Adobe Responds to Apple's Anti-Flash Stance With Comments on Openness, Ad Campaign

[MorphingDragon]

CS4 didn't tell you that Adobe was lukewarm with Apple?

Do yourself a favor, really - just upgrade Photoshop and ignore the rest if you can, or wait. Especially now that the Dreamweaver bugs are really, really, really obvious.

Look up something called Aptana studio.

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If Mozilla is the poster child of open standards then Adobe is its evil twin brother.

If Apple really had balls they'd have developed HTML 5 and competed directly instead of trying to monopolise the web by using their hardware to cut out competition to HTML 5.

Choice anyone? Anyway, enjoy your Hulu. Oh nevermind..

You don't know that they're not. Something has to be holding up the next update of Safari Devtools.

http://developer.apple.com/technologies/safari/developer-tools.html

 

[macsmurf]

Right, it doesn't feel good at all, and all the fans who are cheering Steve on in his spontaneous crusade against Adobe need to realize that this isn't funny.

I'm a designer. I worked on PC for many years, started using Mac on the side some 5 years ago, and made the final switch to Mac about a year ago. I have a CS3 license for OS X and a CS4 license for Windows, and now I'm about to invest in CS5 Master Collection for either platform. It's a lot of money. I'd like to go with the Mac version, but as I'm using the 30-day trial I can't shake the feeling that there's a bit of reluctance built in. That maybe Adobe won't be trying as hard with the Mac version, maybe they'll care less about bugs, maybe they're supporting it out of necessity rather than commitment. I'm dubious, and as someone who's made a living using Adobe products for 15 years or thereabouts, and will probably continue to do so for 25 more years, this is crossroads... should I be doing this work in OS X or BootCamp+Win7? Where is this Adobe vs. Apple fight going? Will it spill over from Flash into other areas?

Grow the **** up, Adobe and Apple.

I agree. This fight creates a lot of fear among content creators which is bad for business. This is true for both companies.

 

[John.B]

Also, where do you get the idea that web site developers are the ones who will be hurt by a forced exodus from Flash? They'll be ecstatic, of course! It means that all those companies and corporations who spent billions on making web developers build Flash content for them, will now have to come back and ask them to redo everything from scratch for a new platform! That's great for web designers and developers, not to mention Adobe who are the #1 supplier of web design tools. $$$$$$$$ for everyone, new IT boom! Except of course for the end customers, because the steep costs of porting billions worth of Flash content to HTML5 will be payed by them in the end.

I think you thought this all the way through to the wrong conclusion.

Company A designs their website around web standards. What works for desktop/laptop web browsers (even the funky ones) also works on iPhones and Android phones and even some not-so-smartphones and the iPad and all the new tablets that will be copying the iPad (RSN). No additional cost, and they get increased eyeballs from the new mobile platforms.

Company B designs their website somewhat around web standards but uses lots of Flash content. What works for desktop/laptop web browsers (even the funky ones) doesn't work so well for iPhones and even some not-so-smartphones and the iPad and all the new tablets that will be copying the iPad (RSN). $$$$$ Incremental cost to switch to standards based web development and/or to duplicate content delivery or risk losing eyeballs which means losing sales.

Company C designs their website strictly with Flash content. What works for desktop/laptop web browsers (even the funky ones) doesn't work at all for iPhones and even some not-so-smartphones and iPads all the new tablets that will be copying the iPad (RSN). $$$$$$ Incremental cost to completely duplicate content delivery and/or completely switch to standards based web development or risk lose eyeballs which means losing sales.

So it's only the guys that allowed themselves to get talked into Flash as a "content delivery system for the web" that actually incur the extra costs.

It seems to me that Company A would have a huge competitive advantage over Company C and a fairly good advantage over Company B. It's up to Company A where in the lower price <--> higher profits continuum they want to try to leverage that competitive advantage.

It's also up to both Company B and C to decide whether their VPs of Marketing and IT misjudged technology which caused their companies to incur additional costs to be able reach their target markets.

 

[Anuba]

CS4 didn't tell you that Adobe was lukewarm with Apple?

Do yourself a favor, really - just upgrade Photoshop and ignore the rest if you can, or wait. Especially now that the Dreamweaver bugs are really, really, really obvious.

Like I said, I never had CS4 for Mac. I have CS3 Web Premium for Mac, CS4 Web Premium for Windows, and now I'm upgrading to CS5 Master Collection for one of the above.

I'd upgrade Photoshop only, except CS3 and Snow Leopard aren't very good friends... plus a lot of stuff happened between CS3 and CS4 in all the CS applications, especially on the UI side.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

Right, it doesn't feel good at all, and all the fans who are cheering Steve on in his spontaneous crusade against Adobe need to realize that this isn't funny.

I'm a designer. I worked on PC for many years, started using Mac on the side some 5 years ago, and made the final switch to Mac about a year ago. I have a CS3 license for OS X and a CS4 license for Windows, and now I'm about to invest in CS5 Master Collection for either platform. It's a lot of money. I'd like to go with the Mac version, but as I'm using the 30-day trial I can't shake the feeling that there's a bit of reluctance built in. That maybe Adobe won't be trying as hard with the Mac version, maybe they'll care less about bugs, maybe they're supporting it out of necessity rather than commitment. I'm dubious, and as someone who's made a living using Adobe products for 15 years or thereabouts, and will probably continue to do so for 25 more years, this is crossroads... should I be doing this work in OS X or BootCamp+Win7? Where is this Adobe vs. Apple fight going? Will it spill over from Flash into other areas?

Grow the **** up, Adobe and Apple.

A very wise post that should be considered by all the "Apple vs. the world" fans who side with Apple in all things, even at their own expense. We don't "win" if by Apple being right, a major software company like Adobe has to be wrong. "Die Adobe Die" if it really happened would be a very painful blow to many who depend on Adobe products- including Flash- for their livelihood, and Macs would be less if it actually happened.

Apple & Adobe should kiss and make up (yesterday). Apple could completely rise above this issue by changing the "we know what's best for you" stance, leaving Adobe to prove that an iDevice version of Flash could work well. Adobe would know that they would have to put up or shut up at that point, which would likely get an enormous amount of effort put into making a "wow" incarnation of Flash for iDevices. If so, every single player involved would win (and those that would still not want even that version of Flash on their iDevices wouldn't be forced to install it). Win:win:win.

 

[MacAerfen]

h.264 isn't, either.

Adobe made the PDF spec open after a few years. I wouldn't be surprised if they open up ActionScript licensing restrictions soon, too.

What will the argument be, then?

h.264 is free for now but will have a cost eventually. The thing about html5 is that it is not tied to a video player which means presumably when h.264 isn't another free codec will be available and html5 will not need to change drastically to support it. Flash requires Flash player. To develop for Flash you need an adobe product. If you think adobe is going to start giving away a program it charges $699 USD for you imagining things. That is why flash is bad. You shouldn't have only 1 choice if you want to create content which is what Adobe thinks people are too stupid to realize. Adobe doesn't want a free internet. Adobe wants to maintain the status quo where X% of the video playback on the web requires flash player which means all those people making those sites are using Flash software to create.

So there is the challenge Adobe. Prove you want a free internet and give away flash creation software for free so everyone can make flash content and make a choice if that is what they want to use.

 

[mixel]

I don't really see the problem with Apple doing whatever they like on their devices. No company should be able to strong-arm them into supporting things they deem harmful to the platform, regardless of their reasons.

Nobody forces anyone to buy into the iphoneOS, there are lots of alternatives. If mobile flash really becomes efficient and Android makes real inroads once it has full flash support you might see Apple turning around and it appearing on the iPhone, until then if flash use is decreased it's in everyone (but Adobes) interests. Even they should see that though. Flash is great for some things.

I'd love Apple, or someone.. To develop a full animation capable, scriptable HTML5 authoring environment to rival flash. THAT would be what people need to compare the technologies.

 

[John.B]

It's open because the SDK is open source. It's free because the SDK is free. If you want an IDE that makes certain things easier, you'd have to buy it, but anything you can do in this IDE, you can do without it for free. You also have the choice of using a different IDE such as IntelliJ Idea (€564).

You are going to need a chiropractor after all the contortions it took you to imply Adobe isn't capturing the lion's share of revenues from it's proprietary Flash platform as a closed content vehicle for the web. Pay Adobe to create it, rely on an Adobe player to play it. (Or some third-rate tool that may or may not be less expensive at the end of the project.) BTW, as of today's current exchange rates, the US$700 for Flash CS5 is almost equal to the $716 (= €564) for IntelliJ Idea.

 

[Swift]

Who the **** are they kidding?

"In the end, we believe the question is really this: Who controls the World Wide Web? And we believe the answer is: nobody -- and everybody, but certainly not a single company."

So Adobe is announcing that Flash will go open source, because only crowd-sourcing this crap will ever fix it?

There's only one monopoly here, folks, and it's Adobe.

 

[MorphingDragon]

We <3 software that doesn't suck
We <3 software that doesn't crash our machines
We <3 software that doesn't make them run hot enough to fry eggs on
We <3 not being preached to by an outfit that peddles overpriced bloatware
We <3 stuff that just works the way it's supposed to
We companies that buy their competitors so they can get rid of a superior product to theirs

Nuff said. Still hate Flash. Still won't use it.

...By that logic we should all be hating Autodesk....


With good reason too.

 

[SAPPete]

I agree with you. I believe the majority of the people on this forum are a bunch of lemmings following Steve's orders. Sad.

x2.
Only in fanboi land is choice bad.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

I think you thought this all the way through to the wrong conclusion.

Company A designs their website around web standards. What works for desktop/laptop web browsers (even the funky ones) also works on iPhones and Android phones and even some not-so-smartphones and the iPad and all the new tablets that will be copying the iPad (RSN). No additional cost, and they get increased eyeballs from the new mobile platforms.

It seems to me that Company A would have a huge competitive advantage over Company C and a fairly good advantage over Company B. It's up to Company A where in the lower price <--> higher profits continuum they want to try to leverage that competitive advantage.

The flaw in this though is that either Company A's website is relatively boring (not much rich media) or, if by standards you mean they choose HTML5 + h.264 + javascript for the rich media components instead of Flash, it will be visible on only about 8% of the world's computers. If the latter, they lose- not gain- a huge number of eyeballs if the website uses rich media in any crucial way if they embrace the "web standards" that are HTML5 + h.264 + javascript instead of Flash, unless they are a website intended to only be viewed by users of Safari & Chrome.

The current choice for developers of websites that use richer media is not an either-or choice. It is not HTML5 vs. Flash. Their choice is whether to add an HTML5 version so that it will also display well on Apple iDevices. If they have to choose one or the other (perhaps limited by budget or time constraints) and the primary goal is to display well for the masses (not just Apple people), in all browsers, etc, they MUST CHOOSE FLASH over HTML5.

Or the choice is to strip out the rich media (not just video) and serve up a relatively simple site, which needs neither Flash nor HTML5, etc. (this would pretty much be any website you can currently see on and off of Apple iDevices that is not generating a special version just for the iDevice).

While HTML5 + h.264 + javascript may indeed be the future, it is far from being a replacement in the present, and can't possibly be until a lot of people's computers well beyond the small Apple segment and a lot of other browsers beyond Safari & Chrome (especially IE) embrace it. Such an embrace is unlikely to be strong enough for a number of years (for example, there's still an awful lot of people using IE6, IE7, etc. on which Flash rich media runs and HTML5 rich media can't possibly run).

 

[Anuba]

I'd love Apple, or someone.. To develop a full animation capable, scriptable HTML5 authoring environment to rival flash. THAT would be what people need to compare the technologies.

You can be sure that Adobe is already doing this as we speak. Love them or hate them, but they own that particular business segment and they have little to no competition. Should a competitor surface, perhaps in the form of Apple releasing their own "Photoshop" and "Dreamweaver", there will still be so much resistance in terms of learning curve and other factors that it's unlikely to make a dent in Adobe's business in the short run.

This isn't about Adobe or Apple winning or losing. Both will survive. Adobe was a billion dollar company long before they acquired Macromedia (and, by extension, Flash), and they don't live or die by Flash. They have some 80 software products in their catalogue, Flash Professional is but one of them. The only ones losing out are end users who will either be deprived of enjoying web content, or be forced to jump on the HTML5 bandwagon before it's solid. I tried out the bugfest known as YouTube HTML5/H.264 beta program, and spent about a day there before I reverted to the Flash based version...

 

[macsmurf]

You are going to need a chiropractor after all the contortions it took you to imply Adobe isn't capturing the lion's share of revenues from it's proprietary Flash platform as a closed content vehicle for the web. Pay Adobe to create it, rely on an Adobe player to play it. (Or some third-rate tool that may or may not be less expensive at the end of the project.) BTW, as of today's current exchange rates, the US$700 for Flash CS5 is almost equal to the $716 (= €564) for IntelliJ Idea.

IntelliJ Idea is an IDE mainly for Java development and Flash Builder is the better and cheaper tool for dedicated Flash App development. In the end, the cost of these IDEs are insignificant compared to the salaries you'd have to pay the designers/developers. I have serious doubts as to Flash being the RIA platform of the future. GWT is probably the safer bet, and Silverlight is a player as well.

There is a lot of choice, though, and I don't really have a problem with Apple's approach. It may or may not benefit Android in the long run. Both approaches have merit and choice is good.

 

[SAPPete]

You are going to need a chiropractor after all the contortions it took you to imply Adobe isn't capturing the lion's share of revenues from it's proprietary Flash platform as a closed content vehicle for the web. Pay Adobe to create it, rely on an Adobe player to play it. (Or some third-rate tool that may or may not be less expensive at the end of the project.) BTW, as of today's current exchange rates, the US$700 for Flash CS5 is almost equal to the $716 (= €564) for IntelliJ Idea.

Repeating lies doesn't make them true. You don't have to pay Adobe to create flash content, you don't have to buy their apps to create flash content. The player is free, too. Lion share that !

 

[John.B]

I'd love Apple, or someone.. To develop a full animation capable, scriptable HTML5 authoring environment to rival flash. THAT would be what people need to compare the technologies.

Wouldn't it be great if there was a company that already made design software for creatives that could just step into that market? It would be a shame if their hubris blinded them to the huge opportunity the mobile web is creating right in front of their eyes.

Instead we get Shantanu Narayen and Lee Brimelow and a multi-million dollar ad campaign to try to convince the public that Flash doesn't suck.

 

[soundbwoy]

What a crime isn't it? And Apple is charging over $1000 dollars for a core2dou in their notebooks with their recent half-assed update? How come you don't see that?

Don't be an idiot, you don't need to upgrade your notebook every time a new one is released. As for adobe crap everytime some studio uses the newest version and sends me files I have keep telling them to save it down a version and most time the saved down version is lacking something that is needed that only the newest version can do. How Lame.

 

[KnightWRX]

Wouldn't it be great if there was a company that already made design software for creatives that could just step into that market? It would be a shame if their hubris blinded them to the huge opportunity the mobile web is creating right in front of their eyes.

Instead we get Shantanu Narayen and Lee Brimelow and a multi-million dollar ad campaign to try to convince the public that Flash doesn't suck.

Or maybe you're just ignoring the fact that Flash CS5 exports animations to HTML5 Canvas.

Seriously, at least try to have a clue about what it is you're bashing.

 

[soundbwoy]

How is it that ABC, MSNBC, Youtube, has no problem with html 5. Only Adobe. All these Adobe fanboys need to realize that Apple don't your phone or pad to break because of some poorly developed product and you go blaming apple for it.

Also it seems we all forget another industry that requires the use of a specific language for developing for their products (The Gaming industry). Sony ain't crying that you can't develop Xbox games using their stuff. So why must adobe care? If they are sure about their Flash then should not bitch and completely ignore apple and concentrate on other devices.

 

[MorphingDragon]

Repeating lies doesn't make them true. You don't have to pay Adobe to create flash content, you don't have to buy their apps to create flash content. The player is free, too. Lion share that !

Umm, if you want to make highly crippled flash apps then sure.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

Umm, if you want to make highly crippled flash apps then sure.

That is absolutely not true. You can create some fantastic flash media without paying Adobe a cent, or doing it in Adobe software. There are many quality applications developed that render in Flash but are entirely separate from Adobe. I know some people want to say anything to paint Adobe as all bad in this, but there's no need to start making up stuff.

 

[KnightWRX]

Sony ain't crying that you can't develop Xbox games using their stuff. So why must adobe care? If they are sure about their Flash then should not bitch and completely ignore apple and concentrate on other devices.

Sony never provided a Xbox SDK which was rejected by Microsoft on a political rather than technical basis. Your analogy is so far out in left field it's not even funny.

Out of all the examples you could've tought of, this is the best you could come up with ? Seriously...

Umm, if you want to make highly crippled flash apps then sure.

Check out the Flex SDK and the Eclipse integration. It's all free and Free (you're an open source guy right ?). It was used to make many of the Facebook apps, which are far from highly crippled.

Ignorance doesn't turn fantasy into reality.

 

[MorphingDragon]

That is absolutely not true. You can create some fantastic flash media without paying Adobe a cent, or doing it in Adobe software. There are many quality applications developed that render in Flash but are entirely separate from Adobe. I know some people want to say anything to paint Adobe as all bad in this, but there's no need to start making up stuff.

I make actual flash apps.

Those 'other' flash creators are highly crippled.

 

[soundbwoy]

Who says Apple is not giving you options with html 5, especially if want to watch flash videos.

http://net.tutsplus.com/tutorials/h...:+nettuts+(NETTUTS)&utm_content=Google+Reader

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

How is it that ABC, MSNBC, Youtube, has no problem with html 5. Only Adobe. All these Adobe fanboys need to realize that Apple don't your phone or pad to break because of some poorly developed product and you go blaming apple for it.

They are big enough companies with deep enough pockets to create HTML5 versions for devices that can handle HTML5 video, while also continuing to support Flash versions for all the other devices. ABC, MSNBC, YouTube, etc are not choosing HTML5 over Flash. They're just providing a special version so that their content can also run on Apple iDevices.

If they fully embraced HTML5 over Flash as some here appear to advocate (a.k.a. "did Flash die"), their content could only be served up to about 8% of the market (mostly the Apple crowd).

More importantly though: Flash is NOT JUST VIDEO. Video media is relatively easy to offer as an HTML5 (h.264) option; it's just a conversion of one form of video to another at most. Try marginalizing interactive Flash content such as interactive e-learning presentations as if they would be as simple to convert to HTML5 + h.264 + javascript... and then point me to the tools that don't require that to be accomplished without a lot of hand coding. Converting & displaying some video is not too complicated. The latter is a total mess until some great tools are created to bring HTML5 + h.264 + javascript rich media creation to the masses who depend on Flash-rendering tools now.