The Adobe-Apple Standoff

Another quarter and another hope that Adobe’s Flash will someday make an appearance on Apple’s iPhone.

On Adobe’s second quarter conference call, CEO Shantanu Narayen was asked about the 3G iPhone and whether Flash will be on the device. Here’s what Narayen had to say following Adobe’s earnings report:

With respect to the iPhone, we are working on it. We have a version that’s working on the emulation. This is still on the computer and you know, we have to continue to move it from a test environment onto the device and continue to make it work. So we are pleased with the internal progress that we’ve made to date.

A quarter ago, Adobe had to clarify comments Narayen made on the previous conference call.

The upshot: Adobe would really like its Flash to be on the iPhone–ideally included. The problem: Apple won’t play ball. Next quarter Adobe will toil with Flash some more and try to make it iPhone friendly enough to satisfy Apple.

However, given that Apple is working with SproutCore (see Ryan Stewart’s take and Techmeme) it’s unlikely this Adobe-Apple standoff, which really revolves around Flash lock-in according to Matt Asay, will be resolved any time soon.

Comments

[HarryDee]

As a web developer, I know that currently, all alternatives to Flash suck - including Apple's Quicktime and SproutCore. Apple should work with Adobe to bring Flash to iPhone as soon as possible. Adobe has two key technologies - Flash and PDF which cannot be ignored.

[nyctrax]

I agree. In fact, I think I'm going to email Apple about this (not that it will do any good). Flash is as integral to the Web as HTML. Why Flash wasn't integrated into even iPhone 1.0 was beyond me. And it's still not here for the latest iPhone? This really sucks (though I still love Apple and Steve Jobs).

[AppleFinland]

Jobs made it crystal clear ... '"There's this missing product in the middle. It just doesn't exist".

Legions of people agree.

Flash is a vexed and hated relic of in-your-face, web-experience-killing... bloated garbage unsuitable for mobile devices .. period.

Jobs won the first round already with YouTube and their adoption of H.264 to link with their iPhones. I can't see him following down the same tired, failed path of Nokia et al with Flash Lite.

Its crap. Steve ... DON'T DO IT. Lets keep our iPhone browsing experiences clean and fun.

[J Rizzo]

I agree with Harry, as I'm also a web developer with extensive RIA experience. Flash isn't ideal, but it's still beats the pants off Javascript/HTML driven applications.

I think Steve Jobs made it pretty clear - he isn't against using Flash, but Adobe needs to pick up the slack and improve Flash enough to be suitable for mobile browsing.

[brewer]

Adobe has not been the slightest bit kind to Apple or it's users. For instance, Adobe would not allow display postscript for OS X at a reasonable price. So Apple used PDF. Adobe basically wrote off Apple for dead in the late nineties. Looks like that bet was not a smart one. Adobe's applications are also way overpriced. They want like $400 for photoshop. Give us a break, and quit pushing everyone to windoZe as hard as you can, Adobe, and maybe Apple would toss you a bone. They could probably show you how to improve Flash as well because QUICKTIME (especially using H.264) is far, far better than Flash.

Flash simply can't handle anything larger than a banner add with any efficiency--especially if it's video and not some composted image.

[Tom B]

I agree with Brewer, etc. Flash SUCKS. It causes HUGE browser problems even on the desktop, where energy usage is not a concern. 90% of the time, I wish it would just go away.

As for PDF-- great format. And 99% of the time, Apple's Preview beats the pants off Adobe's slow, bloated Acrobat. If Apple juiced up Preview's authoring features, that would be a lost market for Adobe, just like Apple's Final Cut Pro sent Adobe Premiere into virtual oblivion.