Adobe exec: Apple's fight against Flash is a 19th century tactic - Page 2

Hard to argue with Adobe on this.

On the one hand, Apple's stance is forcing Adobe to make Flash better.

However, apple is deliberately trying to kill Flash and to harm Adobe.

i don't like this Apple.

I have been a fan of Apple and it's decisions for a while. Bought my first Mac in 2005. Love it. bought the iPhone when it came out as I saw a winner from the beginning. Was VERY disappointed it couldn't run flash, which means I could not enjoy half the websites I frequented.

Flash is ubiquitous across the web. The extra interactivity it provides far exceeds even the video h.264 integration in HTML5 as you can have much more interactivity with a video and causing it to start and stop and transition just as you like. Since the iPhone, many have rushed to make their sites compatible an the once interactive slideshows have become simply static pictures moving from right to left. Much of the extra interactivity and content presentation is lost.

Flash is an amazing technology. Sure, it isn't always implemented in the best way, but the solution to that is to educate, not eradicate. Now, one of the best things about the web is marginalized simply because one company who does many things well is making the devices most people want - and they are abusing that power to force their will upon the entire workings of the internet.

Stop Apple. just stop. and make Flash work.

Apple is going to get in trouble doing these kinds of things.

I have always defended Apple as I believed they have been doing what is right.

Not in this case. and not in any case where they have become the bully they claim to fight against.

Yep.

Apple needs to do things better. Adobe stood by them when they were dying. Now, they repay the favor by trying to kill Adobe. Eh?

The Adobe Creative suite is one of the only reasons people buy Macs. Most artists like Macs due to their style and the CS is a good fit for the OS versus Windows. However, if Adobe simply decides to stop updating the CS for Mac, Apple will be in bigger trouble than they realize.

A great percentage of the population whouses Adobe Suites are on the Mac. I highly doubt Adobe would dare pull their joint out of the Mac. Even if they do, that doesn't mean their customers would go back to PC. If that's the case I'll still keep my Mac and then I can still install Windows version of Adobe Suites on my Mac. Thank the heavens for boot camp.

I do understand the metaphor, and like most metaphors, it is imperfect. If you look again at Lynch's use of the railroad metaphor, he is talking about railroad gauges. The implication is that if you own a railroad, you won't be able to move your cars outside of the rails you build yourself if the gauges are different. That's true. So it's not the metaphor which is problematic, but the application here which does not work. Adobe can move their railroad cars almost everywhere expect for this one place. The metaphor fit better in the case of Microsoft because they owned 95% of the railroad tracks and so whatever they allowed or did not allow to use those tracks impacted the vast majority of the market. They could also use that built-in advantage to have a huge competitive edge, which they did.

i'm rather quite shock how a large number of people have completely ignored something that's quite significant about Adobe's Flash web app for the iPhone. Adobe has NOT released the product. Steve mentioned this a couple of times on his public letter. So why all this hoopla for something that's not even released yet?

Lynch can scream all he wants about freedom of choice on the web, but where's freaking product? Even the Android version was a demo version.

Its apple's trains. They can run on whatever tracks they want. Forcing another company to support your proprietary standards is hardly an 'open' strategy. Fuck these fools.

Adobe is totally backwards. Just got CS5: you can't install it on a case-sensitive file system. What? More than 10 years after Apple ships Mac OS X, which is UNIX based and where case-sensitive is the norm, more than 10 years since Apple ships UFS, case-sensitive HFSX and was potentially shipping ZFS, Adobe still can't put that little effort into cleaning up their code to make it run on a case-sensitive file system?

Talk about LAZY! And that with software that retails for more than a new computer, and which is mostly the same code warmed up over and over again, with a few new features thrown in? And they can't use a regex search and replace to fix up resource names, which if their code weren't a huge mess wouldn't need any fixing up in the first place?

And they say something about 19th century? Their code is still written as if we all were using teletypes...

It was high time someone stands up to them. Flash bogs down any computer, no matter how powerful, if not for any other reason than because it allows imbeciles to "program" and make all the mistakes that would make you flunk an into to CS class.

I wish Apple would set up a team to create some serious competition to the Creative Suite software. $40bn should go a long way towards writing a decent layout software, drawing program, web site creation software and photo editor.

Nevermind that Adobe has some of the worst customer service of any company I ever had to deal with. An insult, given what they charge for their software.

I think the guy above said it best: "Sounds like Adobe wants EVERYONE TO PLAY ON THEIR "TRACKS""!! BS. Kiss my A** Adobe!!

All those worst case scenarios are kinda reaching. I know they are worst case, but we have to sort of be realistic.

- Adobe won't stop updating a product suite on a platform that comprises of 50% of their annual sales. Their shareholders would lose their collective minds.
- If Microsoft doesn't support the canvas tag, they will be relegating IE to a second class browser. They are trying to push IE 9 as a standards based browser and if they can't at least match the main browsers, they will continue to lose market share.
- Firefox will most likely cave in and support H.264. Regardless of the fact that Firefox is free, the Mozilla Foundation makes a ton of money. Their reported revenue for fiscal 2008 was almost $79 million. That was a pretty sizable increase compared to their fiscal 2007 revenue. They have assets in the 9 figures.
- As of right now, no mobile phone supports Flash and when they do, we'll see how they perform. Until then, it's all talk from Adobe.
- There are no grounds for the Feds to sue Apple. They are only looking into potentials and I am pretty sure Apple's legal team thought the changes to the terms pretty thoroughly.
- The way that iAd is being pitched, Apple won't let it be a nuisance. It will most likely be a top-tier platform. Either way, until it is actually available, we can't pass judgement.
- With $40 billion in case and a top 3 market-cap, they will have to make a ton of mistakes to crash. Not having Flash on their iPhone OS devices hasn't hurt sales one bit. 1 million iPads in 28 days proves that.

Wow. Just wow.

Lynch said Apple's philosophy is "counter" to the Web, and forces companies to write software for a specific operating system, which results in higher costs for development.

Um, what? I had no idea that the Web was OS specific. Someone better tell the W3C this...


Lynch also said that Adobe has big plans for HTML5, even though the Web standard and its inclusion of streaming video technology are widely viewed as a competitor to Flash. He said Adobe would create "the best tools in the world" for those looking to make content via HTML5.

Then shut up and get to it. Instead of whining about ONE COMPANY blocking you out, get these HTML5 authoring tools out! Come on, let's go.

Oh, and get that Mobile Flash Player up to snuff while you're at it. It's not looking so good at the moment. Hard to believe Apple's given up on you afte years of promises about full, mobile, Flash Player.

Reread your history books. Adobe has done the bare minimum to support the Mac platform for over a decade now and has done far more to promote their Windows products for a long time now.

- Late to deliver OS X native apps
- Late to deliver Universal binaries
- Late to deliver 64-bit apps (and most of CS5 is still only 32-bit!)
- Acrobat Pro on the Mac has always been watered down and overpriced
- Adobe's engineers and marketing people have long pushed the Windows versions of their apps over the Mac versions. Their Illustrator and Photoshop people have definitely done this.
- And on and ond...

Despite this, Adobe still gets around half of its Creative Suite revenues from Mac users. Too much revenue for Adobe to walk away from.

Bull Shit! Adobe has never been a friend to Apple. It's more the other way around. The Macintosh put Adobe on the map don't forget. But more recent when Steve cane back to Apple and brought with him Mac OS X. He personally went to Adobe to ask them to create an video editing application that Apple would pay a license for and give away free on the mac. Adobe said "No". So Steve said we will do it ourselve than and that is how iMovie was born!

Oh for crying out loud, I wish Adobe would just stop their whining and focus on 1) fixing Flash for the Mac desktop 2) create a real mobile version of Flash, not Flash lite, so that they could prove that Flash is viable on a mobile device.

I can wait to hear about how Flash now runs on Android and can play all flash content but people are trying to click that little button with their pinky and can't do it or have no idea what a particular button is for and can't hover, etc., etc.

Until we get to that stage and Adobe can show that it is worth bringing current Flash content from the desktop onto mobile screens, Adobe... sit your "a" double "s" down and get to work! Lazy beeaches.

Trains? A bit of a tortured metaphor there. Apple would have to be a railway company serving a relatively small but affluent area; Adobe would have to be some kind of independent train manufacturer who uses a gauge that no-one else uses (call it ADB-gauge) and tries to give away gauge-conversion kits for free, while trying to maintain the impression that their trains are the standard way for circuses (well, it's travelling entertainment!) to get around. Apple Rail won't accept Adobe Trains' gauge conversion kits because of some grumbling about Adobe's trains damaging the track more than other trains do, but Adobe Trains are desperate to get their gauge on there because the Apple Rail areas are a hotbed of circus activity! I mean, yes, the circuses are getting around okay, but only the ones who've got Apple Rail gauge trains (the components of which are given away by Apple Rail for free) and, well, Adobe Trains is only championing the cause of the circus train operators who've bought Adobe's trains (and no others)!

Wow, I really shouldn't try to take things to their logical conclusions. It gets pretty surreal.


Law is the means, always, not the end. It's not a legal game that Apple is playing, it's just plain old business. Having Flash on iPhone would lose stockholders' money, not having Flash on iPhone gains money (or is neutral). Likewise, for all the rhetoric, that's exactly what Adobe is doing: they believe (quite reasonably) that being supported on the iPhone will get them a lot of money, in terms of driving developers to buy more copies of Adobe CS. They do so love their developers' money.


That doesn't even begin to make sense.


The Open Screen Project is all about standardising web sites on Adobe's proprietary, closed, Flash. The "open" part is that the device manufacturers all play nicely with Adobe, see? Hardware manufacturers are totally up for that, because it gives them one more little logo to put on their boxes and they don't really care about anything else. For them, the cost of compliance is offset by the expected additional sales (or mitigated loss). Notice the people who aren't in the list: no Microsoft, Linux Foundation, RedHat, Ubuntu, Sun, no HP, Dell, Acer. All the big phone makers are there, yes (Nokia to RIM), and that does include Google (presumably for Android). If Flash ends up being dominant in the mobile space, Adobe will have won (against the OS makers), and then I'm sure Apple would be most deferential, just as if any other technology had become overwhelmingly dominant. But there's just no reason for them to be in the meantime.


That, of course, is a matter of perspective. For developers in general, it is about HTML5 versus Flash versus a handful of other technologies. For Microsoft, it's about Silverlight versus Flash (what's HTML5??). For Adobe, it's about every possible competitor, including HTML5, versus Flash. Oh, wait a minute. Well, if you mean HTML5 as the thing that includes <video>, <audio> and <canvas>, that's versus Flash. If you mean all the other features of HTML5, then it's not. I think this is a pretty clear indication that Adobe intend to put support for everything but <video>, <audio> and <canvas> into Dreamweaver, and make it hook into Flash to emulate the rest, that way they can say they produce HTML5 output without actually competing with themselves.

I refer you to one site:

flashsucks.org

Adobe certainly knows about that 19th century. That's how old the code is in their software.

Debating this issue is kind of pointless, because it all boils down to the fact that Adobe's primary focus is the developers and Apple's is the end-user. So which side you defend comes down to which view you agree with.

So on to the pointless bit...

I happen to agree with Apple because our job as programmers is to make a product that as good as possible for the end-user. I don't think programming for the lowest common denominator benefits the end-user. Sure, some apps don't really need to make use of any features other than the lowest common denominator features - however, business being what it is, companies will tend to want to reach the optimal compromise between cost of development and market reach. So I believe that over time the average app on any platform won't make use of any of the special features of that platform, thus making any effort on further development of any such platform a waste of resources for the platform vendors. Needless to say, such a situation would HUGELY benefit Adobe (understatement of the year) and just about ruin every other platform vendor.

I'd really like to see some examples of why Flash and HTML5 aren't competitive technologies. I can't really see why one would need Flash if one had full HTML5/CSS3/Javascript/SVG/H.264 support...

Amazing. The iPhone came out in 2007. It is now 2010. Adobe has now FINALLY got a beta of their amazing Flash plug-in. What the hell? Apple was supposed to work with a bloated alpha or something? And doesn't the plugin require a minimum of something like an 800mhz processor to show the content? Complete crap. Until the Adobe CEO shows half a dozen phones on-stage running their glorious plugin, this is all talk of NOTHING.

More like trains vs airplanes ...who won and was better for the public?

The fact they say it costs more to develop something with HTML5 than with Flash is just.... incredible.

Well Steve Job's disagrees ... I'm not sure who is right, but look at this from Steve's infamous letter.

"In addition, Flash has not performed well on mobile devices. We have routinely asked Adobe to show us Flash performing well on a mobile device, any mobile device, for a few years now. We have never seen it. Adobe publicly said that Flash would ship on a smartphone in early 2009, then the second half of 2009, then the first half of 2010, and now they say the second half of 2010. We think it will eventually ship, but were glad we didnt hold our breath. Who knows how it will perform?"

Instead of fixing Flash and proving it works great on the iPhone and iPad, Lynch rambles about the 1900's railroad system????

That's the best Adobe's CTO can do?

Can I apply for his job? He's clueless.

Ed

I think both of these companies have their customer's interests in mind.

Apple's customers are the folks who own iPhones, iPod Touches, and iPads. Apple wants to give them the best possible user experience. That means decoding videos in hardware rather than software to greatly extend battery life. That means avoiding software tools that code for the lowest common denominator. It means putting product quality first.

Adobe's customers are the developers who want to develop once and run everywhere. To please these customers, Adobe must give them a set of cross-platform development tools enabling them to produce one size fits all software that can run identically on every platform.

The two customer groups have opposing interests. You can't please one without displeasing the other.

I don't know if you know this but MAC software is approximately 50% of Adobe's revenue. So, you can add to your scenario, Adobe drops revenue by 50% and stock crashes!!!! :-)

Apple just wants to control the development toools "just" for Apple iPhone OS. THAT'S IT!! However, Adobe wants to control the development tools for ALL PLATFORMS. So I ask " Who really wants to have complete control". Plus Flash sells more "highly expensive" Creative Suite software which makes Adobe very happy!!

By the way, it's obvious that a bunch of the people on these forums do NOT know the history of Adobe, and how they absolutely have NOT supported Apple throughout the years. It was actually the other way around. Here's one great article on the history of Adobe:
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2010/0...dobe-vs-apple/

you need to read up on your history dude. adobe stood by apple? it's all about style?

if adobe decides to stop updating CS for the mac, their shareholders are going to have their hides. that's where half of adobe's money comes from. frankly, with adobe's position in the graphic design market, i think that would be an anti trust case that could go somewhere.

Maybe if Adobe spent 1/10 as much time fixing Flash as they spend attacking Apple, maybe they'd have Flash that works on a mobile device.


Nice misdirection. Adobe STILL (3 years after release of the iPhone) have a full version of Flash that works on ANY mobile device. None.

Yes, they've created a hybrid monster that limps along on the iPhone after compiling and breaking all the SDK rules. Not to mention that Adobe clearly has no concept of how GOOD apps work. Those apps won't support any of the new features of iPhone OS 4.0 and, if history is any lesson, it will take Adobe 4 years to add support.


Please explain how Apple is supposed to fix Adobe crapware that doesn't run on ANY mobile platform.


The reported number is that 100 apps have been made using Adobe's flash compilation technology. The problem is that they won't support the new features in iPhone OS 4.0, nor do they meet Apple's standards for quality.


OK. Adobe's position seems to be that they've had 3 years to produce a version of Flash that works on mobile devices and they have been unable to do it. They have been unable to produce a version of Flash for Macs (which have 10 times the processing power) that use less than 100% CPU power. After 3 years and multiple delays, they now have a BETA of a version of Flash that will run on 0.1% of existing smart phones (maybe), NOT including any iPhone out there. And, the beta is still reported to be a CPU and battery hog (not to mention choppy).

On top of that, developers are switching to html 5 in droves. Some of the top sites in the world are already offering html versions or have publicly announced them (YouTube, Hulu, NYT, and lots more). The people responsible for these large sites obviously realize that Adobe is never going to have a useful version of Flash for mobile devices.

So you agree that all of that is reasonable and Apple should just bend over?


That's one of the craziest statements I've seen in this entire conversation.

When Apple was having trouble, Adobe stabbed them in the back - over and over. They offered discounts for people to switch from Mac to Windows (but not the other way). They publicly stated that they would be developing for Windows first and porting to the Mac. They took forever to use Apple-specific technologies -- and badly implemented most of them. The Mac versions were consistently late and under-featured (64 bit Photoshop is nearly half a decade later on the Mac than on Windows). And they did all of these things even though Macs were 40-50% of Adobe's revenue.

Adobe standing by Apple when they were 'dying'? Nothing could be further from the truth.

probably the wrong crowd to be asking. But did anyone read Atlas Shrugged?

It was the Rearden Steel that forged new train tracks that allowed trains (built by Taggart Transcontinental) to travel much faster. All of the other Steel companies and railways got pissed and demanded government intervention. They limited the production of Rearden steel, and they also imposed a law that said that trains traveling on Rearden Steel must go the same speed as all other trains... otherwise it wouldn't be fair right?

The way I see it, the train tracks isn't a good analogy Adobe. Maybe, Adobe built the tracks 75% of the world uses, but those tracks never get updated. Apple comes along and they build airplanes... which of course won't work on tracks. I see this as a better analogy. Flight is the future of travel in this scenario, but in this case Adobe wants to be able to slap some train wheels on a plane and keep it grounded.

have they even released a beta? i don't think so.
like everything with adobe lately, it's 'just around the corner...'

The last time Adobe gave you this much Shit and turned you down for a home movie editing application you created iMovie which eventually became iLife suite. Screw these punks and give us your own "Creative Suite". Your more than halfway there: iLife, Final Cut, Final Cut Express, Aperature, Logic Studio, etc. Again "Screw Adobe" just like they screwed you!!

I'm not going to spend eight minutes watching some random bloke drone on. If you have a point, make it AS WELL AS citing your source.

<canvas> is interesting in that it's very dependent on the implementation. There's nothing about it that's fundamentally slow, in fact its design is well optimised for 2D hardware acceleration since (unlike SVG) it doesn't care about how the image was built once it hits the frame buffer. As long as you have a reasonably quick Javascript implementation (as opposed to Adobe's Actionscript implementation - I don't know how quick that is by comparison, someone should benchmark it!) and hardware acceleration, you'll have quick <canvas>, but I don't think that any of the current implementations, unlike Flash on Windows, have 2D hardware acceleration.


Wow, that was a bad misquote. And makes much more sense, although strictly speaking the idea that Flash could work on the iPhone is a business issue for them; the only real technology issues (ie, problems with the actual implementation) are the alleged poor performance and alleged battery drain. Anyway, it's certainly true that all OS makers have a reason to dislike Flash apps running on all OSs.

19th Century Red Herring (see paragraph 4)


Apple has not kept Flask off all of it's browsers, just off the iPhone version of Safari.

Does Palm, Blackberry, Nokia, Motorola, etc. and Verizon, AT&T, Sprint etc. have to allow whatever software users or developers want on their phones? Does Adobe have to allow open access to it's software so other developers and users can do whatever they want?

If we are going to claim the gander should be open then the goose better be more open first. But then we know Adobe's revised claim is indeed just a red herring, an attempt to over simplify and to generate public support.

Some of us will get caught up in the debate, but the bottom line is we can relatively easily choose a competitors product if we want.

Maybe it takes 19th century tactics to get past 19th century software.

Just as an odd aside, I think Alstom made both trains, though each was co-developed with another entity.


YouTube is a bad example anyway. There is a native YT app on iOS.


Saber rattling is probably about all he can do in the short term.

Actually, why do you folks even give air time to these statements? Slow news day?

Adobe is SO SCARED. Flash is on the down and Adobe knows that a huge percent of it's customer base are Mac users. And we all know how Mac users are loyal to Apple and Adobe knows this!! And let's face it Apple has the resources and engineers to create there own alternative to Adobe's CS5 and trust me Mac users will buy it even if it is a little buggy at first. For one like I said, Mac users are VERY loyal to Apple and second I guarantee it will be at least half the price of Adobe's Creative Suite! So you don't think for once Adobe is scared. You bet they are. Steve would have no problem taking them out of business!!

Here is Flash 10.1 being demonstrated on a prototype Android tablet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hqFTx8rLsg

Notice how well the presenter handles the browser crash.

You make a point here and I do agree - I think Adobe is scared. However, I don't think it is in a Mac user's best interests to have everything coming from Apple. Apple users need and should have other specialized companies making products. It is of course debatable these days how Adobe is doing with the quality level. I've used PhotoShop since 1994 and find the $800 upgrade fee for CS5 a shock for sure...

I have yet to read a single compelling argument from Adobe's side regarding any of this - again from a product that technically still does not exist to consumers. A YouTube video does not count for me...

I know I saw it ... it is laugh out loud funny.


... glad I didn't get the ipad cause it don't have flash ...

... browser crash when trying to play flash ...

.... oh look at this cool contacts app

And I too agree with you. Everything should not come from Apple. But let's be honest where is the competition to Adobe's CS? is that why we pay so much for it. Because Adobe can get away with it. And don't you see how something like Flash locks developers into using "Creative Suites"? Adobe needs competition. If not from Apple than who? Who would be more loyal to the Mac platform than Apple themselves?