Comet]

This.

And how is flash "bad"? It's actually really, REALLY good. A very good thing.

The only complaint on flash is cpu usage, other than that it's great!

 

[Peace]

This.

And how is flash "bad"? It's actually really, REALLY good. A very good thing.

The Flash plug-in crashes in Safari on me at least 5 times a day. Luckily Safari has that sandboxed so it doesn't crash the browser.

 

[Red Comet]

If I were Adobe I'd announce that CS5 will be the last Mac release. I'm betting Apple might be persuaded to change the stance on Flash.

Personally I think Flash blows on any platform, but Apple's stance on this seems extreme at times.

There stocks would plummet like a turd if they did something that stupid.

 

[GFLPraxis]

They're finally understanding what Apple wants. Not necessarily the people.

"The people" are often dumb.

"People" will often accept horribly poor technologies until they are forced to fix them.

Look at the wave of poorly written web sites a decade ago that didn't get updated until FireFox started gaining marketshare and developers realized that they were writing poor code that only worked in IE.

HTML5 is a much, much better alternative to Flash for web video. Developers need something to push them out of their comfort zone with Flash.

While, as a user, I wish my iPhone could play Flash, I think that from an industry perspective, iPhone/iPad not using Flash is the best thing that could have happened, because it's going to improve the quality of the web as a whole, and in a few years it'll have been worth it.

 

[Markov]

The least Apple could do is let flash run on their hand held devices UNTIL HTML5 has been adopted by nearly everyone. At least there wouldn't be any inconvenience to anyone in the mean time. Although, Apple could care less about inconveniencing their consumers, it seems.

 

[FloatingBones]

Flash-blockers are huge risk, too.

Did Adobe also note that the growth of click-to-flash plugins could also severely damage the attractiveness of Flash to developers?

 

[Poll Smoker]

There stocks would plummet like a turd if they didn't something that stupid.

I'd like to hear more from the illiterate guy!

 

[dscuber9000]

Good. Flash may be good for crappy games that entertain eighth graders, but Flash has absolutely no use playing videos on the Internet. It kills battery and is extremely buggy. Good riddance.