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Adobe CEO Responds to Steve Jobs' 'Thoughts on Flash'

fishmoose said:
They should, because that would kill Adobe even faster then they are dying now and that's a good thing.
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Thing again. For my business, I'd rather stay with the creativity tool, rather than spend again on retraining on what will probably second graded software to CS6. If this means, using Windows, then I'm all for it.
 
arkmannj said:
you know I'm an Apple fan, and an Adobe fan. Watching the two of them at it like this is like seeing parents go at it in front of their kids... It just feels wrong.

I wish they could calmly get to the table and list out the problems with each other and see how they could help one another. Maybe there's API's or tools that would help Adobe do a better job on the mac/ip* platform(s) and Apple could help provide/create those. and Adobe could do a better job at having less bloat, more standards based technologies, etc.

I'm not sure what the two lists would look like, those were just examples I thought of on the fly. But you get the point.
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LOL, what you are seeing is a couple ready for a divorce. It is not pretty. Adobe is fighting for its life, lots of sites are converting to HTML5 or at least making it available as an option, just a few months ago there was little HTML5 support out there, now it is growing and Adobe is seeing the writting on the wall. You bet they are going to spat at each other.
 
JonB3Z said:
"Open standard" != "open source"

An "open standard"(*) is a published specification that would allow a competent developer to produce a product that is interoperable without having to reverse-engineer the specification and without having to pay a license fee to implement a compliant product. That has nothing to do with whether the source is made available.

And there are other SWF products, including open-source ones such as Gnash. Feel free to add your features to that code.

But the opening of SWF is a fairly recent development. Up until about 2 years ago, even if you had the specification document you were constrained not to produce a product that could play SWF. Also, I hear that the published standard isn't complete, although I don't know the details.

This, by the way, was similar to the approach Adobe takes to PDF, which was also an Adobe specification but is now an ISO standard.

(*) Really, should say "open specification" because AFAIK no competent standards body has adopted SWF as a standard. The process by which the specification is changed is not similar to the collective way HTML, for example, is changed. Instead, Adobe makes changes unilaterally as it sees fit. So while SWF may be an "open specification" there is no "open standards process" involved.
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Open Specification (for the most part) .... Agreed, Open standard is not.
 
The Stockholm Syndrome is thick in this thread.

Apple is using their heavy handed philosophy to stop developers from using anything but Apple tools to make apps. If I can use Adobe tools and make an iPhone complainant application out of Flash CS5, so be it. I can see the point of not having a flash.app on the iPhone. However, to prevent people from exporting non-flash iPhone/iPad applicants from Adobe programs is wrong.
 
nologo said:
Everyone needs to stop drinking the kool aid on both sides.. they're BOTH business with closed platforms.

ADOBE
------------
Adobe has a closed platform that is prevalent today (Flash) that they have squandered because for a long time there was no alternative. That is not to say that Adobe could not improve their product to be better than the current alternatives being proposed.

A few points for Adobe:
- People talk a lot about HTML 5 online video being better, but flash is capable of a lot more than just delivering video.. there's a whole interactive layer that simply does not have an authoring equivalent in HTML 5.
- Adobe is championing the ability for developers being able to code for multiple platforms.
- No one has demonstrated something as complex as an interactive video or game in HTML5, and certainly not one that runs more efficiently than Flash.
- The amount that flash has to improve is a lot smaller than what it would take for HTML5 to take over even a majority of the sites that use Flash currently.
- Flash is ubiquitous TODAY. Youtube's HTML5 page is still in beta. The iPhone OS' Youtube app does not have access to all of Youtube's videos. There are a huge amount of sites that are using Flash. In order to see the entire web TODAY, you need flash. HTML5 right now is a pie in the sky.
- Flash can currently embed h.264 video, thus using the exact same video codec that HTML 5 is keep to support. If they can leverage it well flash will improve greatly.
- Upon opening up of standards, Adobe was able to start making improvements to Flash for Mac within days.

A few points against Adobe:
- No smartphone runs flash well yet. That doesn't mean it isn't possible, but it hasn't yet.
- Adobe needs to get flash work well on ALL platforms.. it needs fundamental improvements to be taken more seriously by consumers.
- Adobe had to take until they were threatened to start reacting with respect to performance of their plugin.
- They are gambling on a technology that people are increasingly willing to do without.

APPLE
------------
Apple has a closed platform that they are touting as a feature so they can have more control over their popular device.

A few points for Apple:
- They have a device people want and can convince people to use despite it not having flash - thus leading credence to people not necessarily needing it.
- They are claiming to support openness and standards.
- They opened up the web on mobile devices.

A few points against Apple:
- h.264, no matter what they say, is NOT an open standard. It is currently free, but the patent holder can charge royalties whenever they see fit. This is precisely the mozilla foundation's opposition to HTML5 video being h.264.
- Their ecosystem is as closed as it gets. They approve any native executable code that runs on the device.
- HTML5 has not been officially ratified as a standard. It may be open, but it is far from complete. At this point it is a slippery slope. Apple's flavor of HTML5 can be different than, say, Mozilla's.
- Firefox and IE do not support HTML5 as apple sees it... it's not useful as a 'standard' unless it is indeed adopted universally.
- Steve's point about "lowest common denominator" type app development applies to the fragmented nature of the iPhone's 3 different generations, as well as the iPad. Not only are they guilty of forcing this on developers, but by criticizing this type of development, they are criticizing the use of 'standards' that could possibly be used to develop something for all ecosystems.
- If there is anyone who would be able to figure out a way for flash to work well on a mobile device, it would be Apple.
- Apple is partly to blame for the performance of Flash on the mac.
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Everything you've said is exactly as it is. No one's wrong or right here, and anyone who says Flash is bad, HTML5 rocks or Flash is awesome and HTML5 is lame doesn't know anything about this matter.

What was interesting in Steve's letter is that he didn't really attack Flash on computers, but only on mobile devices. I really don't see that many problems with Flash on my computer, but I can understand how Flash is quite problematic for mobile devices for many reasons. Flash has made it this far literally due to how easy it is to make Flash content with the Flash authoring software. There is nothing like that for HTML5, thus limiting its adoption.

And the thing is, Apple always seems to care more about the future than about the present. But no matter how we look at it, THIS, right here, right now, is the present. And I want things to work NOW, and not in 2 years. They loved doing this when they removed FireWire 400 all together from their computer, way before it actually became obsolete (since video cameras still only use FW400, not 800). They also put the Mini DisplayPort on their new computers (a year and a half ago) and it still hasn't been adopted anywhere, every projector still only uses VGA. They're nicely ahead of our time, but that makes their ideas completely incompatible with our current world. Why push things aggressively into the future when the world isn't ready for that just yet? Just because they succeeded with the Floppy doesn't mean it works for everything.
 
EagerDragon said:
LOL, what you are seeing is a couple ready for a divorce. It is not pretty. Adobe is fighting for its life, lots of sites are converting to HTML5 or at least making it available as an option, just a few months ago there was little HTML5 support out there, now it is growing and Adobe is seeing the writting on the wall. You bet they are going to spat at each other.
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Yes, and Adobe is sounding like the jilted wife, listing all the things she is "entitled" to. The problem is, not that long ago, she was off in Spain somewhere with Bill Gates, and not answering the pleading cell phone calls from Steve.

Look, Flash or no Flash (and I must say, calling Flash "open" was off the charts Chutzpah), I think it was Steve's other remark that really must have galled Adobe -- the one where he supposedly said Adobe is lazy. In this industry, the last time a company could afford to be complacent was IBM in about 1973. Either you keep working hard re-inventing yourself, or, you fade away to insignificance. Adobe has to decide whether it wants to rest on its laurels, and fade away, or bear down and give customers more -- better security, better quality, better performance, mobility, extra-special sauce that no-one else has, whatever -- whatever they decide. But, they can't sit still or they will die.
 
Full of Win said:
The Stockholm Syndrome is thick in this thread.

Apple is using their heavy handed philosophy to stop developers from using anything but Apple tools to make apps. If I can use Adobe tools and make an iPhone complainant application out of Flash CS5, so be it. I can see the point of not having a flash.app on the iPhone. However, to prevent people from exporting non-flash iPhone/iPad applicants from Adobe programs is wrong.
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Did you even read the part where apps made in that fashion would lag behind in being able to implement new features if third parties don't adapt quickly enough? Adobe already has a piss poor reputation for such things, look at cocoa support.
 
I choose not to Flash myself

"In conclusion, Narayen noted that customers have the ultimate voice in the dispute, and he believes that multi-platform solutions like Adobe's will win out."

I choose to kill Flash.
Turn it off.
Not use it.
The web is beautiful and a heck of a lot faster unFlashed.

Just say No to Flash.
 
baryon said:
I really don't see that many problems with Flash on my computer
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Flash makes my computer slow down, hogs memory and crashes Safari most times I turn it on. For this reason I keep Flash turned off unless I really want it. Then I turn it off again, usually because it crashed and really wasn't worth it. Flash sux. It is mostly used for advertising and glitz. The web's better without it.
 
HULU is it

The only site I visit that uses flash is HULU and I use click2flash for the anoying adds of many sites.

Sites that use flash to deliver significant parts of their content, or their menus, end up in the do not visit list.

Hulu will be switching to HTML5 soon and then I will be flash free!!!!!!!!
 
skellener said:
Adobe is a software developer. Isn't it their job to write code?? Why are they complaining about having to code? That's their job. With every step Apple has taken over the last decade, Adobe has complained that they would have to rewrite too much code. As a software developer, that is your job, to write code!!

Apple announced the path forward on OS X almost a decade ago. OS X's future was Cocoa development (based on NeXT Objective-C). It was only when dinosaur developers like Adobe, Macromedia, Microsoft and a few others pissed and moaned about rewriting code that Apple developed Carbon to ease the transition. They basically wrote Carbon for a handful of developers albeit some of the largest.

Later Apple said developers would have to move off things like CodeWarrior and move to XCode for Intel compatibility. Again, bitching and whining because some hadn't switched.

So a decade later, the last remaining developer has to finally move to Cocoa. BFD! Had they followed Apple's lead, this would never have been an issue. There are a ton of OS X developers who have transitioned quite smoothly to each rev of the OS. But Adobe has fought it every time.

Adobe, give it up. You made the wrong decision a decade ago to NOT support the Mac natively, and never owned up to it.
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Sorry - I had the quote the entire thing - brilliant post here. I agree 100%
 
EagerDragon said:
The only site I visit that uses flash is HULU and I use click2flash for the anoying adds of many sites.

Sites that use flash to deliver significant parts of their content, or their menus, end up in the do not visit list.

Hulu will be switching to HTML5 soon and then I will be flash free!!!!!!!!
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i cant give up hulu
 
GREEN4U said:
"Jobs [...] notes that Flash is the #1 reason Macs crash"

Macs crash? *gulp* :eek:
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Actually, I don't recall Snowleopard or Vista ever crashing on me, due to Flash or anything else. Not that they couldn't, but, things have gotten much better in this respect in the last 3-4 years. But, just the other day, Flash died inside my Chrome browser, and, Chrome handled it perfectly. Browsers should be able to handle misbehavior of plugins.
 
Erwin-Br said:
Care to back that up with real statistics? Last time I checked, Apple was still 2 places behind from being market leader.
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If you define it buy the only business metric that matters -- dollars -- apple is the largest smartphone vendors in a land slide. The reason dollars is most important is because it directly indicates the ability of the vendor to sustain and extend the platform. This is why you see all the innovation coming from Apple. Just like 15 years ago you saw it coming from Microsoft. And before that it was IBM.

Money talks. Everything else - units, users, etc - is bull. Many manufactures basically give their stuff away, because it's not good enough to sell on it's own, just to claim units.
 
I don't know about the rest of you guys, but I use my phone for the internet when I'm outside, away from lovely fast wi-fi, and I don't want it trying to waste my time loading big flash adverts for stuff I don't want.

Not being able to watch the odd video on it is a small price to pay for faster load times, never mind what flash does to the battery life of anything with the lovely :apple: printed on it...
 
Adobe is Lazy

Adobe just wants everything to be easy. Just simply make the same things work on all devices. That's so pointless. Why have different OS if there is no advantages to any of them Adobe needs to get it together and do some real work.
 
jellybean said:
I recently got a HTC Desire to replace my iPhone and it runs Flash within the browser flawlessly. No noticeable lag or effect on battery life whatsoever.
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while this is very well-researched and highly technical post, maybe it would be better to present something other than random anecdotes.

i'm sure everyone would love some kind of test. really, we would love to see empirically what's going on here.

Veri said:
which is why they offer competing Cocoa and Flash respectively.
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Cocoa and flash compete? really? i do love all my cocoa-based internet games...

Full of Win said:
However, to prevent people from exporting non-flash iPhone/iPad applicants from Adobe programs is wrong.
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read the letter. and stop being lazy. if you want to develop for the iphone, learn the language.
 
As a dev the notion of "lazy developer" is almost non-existent in my book. If you're a "lazy dev" you'll find yourself out of work real fast. It's almost an oxymoron. Most people who spout this gibberish are internet armchair quarterbacks (which is ironic when you are throwing the word lazy around) who have no freaking idea how complicated and difficult programming is.

Steve Jobs has never really had to work a hard day in his life in my estimation. Sure he may put in long hours sometimes, but putting in long hours bossing people around because you were lucky enough to build an empire off of another person's REAL hard work isn't exactly that admirable.
 
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