So... Apple has one monopoly (the AppStore distribution method of selling apps for iPhones) and they want to leverage that to affect another market (web video codecs / video delivery systems) by implementing anti-competitive rules in their own marketplace/monopoly of the AppStore. Seems perfectly legit for Adobe to sue, and even have a shot at winning.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Adobe to sue Apple now?
- Thread starter netnothing
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
So... Apple has one monopoly (the AppStore distribution method of selling apps for iPhones) and they want to leverage that to affect another market (web video codecs / video delivery systems) by implementing anti-competitive rules in their own marketplace/monopoly of the AppStore. Seems perfectly legit for Adobe to sue, and even have a shot at winning.
Adobe makes Mac users 2nd class for years
I am with Apple on this one. I won't buy Adobe overprice crapware and hope others stop buying it too. When Adobe puts a priority on making better software (read 'fix Flash' here) I might come back.
We have been screwed by Adobe for years and now the chickens come home to roost.
I am with Apple on this one. I won't buy Adobe overprice crapware and hope others stop buying it too. When Adobe puts a priority on making better software (read 'fix Flash' here) I might come back.
We have been screwed by Adobe for years and now the chickens come home to roost.
Wow... grow up
Wait, whaaaa? Pointless litigation is a drain on productivity. Why would it be good for Adobe to sue Apple? iPhone OS created a new market and revenue stream essentially from thin air. Apple has always controlled the rules, just as MS has controlled WinMo and Google has Android. Are we to believe that just because someone formed a business model around something that Apple strongly discouraged, and now the loophole has been closed, that Apple should get sued? If Adobe couldn't see the potential risk in their business decisions, they are responsible, not Apple. Many many software higher-level software products have died when the thing they built on changed. Adobe is different only because (a) they're bigger and (b) should have known better. To be honest, after their attitude towards Apple over the past 15 years, this seems like Adobe's chickens are coming home to roost. They've put themselves in a poor position to make demands, particularly of Apple.
Incidentally, halting sales of their Mac products would be like pulling the plug on their own life support. Not only would it spite Mac users, but PC users would be right to become mistrustful. Bad idea all around. People can be so juvenile...
Wait, whaaaa? Pointless litigation is a drain on productivity. Why would it be good for Adobe to sue Apple? iPhone OS created a new market and revenue stream essentially from thin air. Apple has always controlled the rules, just as MS has controlled WinMo and Google has Android. Are we to believe that just because someone formed a business model around something that Apple strongly discouraged, and now the loophole has been closed, that Apple should get sued? If Adobe couldn't see the potential risk in their business decisions, they are responsible, not Apple. Many many software higher-level software products have died when the thing they built on changed. Adobe is different only because (a) they're bigger and (b) should have known better. To be honest, after their attitude towards Apple over the past 15 years, this seems like Adobe's chickens are coming home to roost. They've put themselves in a poor position to make demands, particularly of Apple.
Incidentally, halting sales of their Mac products would be like pulling the plug on their own life support. Not only would it spite Mac users, but PC users would be right to become mistrustful. Bad idea all around. People can be so juvenile...
They hav zero business incentives to fix it. Flash is installed on around 96% of desktops, and the majority of web video is encoded with it -- and its not even close. Why spend any resources making a small minority of your users happy? They're locked in.
Locked in by the Internet. Doesn't sound right, does it?
Jobs is right. Non-Apple tools making software can (and in the past has) tie Apples hands when it comes to changes/innovations in the OS.
At the same time, there has to be a happy medium: allow the MANY benefits of middleware tools, with checks or agreements in place to reduce the harm. (I dont know how bad Flash may be on iPhone, but Unity is outstanding. It lets a small game developer create idea that would otherwise be impossible. I cant code my own physics engine AND make a game. I dont have the team for that or the budget to pay them, and I cant quit my day job. But I can make a great one with Unity. Many Unity games have been popular on iPhone. If people value indie game creativity, then theres a need for tools like Unity. Or, we can just stick with safe, formula releases from bigger companies that have deeper pockets. Plus simple mini-games, because thats what many one-person companies can practically deliver without Unity. That would be a shame.)
So I hope there CAN be a happy medium; if not for Flash then for other tools. For instance, hypothetically, every app that uses Flash or Unity or whatever could be required to state that in the app description (or even on the app load screen). This would let certain tools succeed or fail in the market based on the quality of their results. And maybe end-users and the tool developers would all have to agree that future incompatibilities are possible, so buy at your own risk. Then let it be the tool developers problem to stay compatible with Apples OS, not the other way around. Again, tools that keep up with Apple would survive in the market, while ones that dont would drive users away.
Any compromise like this is a little messy, and there will always be gray areas, but Id accept a compromise like that before Id accept the loss of all the great touch games that have been (and will be) made with Unity and other tools! And before Id accept Apple having to get Adobes cooperation to update their own OS, because their latest OS idea breaks Flash! Neither extreme is acceptable, so lets hope for a middle path.
(Now, Unity isnt the same thing as Flash: it works WITH Xcode, and requires Xcode. Full disclosure: my upcoming Unity-based game is threatened.)
At the same time, there has to be a happy medium: allow the MANY benefits of middleware tools, with checks or agreements in place to reduce the harm. (I dont know how bad Flash may be on iPhone, but Unity is outstanding. It lets a small game developer create idea that would otherwise be impossible. I cant code my own physics engine AND make a game. I dont have the team for that or the budget to pay them, and I cant quit my day job. But I can make a great one with Unity. Many Unity games have been popular on iPhone. If people value indie game creativity, then theres a need for tools like Unity. Or, we can just stick with safe, formula releases from bigger companies that have deeper pockets. Plus simple mini-games, because thats what many one-person companies can practically deliver without Unity. That would be a shame.)
So I hope there CAN be a happy medium; if not for Flash then for other tools. For instance, hypothetically, every app that uses Flash or Unity or whatever could be required to state that in the app description (or even on the app load screen). This would let certain tools succeed or fail in the market based on the quality of their results. And maybe end-users and the tool developers would all have to agree that future incompatibilities are possible, so buy at your own risk. Then let it be the tool developers problem to stay compatible with Apples OS, not the other way around. Again, tools that keep up with Apple would survive in the market, while ones that dont would drive users away.
Any compromise like this is a little messy, and there will always be gray areas, but Id accept a compromise like that before Id accept the loss of all the great touch games that have been (and will be) made with Unity and other tools! And before Id accept Apple having to get Adobes cooperation to update their own OS, because their latest OS idea breaks Flash! Neither extreme is acceptable, so lets hope for a middle path.
(Now, Unity isnt the same thing as Flash: it works WITH Xcode, and requires Xcode. Full disclosure: my upcoming Unity-based game is threatened.)
For the last time, that would kill 50% of Adobe's revenue stream for the CS products. If they have to go that route, they might as well commit harakiri.
Enjoy wasting money on attorney fees, Adobe. BTW, i hope you know Apple's will be expensive..since you'll be the one paying theirs, too.
Because the resulting code would be of poor quality, and would have to call Flash APIs, not Cocoa Touch APIs without a translation layer, in order to be Flash compatible (e.g. cross-platform Flash elements need to behave identically, or they wouldn't be cross-platform).
In theory, you could make a code translator that would spit out Obj-C identical to a human coder. In practice, no one can do it except for academic toy problems, or if the human programmer is trying hard to fail the Turing test on purpose.
I am all for this, and would totally support Adobe.
It was crappy on my phone but I got over it and got used to it....
Now I bought and iPad assuming I didnt really care about Flash but I sure as hell do! Its incorporated into so many websites, I couldnt even use my iPad to look at different cars the other night....not even being sarcastic - I could not go to even ONE car website that I wanted to go to. That's absolutely ridiculous. Apple brings out this great new device where you "have the web in your hands"...but its so limited and annoying...I've actually been using my laptop more often. Not because I want to, but because I am FORCED to because of this crap with flash. Just allow it. If the USER wants to enable it then let them enable it and give whatever warnings you want to give. I'd be curious to see the percentage of iPhone and iPad users that choose to disable Flash as if its more beneficial.
This really didnt bother me up until getting the iPad. I'm sort of furious about how limited my web browsing is due to this ridiculous banning of Flash....and they have never actually said why. They just ignore it....just like they're ignoring the billions of flash sites that don't work. I can't take it....why shouldnt I be able to look at the various car manufacturer websites on my iPad?
The most logical explanation I have heard is that Apple thinks people would find content streaming for free on the web (hulu, myspace, etc) and deter them from buying audio/video through iTunes therefore decided that allowing Flash would hurt them financially....thus banning it. That makes sense as a reason for it...but that's AWFUL to do to users.
I'm not the biggest fan of flash - I wouldnt build a site with it...but that doesnt mean a billion others didnt...why should my content be limited? There are plenty of sites (like the car ones I just mentioned) that you can't even use without it.
I was hoping that maybe it was in the works but then heard that news about CS5 and now this...just enable flash Apple!!! This is absolutely ridiculous!
It was crappy on my phone but I got over it and got used to it....
Now I bought and iPad assuming I didnt really care about Flash but I sure as hell do! Its incorporated into so many websites, I couldnt even use my iPad to look at different cars the other night....not even being sarcastic - I could not go to even ONE car website that I wanted to go to. That's absolutely ridiculous. Apple brings out this great new device where you "have the web in your hands"...but its so limited and annoying...I've actually been using my laptop more often. Not because I want to, but because I am FORCED to because of this crap with flash. Just allow it. If the USER wants to enable it then let them enable it and give whatever warnings you want to give. I'd be curious to see the percentage of iPhone and iPad users that choose to disable Flash as if its more beneficial.
This really didnt bother me up until getting the iPad. I'm sort of furious about how limited my web browsing is due to this ridiculous banning of Flash....and they have never actually said why. They just ignore it....just like they're ignoring the billions of flash sites that don't work. I can't take it....why shouldnt I be able to look at the various car manufacturer websites on my iPad?
The most logical explanation I have heard is that Apple thinks people would find content streaming for free on the web (hulu, myspace, etc) and deter them from buying audio/video through iTunes therefore decided that allowing Flash would hurt them financially....thus banning it. That makes sense as a reason for it...but that's AWFUL to do to users.
I'm not the biggest fan of flash - I wouldnt build a site with it...but that doesnt mean a billion others didnt...why should my content be limited? There are plenty of sites (like the car ones I just mentioned) that you can't even use without it.
I was hoping that maybe it was in the works but then heard that news about CS5 and now this...just enable flash Apple!!! This is absolutely ridiculous!
I'm suing too
I'm suing Nintendo for not making it so I can use my old Atari 2600 cartridges on my Wii. WTF? They're only shooting themselves in the foot! Atari 2600 cartridges are an ESTABLISHED STANDARD!!!!! Who knows how many people have used Atari 2600 cartridges in the past, and now they can't access that content on Wii! They must allow it! OMG I'M SO FREAKING MAD! AAAARRRGHHH THEY ARE THE SUCK!
I'm suing Nintendo for not making it so I can use my old Atari 2600 cartridges on my Wii. WTF? They're only shooting themselves in the foot! Atari 2600 cartridges are an ESTABLISHED STANDARD!!!!! Who knows how many people have used Atari 2600 cartridges in the past, and now they can't access that content on Wii! They must allow it! OMG I'M SO FREAKING MAD! AAAARRRGHHH THEY ARE THE SUCK!
Big deal. Lawsuits are a dime a dozen. Anybody can file one suing anyone. Just because Adobe can sue does not give them a chance in Hell of winning.
Adobe, if the story is true, and they are going to sue Apple, can sue for Defamation (product disparagement)...
...unless there are any patents still left to sue over!
This smells of desperation...
...unless there are any patents still left to sue over!
This smells of desperation...
Yes, me too. I almost choked on my sandwich the morning I read that. Adobe needed Flash above all Macromedia products and I was afraid Adobe would scrap Dreamweaver for their corresponding software. Luckily Adobe handled Macromedia's assets fairly responsibly (well, except for the pricing part) and even kept Fireworks around although I rarely use it these days due to Photoshop implementation of many of it's features. I just had a tad bit of branding confusion that made my department-wide software purchasing life quite difficult for a couple of years.
I think it's about time! Microsoft got sued by everyone for unfair business practices when Firefox and Opera were crying about putting Internet Explorer with Windows. Then Apple wants 100% control over iPhone OS and wants to shut everyone out but no antitrust cases are filed. It's about time someone does. Apple makes nice hardware and great OS but in my option the jailbreak community made it go from 75% useable to 100%.
Can you prove that adobe sells exactly 50% of all cs licenses on mac?
Or did you make that up?
Not too happy to read this. Issues between the two companies was okay to hear, and at times quite entertaining, but a lawsuit between Apple and Adobe is sad.
Adobe doesn't stand a chance. It's like all those entities who fought Apple a few years ago when iTunes music and iPod were locked together. They tried to break that but failed. Similarly this is Apple's platform and Adobe won't be able to dictate Apple what, or what not, to do.
If Adobe does file suit then Apple will be MAD and there's no telling what Apple will do to get back at Adobe. It's not really a big job for Apple to create pro design and image software like Adobe's and give it away for free -- for Mac + PC.
Adobe doesn't stand a chance. It's like all those entities who fought Apple a few years ago when iTunes music and iPod were locked together. They tried to break that but failed. Similarly this is Apple's platform and Adobe won't be able to dictate Apple what, or what not, to do.
If Adobe does file suit then Apple will be MAD and there's no telling what Apple will do to get back at Adobe. It's not really a big job for Apple to create pro design and image software like Adobe's and give it away for free -- for Mac + PC.
I'm sure Adobe has an army of patents to attack Apple with. Typography, graphics systems...etc. They could certainly do some damage, but they won't shake Apple to its core.
Needless to say, slower release cycles for Mac CS products would be a sure way to get back at Apple. There's no real competitor to photoshop on the Mac, so rather than people switching programs, people are going to be switching platforms.
Needless to say, slower release cycles for Mac CS products would be a sure way to get back at Apple. There's no real competitor to photoshop on the Mac, so rather than people switching programs, people are going to be switching platforms.
Yup. Is there any difference between developing for the iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad or for the XBOX 360, PS3, Wii ?? Don't you HAVE to use the developer tools for that platform? Also, don't you usually have to pay quite a bit of money for that privilege? (Apple's developer tools are free with OS X) And isn't it ultimately up to the owner of the platform to allow your game to be released on their platform? So does this mean Adobe will sue Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo as well?
The site is produced entirely in Flash. Like, everything, the scrollbars and menus and everything! Wow. I'm willing to bet that could have been done a lot easier with HTML. Amazing. Maybe Dreamweaver has an "Export to Flash" function? Hilarious.
Sure I'm good for discussion.
My position does not necessarily align with me liking flash. I don't. The players is proprietary but the development platform lets users code for it.
The reason I won't object to flash on any ethical grounds, is that as much as I dislike the need for it, it is entirely devloper and user driven. I can buy any computer and choose whether I want it or not. I think HTML5 is a great solution. Also note I do not object to apple not allowing flash in their browser. I do object to not permitting code which runs perfectly fine being blocked on legal grounds. Flash is actually an interesting platform and allows users to make a lot of different content aimed at different platforms. It is for the user to decide whether they want to run it.
What will be interesting to see now is what will happen with the opera browser since it has been permitted even though it breaks apples own rules. What if opera takes the same step as google and make flash work right inside the browser without the need for a plugin, would apple yank it ? On what grounds.
I preffer if the control is in the hands of users, followed by developers.
I think to that end an Apple seal of approval would work. It has shown that apple quality control does work and makes for a smooth process. At the same time there is a lot of content developed with engines like unity that are great, starting now they will be arbitrarily blocked. I disagree with that stance.
Not. Even. Close.
Apple has maybe 15% of the smartphone market, and far less if you include basic flip phones.
This is Apple's way of brining in new tech like they did with USB and pushing out old. Flash is cool, but it's old technology that is mastered by one.
It'll be fun to see what happens.
Flash will be pushed out at some time... But i don't get all the hate towards it? Seriously! No browsers support all features of HTML5 yet - not even the latest Chrome build (out of a weird total of 160, it scored 137)... Internet Explorer 9, the lastest beta, only SCORED 19!!! Safari scored 113. You get all of these features with flash, cross platform and cross browser, if you install one single plugin! Yes it is proprietary and yes it is closed-source, but it is still so much more capable and so much further ahead than HTML5 is. And it sure as hell isn't old tech.
Source: http://geektechnica.com/2010/04/chrome-passes-html5-test-with-flying-colors/
Oh, and you do realize that when HTML5 takes over, the animations will be done through that right? and this will probably take up a whole lot of CPU power as well, more than HTML5 video does!
Go Adobe