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Adobe to sue Apple now?

Good Job Adobe!

An Adobe-Apple suit over Apple's new Flash Compiler-blocking SDK policy may be a challenging one for Adobe to win depending on how legally sealed up the iPhone OS is and how Adobe's legal team goes about it but I'm glad they're doing it. I've been writing for the past week in various articles about why it's necessary for Adobe to attract anti-competition regulators via such a suit. Even if they don't win, it should wake up some of the anti-trust regulators to look further into Apple's recent open development-thwarting practices and it will definitely wake up more developers community to protest these recent sabotaging actions that Apple has been making. It's not good for a company like Apple to have developers turn on you when the trends of your products are so developer-vital. Despite my criticisms of Windows, it makes me miss the days of seeing Microsoft's Steve Ballmer almost endlessly chanting, "Developers, developers, developers" (I can't imagine Steve Jobs having nearly that much passion towards developers, the most important people to his iPhone and iPad market). I'm a fan of Apple products (buying one of the new MacBook Pros this week) but their attitude about open development and desire for totalitarian app control needs to change dramatically.
 
Apple in NO WAY has to support Flash in iPhone OS. The customers bought the device knowing it would not support it, therefore it's legal. Let me put this another way, if you knew an iDevice was being shipped without the color red in the display, and you bought the device, you agreed to the terms of there being no red. Flash is no different.

Flash kills your batter and is horribly inefficient, in its current state. Steve Jobs has repeatedly said (unconfirmed) that Flash is poorly written and there are better solutions (HTML5). I'm sure flash would be allowed on the iDevices if it was made better and more efficient.

As for the developer contracts, Apple should have made this a mandatory thing when the first iPhone SDK came out. If you want to develop on Apple's platform, you abide by their rules. Developing for iPhone OS is not a right, it's a privilege and to the developers out there who are pissed off, stop your whining. I had to learn Obj-C and so do you. And you should. It's a great language to use and very advanced. Just look at Core Data.

There are legitimate concerns for not allowing Flash in terms of the way it operates. It was never optimized for iPhone OS and Adobe refuses to do so.

My last point here, to the Devs, iPhone OS 4.0 requires Obj-C to be compatible with the multitasking strategy. Apple has told the devs since the start that they can change anything about the system at any time. READ YOUR DEV AGREEMENT. Apple is not perfect. They are spending their time and a lot of $ on the SDk so you can make money. Stop whining.
 
bnerd said:
I'm 100% behind Adobe.. and I hope Unity and Appcelerator joins in.
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Why do you feel Adobe has a "legal" right to Apple's platform using tools other than what Apple permits? It's not like Apple is saying you can't develop for us at all. They are saying if you want to develop for us, we prefer you use these kinds of APIs and this kind of compiler to do so.

It's like saying, hey, if you want to ride in my taxi, I prefer you don't carry weapons that can harm me. Want to carry weapons, you can walk. My cab, my rules.

Where is the legal problem here?

Personally, I don't really understand why Apple has to allow anyone to develop for them at all.
 
KaneBaker said:
I'm all for open standards and net neutrality.
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If you truly are for these things, then you must inherently be against Adobe.

How much of the web's video is encoded in Flash, a plug-in where if Adobe doesn't deem your platform worthy, your platform won't be able to run the majority of the Net's video?

Not only that, but if Adobe decides to not fully support your platform of choice on the terms they decide (see Apple, Linux), they will inherently be giving other platforms an unfair advantage over yours -- and you can't do anything about it.

Anyone that claims to be about open standards or neutrality and supports Adobe is being hypocritical. So -- and I mean this honestly -- where do you really stand? And please address these concerns; not pivoting to "Apple does this or that".
 
NebulaClash said:
HTML5 is the future, and is not currently supported by all browsers. So at the moment Flash is more capable. But that will change, and if you want to build for the future it's HTML 5 all the way.
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This has nothing to do with the flash plugin or HTML.

This is about stopping apps that are generated using flash tols run on the iPhone. They work right now just fine.
flash gets a bad rep because off horrible horrible site out there using it.

It's also an amazing tool that is used to create broadcast animated TV shows for example.

Most people only know one side of it.
 
I don't get why Adobe can't have the Flash tool generate pure Objective-C source code. Other than they might worry that allowing others to read their boilerplate code will give away the keys to the kingdom.
 
*LTD* said:
Sue? Sue for what?
...
WTF is going on with Adobe? LOL
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Exactly. Look at the facts - do you know how easy it will be to prove that Flash runs like crap on a Mac? I think the folks at Adobe are taking this way too personal and making a bonehead move. I've lost all respect for Adobe for being so unbelievably stupid.
 
If there is anyone here saying, "Good! Apple should get sued by adobe!" If you have an apple computer - go to a flash heavy site and see what happens. I have a MBP and watching anything on youtube gets my cpu temp up to 75-80 deg C in a matter of minutes. Make better products and Jobs will let you in - for god's sake he just let Opera on the iphone.
 
Apple: Adobe, your product has worked like crap on our systems for quite some time, and you haven't done anything to address this, so we're boycotting you. :p

Adobe: But... but you're going to hurt our bottom line... :mad:

Apple: And your point is? :rolleyes:

Adobe: If you don't include us, we'll sue you! :mad:

Apple: Why don't you just make flash work better on a mac? :confused:

Adobe: Too difficult/too expensive/don't feel like it/too cool for it. :cool:

Apple: Then we don't want you in our platform. :apple:

Adobe: THEN WE'RE SUING YOU! :mad::mad:
 
angrynstupid said:
Exactly. Look at the facts - do you know how easy it will be to prove that Flash runs like crap on a Mac? I think the folks at Adobe are taking this way too personal and making a bonehead move. I've lost all respect for Adobe for being so unbelievably stupid.
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I totally agree. Flash for Mac is terrible. Why can't they just fix the problem?
 
I would like to see code run on iPhone/iTouch/iPad like StyleTap so I hope what comes out of this is Apple has to open things up. If they do, the first thing I will block is Flash, but I appreciate Adobe suing Apple if it means I can run interpreted code that I want to run.

I went to adobe.com to look at the order form for CS5. It's implemented in flash. And what does flash bring to the table? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. There are simple pulldowns to pick your platform and pick your adobe product. All this should have been simple html forms but no, Adobe doesn't know flash's place and they keep trying to make it ubiquitous. I hope Apple wins the html5 based video fight and I hope Adobe wins the "let other platforms on iThings" fight.

Does this make me schizophrenic? :eek:
 
I would rather see MS sue Apple for not allowing any other device onto or purchase items in the app store. I.E. buy, run, and develop on the app store.

That would be interesting. Anyone can shop at Costco as long as they pay an entrance fee.
 
12 months before Apple goes all Final Cut Pro on Photoshop, imo.

It won't be as good, but it will be good enough for a lot of people. And it will be cheap.

As a result, price of the CS suite will drop. And then Adobe can understand what competition is all about.
 
KaneBaker said:
You are nicely misinformed.

A. Flash is an open standard with an SDK

B. Apple doesn't have to support it, it generates code and requires no support from apple. Apple has to actively block it prevent it.
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Flash is an open standard? Are you sure?! (Genuine question btw...)

Apple has complete right over their own niche platform, what stops them from setting standards for their own stuff?

They are no way near as dominant as Microsoft was with windows, and they are not promoting their own product/ software with something to gain, but just some (other?) open standards on the web. What on earth are they going to sue for?!
 
What I find funny in all this is Adobe wants to sue because they want to push there propriety plug-in based Flash, and Apple is trying to promote HTML5 which the whole point is no plug-in is needed which is pushing to a more open browsing experience, isn't that all kind of ironic?
 
Rodimus Prime said:
It is not about phones. I limited my argument to just the apps market. Apple has 99.4% of that market locked up.
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They could have 100% of the market and it still wouldn't matter unless they were trying to prevent the existence of other app stores, or prevent other devices from using the concept.

What they do in regards to their own products is their business.

There's simply no case here.

They are entirely within their rights, even as a monopoly, to dictate what is and is not allowed to run on a device they design, build, sell and support - provided that no claims to the contrary are made.

Don't like their terms ... go build for another device, your own device, or create your own market. Apple are doing nothing to inhibit the creation, design or sale of other devices or app-stores on those devices. And they certainly aren't the dominant platform!
 
Sellihca said:
If there is anyone here saying, "Good! Apple should get sued by adobe!" If you have an apple computer - go to a flash heavy site and see what happens. I have a MBP and watching anything on youtube gets my cpu temp up to 75-80 deg C in a matter of minutes. Make better products and Jobs will let you in - for god's sake he just let Opera on the iphone.
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Well I believe beatport.com is flash and I just went to their site an played weapon of choice with less than 15% cpu usage. So I dunno. But I know it can spike, but so can any page.
 
This is getting ridiculous by the days.
How do you force someone to adapt to your technology?
Consumers go for what's better and more efficient.

Adobe should take a look at how poorly flash is operating on Mac and Linux boxes.(they have already done that) should sit down as users and surf heavy flash sites on Mac and Linux Boxes.
 
Adobe: We're suing you!

Apple's Lawyers: Rule 12(b)(6) motion "failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted"

Judge: Next!
 
bdkennedy1 said:
I hate Flash. Can't stand it. But I don't see Apple winning this.

It's reminiscent of Microsoft's "It's our desktop so we don't have to have a shortcut to Netscape Navigator."
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That's a HUGE stretch. Microsoft had a near monopoly on PCs. So them prevnting Netscape from being on the desktop locked them out of the entire market. Last I checked Apple does not have a lock on the mobile industry, Adobe is free to put Flash on a wide variety of platforms.
 
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