Thoughts on Flash. Steve Jobs Is Lying About Flash. Flex and Flash Developer – Jesse Warden dot Kizz-ohm » Blog Arch. Apple has posted Steve Jobs’ “Thoughts on Flash“. There are a lot of lies and half truths. No one will care. The article has enough valid points that people won’t check up on them. That said, here’s my attempts to correct the lies. Lie #1: “Adobe’s Flash products are 100% proprietary.” The Flash IDE, yes. ActionScript 3 runtime, called Tamarin. This street goes both ways, too. ActionScript 1, 2, and 3 are all based on EMCAScript. I’m not saying Adobe’s open sourced a lot of the Flash Player. Regarding their products, he’s wrong there too.
Using a blanket statement saying Adobe’s Flash products are 100% proprietary is a lie. Lie #2: “HTML5 being adopted by Google” Google created the first browser to fully integrate plugins, and continues to work with Adobe to do so. Google didn’t start out with Flash. Lie #3: “…75% of video on the web is in Flash. Incorrect. Not all H264 videos conform to these specs. I’ve been in web video for 7 years. Lie #4: “users aren’t missing much video.” Incorrect. Adobe respond to Jobs' "thoughts on Flash"
The Wall Street Journal has had a short live-blog session with Adobe CEO, Shantanu Narayen, regarding today's "Thoughts on Flash" letter by Steve Jobs. In the interview, Narayen says that the technology problems Jobs portrays are nothing more than a "smokescreen," and that over 100 applications made by Adobe software can currently be found in the App Store. Narayen also goes on the attack, stating that if Adobe really is the number one cause of Mac crashes, then the problem is with the Apple OS, and not Adobe's product. In addition to addressing other issues, Narayen makes Adobe's stance on the matter clear--customers will be the ones to decide what technology to use, and Adobe firmly believes in a multi-platform world.
Aside from the official response from Adobe, former Editor-in-Chief of MacUsers, Adam Banks, has voiced an opinion of his own. Banks then addresses the points he disagrees with, one by one. You can view the whole thing here, however, these are some of his major points: Is 2011 like 1994 for Apple, Twitter, Facebook, and the Web? Fact: In 1994 I thought Apple was going to own it all. By 1999 most magazines thought it was dead. Fact: In 1992 Pointcast shipped. By 1999 it was dead. Fact: In 1994 Microsoft was beta testing a system called “Blackbird.”
They killed it before shipping it. It was designed to compete with Pointcast and AOL, both walled garden approaches. What changed the course of all these technologies? Developers and content producers. I remember Pointcast well. Lots of people thought it was killed by lack of low-cost Internet (their business just didn’t work back then. No, what killed Pointcast was its lack of openness. It was beautiful. But it pissed me off. Sure seems a lot like Time Magazine does on the iPad. Guess what? So why haven’t I returned my iPad if its major content partners behave just like Pointcast’s did? What did Pointcast in (content publisher greed) isn’t what did Apple in, though. Not that Apple was all that wrong. What did Steve Jobs do yesterday? Now WHY would he do such a thing? Chris Messina: It occurs to me that Apple... Adobe Gives up on Apple, Welcomes Android. Adobe is officially giving up on Apple. Or rather, Apple gave up on Adobe and Adobe is just now admitting it.
In any event, the news is that Adobe's "Packager for iPhone," the bundled tool in Flash Professional that lets Flash developers leverage their existing skills to produce iPhone apps, shall be no more. The toolkit will still ship with Creative Suite 5 as planned, but no future development or investment is planned in this area - or so says Mike Chambers, the principal product manager for developer relations for Adobe's Flash platform, in a blog post on Tuesday. Farewell, iPhone The announcement highlights the escalating tensions between the two companies, initially kicked off by Apple's decision to not allow Flash on its mobile devices, a line up which includes iPhone, iPod Touch and now, the iPad. That change effectively killed Adobe's plans for its Flash-to-iPhone packager, a tool that would have allowed Flash developers to port their creations to Apple's platform. Hello, Android.
The Adobe - Apple Flame War. The short version: Who, in his right mind, expects Steve Jobs to let Adobe (and other) cross-platform application development tools control his (I mean the iPhone OS) future? Cross-platform tools dangle the old “write once, run everywhere” promise. But, by being cross-platform, they don’t use, they erase “uncommon” features. To Apple, this is anathema as it wants apps developers to use, to promote its differentiation.
It’s that simple. Losing differentiation is death by low margins. The longer version: The upcoming 4.0 release of the iPhone OS will come with licensing language that prohibits the use of Adobe’s Flash-to-iPhone compiler. Not so fast, says Apple, we’ll only allow applications that are written “natively” with our tools. Less than 24 hours later, an Adobe employee, Lee Brimelow, posts a virulent critique of Apple’s latest prohibition, titled “Apple Slaps Developers In The Face”. He’s not alone in condemning Apple. Adobe appears to be worried. There are calmer minds, however. Apple vs Flash. Our thoughts on open markets I Adobe. Jobs: Flash Has Had Its Day, It's HTML5 Time. Greystripe And Adobe Partner To Bring Flash Ads To The iPhone An. The ongoing battle between Adobe and Apple over the lack of support for Flash on the iPhone and iPad has been entertaining to say the least.
Adobe has been candid about what they think of Apple’s policy, and in turn, Steve Jobs has been open about his thoughts on Flash. But in the end, Flash is still not supported on Apple’s iPhone and iPad. Today, Adobe is partnering with mobile ad network Greystripe to help bring Flash authored ads to the iPhone, iPad, Android and mobile web. Well, sort of. Greystripe’s technology now transcodes Flash authored ads as HTML5 to mobile devices that do not support Flash Player (such as the iPhone and iPad); these ads will be supported in both applications and on the mobile web. Greystripe has been allowing advertisers to use Flash-like technologies in their iPhone and iPad advertisements for some time now. Google Chrome Now Comes With Flash Built In.