Adobe Acknowledges That Apple's Flash Prohibition Could Harm Business

[John.B]

Love this line:

Comments disabled as I’m not interested in hearing from the Cupertino Comment SPAM bots.​

People wearing tin-foil hats everywhere!

LOL!

"Lighten up, Francis!"

Does anyone know what the first line of the second sentence said, before it was redacted:

[Sentence regarding Apple's intentions redacted at request from Adobe].

(FWIW, I *am* buying Photoshop CS5 on Monday or whenever it actually ships).

 

[SactoGuy18]

And very soon Adobe will sue Apple for violating US antitrust laws for deliberately blocking Adobe Flash--and Adobe may just pull the plug on all further development of Creative Suite for MacOS X. Let's see how fast Apple stock immediately tanks, because Creative Suite products sell a lot of higher-end iMacs and Mac Pros.

 

[Speedtoy]

No you should compare resources to browse two web sites. One using flash and another not using flash.

The only difference is that the flash enabled site, would use WAY MORE cpu, than the flash-disabled site.

 

[lilo777]

snip



I notice you are "well versed" in C++ and HTML. Why can't you simply write apps for the iPhone using that ? And it might be a good idea to add Java to your skills since it's used all over the web.

Because what you get then can run only on on iPhone. A a developer, you want to write once and be able to run it on many platforms. This is not a new paradigm but a well established software design practice. Apple is trying to leverage its market dominance to prevent people from developing for other platforms but they will fail. This will only make people to write for all other platforms but Apple.

 

[Peace]

And very soon Adobe will sue Apple for violating US antitrust laws for deliberately blocking Adobe Flash--and Adobe may just pull the plug on all further development of Creative Suite for MacOS X. Let's see how fast Apple stock immediately tanks, because Creative Suite products sell a lot of higher-end iMacs and Mac Pros.

Now this I do not understand. WHY would Apple blocking Flash on it's phones and tablets be an anti-trust issue ?

 

[evilcat]

Did it ever occur to you to ask how it benefits the users to have some dancing, bouncing animated web page? THAT Is one of the biggest problems with Flash that seems to get lost in the shuffle. People are creating humongous, animated, annoying sites using Flash just because they can. Whatever happened to building a web site based on the content and what the consumer needed?

That's down to the author. Not everything animated is tacky and sometimes animation is the best way to illustrate a concept that is difficult to put into words. I'm not talking about making the text bounce into the page because it looks cool to the client.

I support web standards but the idea that we should not tell a story in the best and most appropriate way because it doesn't meet a certain requirement is just wrong.

 

[Stella]

Do you assume HTML development will stop or freeze?

LOL

It won't take long for HTML to catch up *and* leave Flash behind. All you need are developers, and with Apple and Google promoting HTML5, there is no shortage of them. Content providers are already accommodating Apple devices, which is a wise course of action.

Rubbish!
It takes years for HTML to progress. How long between HTML 4 and HTML 5? Many years.

Flash development is far faster than a new ratified HTML spec to come out... oh and then the time for browsers to support said spec.

 

[B. Hunter]

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.

Well I'm sure that Apple has been working on a replacement for some time anyway. iPhoto Pro and an enhanced iLife could be just around the corner

 

[timtom10001]

As a designer, WTF is apple thinking?! They are pissing me the hell off with this crap by not supporting Adobe! The ONLY reason flash is SO bad on a mac is because apple refuses to support it!


I'm in the market for a new mac and if this crap keeps up I'll just opt for a
***** pc, Ef the the viruses I might get, I just won't connect my pc to the internet.

I remember when macs were designer friendly... those were the days.

 

[FieryFurnace]

There better be Adobe CS5 for mac.. Otherwise I'm back to a PC..

Maybe CS6 will be Windows only???

 

[Stella]

I didnt.

You said stranglehold..I asked for evidence of Apple preventing competition as a 'stranglehold'.


You've still presented non. Dont use words you cant backup in facts.

Not what I meant. sorry if it came off different to whatever it meant to you.

 

[badmac78]

Let's compare the situation with the auto industry:

Car fueled with petroleum are bad for the environment. Everybody knows that.
The vast majority of cars currently on the road are running on petroleum however.

While forcing automakers to build electric is a great step in the right direction, we can't ban highway access to the millions of drivers running on gas.

Yes HTML 5 is clean, open, versatile. Yes electric cars are clean, beneficial and economic.

But technology is in constant motion and it's evolution is meant to make this world a better one. You can't however, replace a widely spread technology overnight. This is just wrong that Apple is blocking the door to millions of users, web designers, advertising facilities...

I do agree that HTML5 will help everybody in the long run, but I can't accept Apple's attitude.

Finally, I don't know any Apple user who doesn't use Photoshop. Yes I know YOU might not have it, but the largest portion of Mac users are in the grpahic/video/audio industry. And politics aside, it doesn't make sense that apple is becoming such an enemy to Adobe. Well it does cause Apple is making money from it's toys (iPhone, iPod, iPad...) not computers anymore...

Everybody saying that Flash is obsolete, to refer one more time to the graphics industry, I'm not aware of one professional and recognized Photographer's portfolio not made with Flash.

+ Flash doesn't crash on Firefox and other browswers. The 1.4% of Safari users should consider switching.

The car industry is a great analogy. The car industry is now bankrupt because they didn't innovate and there was no one pushing and people just bought. I completly applaud Apple for taking a stance on something hat doesn't fit their brand.

Apple dropped the floppy... People still bought
Apple hasn't done blu-Ray (yet) ... People still buy
Apple doesn't do flash (on their mobile devices) ... People will still buy

if someone develops a suite of HTML5 based tools for he creative communiy that can compete with Flash, then game over. Maybe Adobe should come up with some themselves instead of complaining about not having Flash on Apple's mobile devices.

 

[marksman]

And very soon Adobe will sue Apple for violating US antitrust laws for deliberately blocking Adobe Flash--and Adobe may just pull the plug on all further development of Creative Suite for MacOS X. Let's see how fast Apple stock immediately tanks, because Creative Suite products sell a lot of higher-end iMacs and Mac Pros.

1) You don't understand anti-trust law.

2) Adobe pulling the plug for CS for Mac would hurt Adobe way more than it would hurt Apple.

 

[Speedtoy]

And very soon Adobe will sue Apple for violating US antitrust laws

---
Those are big words for a non lawyer..

What will they sue for..NOT supporting a non standard?



Give us your best google'd lawyer speak on what grounds they could win on.

 

[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?

 

[Frobozz]

This is hilarious.

"NEARLY ALL OF THEM" = less than 10%

Actually, it's true.

Webkit is the most used web engine on mobile platforms-- by a long shot. At least 82% run Safari or Android / Chrome-- and other mobile browsers also use webkit on top of that.

On the desktop it is not the most used as measured by market share, but it is at the heart of both Safari and Chrome. And since they are the primary drivers behind HTML5, this is a big deal.

 

[Peace]

Because what you get then can run only on on iPhone. A a developer, you want to write once and be able to run it on many platforms. This is not a new paradigm but a well established software design practice. Apple is trying to leverage its market dominance to prevent people from developing for other platforms but they will fail. This will only make people to write for all other platforms but Apple.

I understand that concept. Now a question. What applications ( other than Flash ) do you write that is for both Windows and OSX using the same compile design ?

 

[smearedblue]

I have had flash destroy safari, chrome and firefox. Firefox used to be the worst because it would bring down the whole browser. At least now when using chrome flash just crashes itself, a couple times a day.



flash sucks.

what a great comment. You were able to crash something.. congrats.. now can you leave the big boys to actually debate this? don't worry we'll take your personal experience, of having a crash into consideration.

 

[*LTD*]

You do know apple has already made it clear that they could care less about developing pro level apps since they fired their entire final cut staff and programmers. So why the hell would we want to trust apple to make a pro level app like photoshop when they already dump the video apps.

The rumour was that they laid off 40 off-site employees. That's certainly not the entire staff! They haven't dumped Final Cut. In fact, they keep updating it. Apple might be getting ready for a major rebuild/overhaul of FCP and it's time for fresh eyes and ideas. Apple has no problem gaining share with their Pro apps. What's much more likely is a rebuild/revamping of the entire Final Cut suite.

Apple has done this in the past in Pro Apps, when a team is not performing to expectations. After Aperture v1 was released, they fired most of that team and rehired newer people. Also, FCS was consolidated under a VP who had an Adobe background, so it could be that SJ didn't like progress as compared to what's happening with Premiere.

Don't overstate the situation.

 

[emulator]

2) Adobe pulling the plug for CS for Mac would hurt Adobe way more than it would hurt Apple.

Short run maybe, but long run no, if those willing to use PS, AI will migrate to Win7 or later or any other new OS Adobe sw turn up.

 

[Havas]

Except for one thing - Flash 10.1 isn't out yet -- even on Android. So the other poster was correct. Flash still doesn't run on ANY mobile platform except for the horribly crippled Flash lite - which won't run most Flash web sites, anyway.

Even Flash 10.1 is crippled and limited in what it will do - and it's still slow and buggy. AND, even when it comes out, it will run on less than 20% of mobile phones, so it's STILL not the mobile standard.



Did you see the Toy Story iAd demo? That shows that html 5 is capable of just about everything Flash will do (and of the tiny number of things html 5 won't do, few of them are of any use).

The rest of your post was no more accurate, so there's no point in going into it. You're clearly not aware of what html 5 will do. If it's not capable of doing what's necessary, why are Youtube, Hulu, CBS, NYT, and so many other places now using it?

All the sites you listed are using the video player, I have nothing against that what so ever but this is not all that Flash is about.

Try this on for size:

1: AS3 is an OO based language so building apps in Flex makes it simpler and more stream lined for companies to work on large projects and trust me I've worked on Both HTML and Flex on massive scales I'm talking 60+ developers on a single front end (Check out the vw.com website I was a major player on that one and I lead the team that developed photobox.com and many others).

2: The flash VM is finely tuned for Graphics performance and it will be a very very very long time before HTML 5 dreams of catching up and it will be even longer before we see the same sort of API's available to it, by which time Adobe will have gone even further leaving HTML 5 even further behind as there is too much red tape surrounding all versions of HTML and it always takes them a very long time to get anything done.

3: HTML has never been and will never be as good to develop on as other languages such as C, AS3, Java etc. It's just cumbersome and pretty old school.

4: I'd gladly bet £500 that the same issues that plague HTML 4 will plague HTML 5 because every browser will implement it differently.

5: It will not match flash for a long time in performance, Adobe have way to big of a lead in that department and experience.

Anyway this is a moot argument as someone already said Apple cant fight the people that help make their product a success and many of us are turning our backs and backing Google and Microsoft instead.

It does not matter if I know Objective C or not as a programmer who is passionate about what he does I choose to build in Flex because it's a great experience and more people get to see my work, Objective C restricts me to only Apple and on top of that I have to Develop the same thing TWICE! which is just stupid. This also why I don't do much in .net or C# for the same reason as only windows users will be able to use my work.

 

[marksman]

Short run maybe, but long run no, if those willing to use PS, AI will migrate to Win7 or later or any other new OS Adobe sw turn up.

You are missing the changing landscape of the world. Short run it would hurt adobe a lot. Long run it will be irrelevant.

 

[smearedblue]

i think you all need to realize that mobile browsing accounts for less than 10 percent of all browsing. furthermore, all apple mobile browsing is less than 7%. flash isn't going anywhere. apple is only hurting themselves.

 

[*LTD*]

what a great comment. You were able to crash something.. congrats.. now can you leave the big boys to actually debate this? don't worry we'll take your personal experience, of having a crash into consideration.

Let me help, big boy . . .

Flash sucks.

What is there to debate? We have Flash. Now we also have HTML5. Does this frighten you?

 

[Andronicus]

If Microsoft were to limit what developer tools one is allowed to use on their platforms, Mac fans would scream bloody murder.

3.3.1 — Applications may only use Documented APIs in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any private APIs. Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine, and only code written in C, C++, and Objective-C may compile and directly link against the Documented APIs (e.g., Applications that link to Documented APIs through an intermediary translation or compatibility layer or tool are prohibited).

When I first read this, I immediately considered selling my Mac Pro and switching away from Mac OS over the next year or so.

Now you can all tell me why this is good when Apple does it and flame me for criticising the Uberjobs.

I would like to purchase your Mac Pro please. What a ridiculous reason to sell your computer and switch OS's, because of an iPhone/iPad OS update that is not relating to the machine or OS you are using (your Mac Pro and Mac OSX).