'We have never, ever abandoned Apple,' Adobe co-founder says

Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
Adobe has continued to push back against Apple's opposition to Flash, insisting that the Web format is open, and dismissing a suggestion from Steve Jobs that Adobe abandoned Apple.



Adobe co-founder Chuck Geschke spoke with John Paczkowski of Digital Daily this week, just after his company had unveiled an open letter and new advertising campaign related to its ongoing dispute with Apple. Adobe's campaign is largely in response to an open letter published by Apple co-founder Steve Jobs last month, in which he argued that Flash is not suitable for the current generation of mobile devices.



Paszckowski asked Geschke about one line in particular from Jobs' letter: "Apple went through its near death experience, and Adobe was drawn to the corporate market with their Acrobat products." Paszckowski said he felt the Apple CEO was implying that Adobe had abandoned Apple in its time of need.



"We never abandoned Apple," Geschke responded. "Apple now seems to be abandoning at least one aspect of our product line right now. No, we never abandoned them. We've always ported our apps simultaneously to both platforms."



He continued: "There have been times when Apple has changed its strategy on hardware or on operating systems that didn’t meet our product cycle, so there have been periods of maybe six months where we didn't keep up with their latest release. But that’s our own business model; we can only afford to re-implement our products at a certain rate. We have never, ever abandoned Apple and we don’t want to abandon them today."



Geschke was also asked why Flash isn't an "open standard," a question that the Adobe co-founder took issue with. He argued that Flash is open because Adobe published the SWF format and removed a previous requirement for a license to use it.



"No, we haven't put Flash out to a standards body yet as we have with PDF and Postscript," he said. "But I wouldn't be shocked if we do someday when it makes sense."



It doesn't make sense now, he said, because he isn't interested in having Flash being stuck with "design by committee." He pointed to HTML5, the open standard that Apple has embraced, and noted that it is taking a great deal of time to become finalized because "there are an awful lot of vested interests trying to influence its development."



Finally, Geschke said he thinks the iPad is "neat," though he has no interest in one personally. He said his company knows a number of developers who want to create applications for the iPad, but are frustrated by the prospect of having to learn to write for a new device rather than sticking with one language they're already familiar with.



Geschke's interview was part of a new public relations campaign Adobe has waged to fight Apple. On Thursday, the company began a new ad campaign in which it says it "loves" Apple, but dislikes "anybody taking away your freedom to use the Web openly. Geschke, along with co-founder John Warnock, penned a letter in which they asserted that a "single company" does not control the Web.



"We believe that Apple, by taking the opposite approach, has taken a step that could undermine this next chapter of the web -- the chapter in which mobile devices outnumber computers, any individual can be a publisher, and content is accessed anywhere and at any time," they wrote.



While Apple has banned Flash from its devices powered by the iPhone OS, including the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad, it has embraced HTML5. The exclusion of Flash has been pegged by Apple on the Web format's alleged instability and high power consumption in mobile devices. The fight between the two companies has been a matter of considerable debate, but many major Web sites have turned to HTML5 since the release of the iPad.



In addition to banning Flash from its mobile Web browsers, Apple also changed the iPhone developer agreement to ban third-party tools that would allow software to be ported from other formats, like Adobe Flash, to native iPhone OS software. Jobs said such tools would result in substandard applications on the Apple-controlled App Store. Those changes have come under federal scrutiny, as the Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission are considering an antitrust inquiry into the matter.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 189
    davendaven Posts: 696member
    "No, we haven't put Flash out to a standards body yet as we have with PDF and Postscript," he said. "But I wouldn't be shocked if we do someday when it makes sense."



    ==================



    In other words. "When Flash is no longer relevant, we will put it out to a standards body in the hope that it becomes relevant again."
  • Reply 2 of 189
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,718member
    'We have never, ever abandoned Apple,' Adobe co-founder says ... Chuck, I beg to differ ...
  • Reply 3 of 189
    roboduderobodude Posts: 273member




    Is Flash really that important to Adobe? I'd like to see a revenue pie chart.
  • Reply 4 of 189
    tenobelltenobell Posts: 7,014member
    Within this year or next year smart phones and mobile internet devices sales are goin to surpass the PC. All they need are HTML5 compliant browsers to support the standard. The three major smart phone manufacturers do support HTML5. Flash is getting left out of the devices that will soon dominate web usage.



    Ultimatley the way to keep Flash revelant is to deliver a superior experience. These press releases does nothing to accomplish that.
  • Reply 5 of 189
    rbonnerrbonner Posts: 635member
    OMG, they are whining a bit much. Adobe put out a product that Apple ended up not liking. How about focusing on making it way better than HTML5 so the market will beg to use it, or focus on your products that work well.
  • Reply 6 of 189
    boogabooga Posts: 1,082member
    My guess is that Adobe's just trying to get Apple to hate them enough not to buy them so the CEO's can keep their cushy jobs.
  • Reply 7 of 189
    jragostajragosta Posts: 10,473member
    Why is everyone publishing Adobe PR pieces without questioning them?



    Face it - Adobe has never released a full version of Flash that will run on the iPhone. That's an unquestioned fact.



    Flash can use > 100% CPU time on my Core 2 Duo 2.33 GHz MBP with 3 GB of RAM. Just how in the world can it be expected to run on a 400 to 600 MHz device with less than 1/10 the RAM?



    Adobe has been promising a version of Flash for the iPhone for 3 years and not delivered. Apple got tired of waiting. For that matter, only Android of all smart phone manufacturers is supporting Adobe - and even that support is very limited. The overwhelming majority of the smart phone market says NO FLASH.



    Apple released a well-thought out explanation of why they don't support Flash on the iPhone - and all we get from Adobe is whining and lies. How about trying to refute Jobs' comments? Show us Flash working on an iPhone. Surely Adobe knows that they can jailbreak a phone in order to show that it works.



    Oh, and get off they hypocrisy about openness. Adobe claims that one company shouldn't control the Internet. That's Apple's entire argument. The Internet should use open standards like html 5 - not closed, proprietary ones like Flash. It's an amazing indication of how gullible they think the public is that Adobe will even try to claim the 'one company shouldn't control the internet' as an Adobe advantage.



    PLEASE stop printing Adobe press releases. How about a little analysis?
  • Reply 8 of 189
    qualiaqualia Posts: 73member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by AppleInsider View Post


    "We never abandoned Apple," Geschke responded. "Apple now seems to be abandoning at least one aspect of our product line right now. No, we never abandoned them. We've always ported our apps simultaneously to both platforms."



    I haven't ever used any Adobe product and even I know this is an outright lie. Who's he trying to fool (besides the people who already have a grudge against Apple and will believe anything any other company says)?



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by AppleInsider View Post


    It doesn't make sense now, he said, because he isn't interested in having Flash being stuck with "design by committee." He pointed to HTML5, the open standard that Apple has embraced, and noted that it is taking a great deal of time to become finalized because "there are an awful lot of vested interests trying to influence its development."



    Reminds me of not too long ago when Adobe was blocking something regarding HTML5. So, if Flash isn't awful because of committee, what's the excuse?



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by AppleInsider View Post


    Finally, Geschke said he thinks the iPad is "neat," though he has no interest in one personally. He said his company knows a number of developers who want to create applications for the iPad, but are frustrated by the prospect of having to learn to write for a new device rather than sticking with one language they're already familiar with.



    Honestly, I'm happy not to see apps from Flash developers flood the App Store more than it already is with junk.
  • Reply 9 of 189
    bigmc6000bigmc6000 Posts: 767member
    How exactly can Apple abandon Flash when it was NEVER on the iPhone in the first place? It's still on virtually all Macs but it's never been on the iPhone and most likely never will be. By Adobe's own admittance they don't have a Flash plugin that's worth a crap for a mobile device so what would Apple even put on the iPhone? Flash lite? Yeah, no.



    Adobe, Apple isn't abandoning you, they are trying to make the best user experience for their customers, if you should decide to make software that will do that I'm sure Apple would love to have your software but in its current form Flash doesn't work on the mobile platform (hence why you're re-writing it, if you thought it was fine before you wouldn't even bother you'd just port it).
  • Reply 10 of 189
    wallywally Posts: 211member
    Quote:

    "We never abandoned Apple," ..."We've always ported our apps simultaneously to both platforms."



    Right you stupid ass-hole - that's the point. You've been porting your shitty apps for the last decade not taking full advantage of our platform of choice.



    I've loathed Adobe products for so long - now with their hypocritical bitching about Apple - it's only making their position worse.



    Maybe Autodesk could rise up and fill this need we have to actually have competition for Adobe (ironically enough the same Adobe did with Quark).
  • Reply 11 of 189
    monstrositymonstrosity Posts: 2,234member
    More nonsense from Adobe.
  • Reply 12 of 189
    stevetimstevetim Posts: 482member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by AppleInsider View Post


    periods of maybe six months



    Isn't he blatently lying here?. 6 month cycle for products. Leopard has been out since 2007 and Adobe just got around to using 64bit leopard technology and leopard frameworks with CS5. The statements coming out of adobe are bordering on crazy. Completely dumping Adobe Primier on the mac and making statements like we always work both platforms and never abandoned apple? Do they think we are stupid?. I used to love these guys at adobe. I gladly moved from quark to indesign because I loved adobe. Now I can't wait for someone to come in and destroy them with better products.
  • Reply 13 of 189
    mdriftmeyermdriftmeyer Posts: 7,503member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Robodude View Post






    Is Flash really that important to Adobe? I'd like to see a revenue pie chart.



    Yes, but as a piece that intertwines itself within it's many product suites.



    Their > $4.5 Billion for Macromedia was a hefty investment that they want to make money on, overall.



    You'd think they'd make sure that investment was well warranted by making sure the software isn't a bag of hurt.
  • Reply 14 of 189
    wvmb99wvmb99 Posts: 23member
    Time to find something else to do Adobe..... Focusing on Apple like this may get you some press, but ignoring similar statements from Microsoft, Opera, mozilla, and who else (?) is going to end up biting them in the butt. Look at the download stats for Flash blockers, people who want their advertisements to be seen must be doing this. I can't imagine that they are happy, or will be content with, only a portion of the web seeing their ads, no matter how big or small that portion is.
  • Reply 15 of 189
    kibitzerkibitzer Posts: 1,114member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Booga View Post


    My guess is that Adobe's just trying to get Apple to hate them enough not to buy them so the CEO's can keep their cushy jobs.



    My first reaction to your comment - it's off the wall. But on second thought ... just maybe ...
  • Reply 16 of 189
    Here's a question: Where's Narayen?
  • Reply 17 of 189
    boogabooga Posts: 1,082member
    Quote:

    "We never abandoned Apple"



    *cough*FrameMaker*cough*
  • Reply 18 of 189
    ihxoihxo Posts: 567member
    yeah... right.

    And Microsoft's like IE for Mac is still very much alive.
  • Reply 19 of 189
    spotonspoton Posts: 645member
    Quote:

    ...Flash is not suitable for the current generation of mobile devices.





    O.K. fine it isn´t. Neither does Flash run well on a 3 year old new XP Dell I set up today for a friend neither. (was siting in a box unused for all that time)



    No big deal, it´s not the end of the world. It´s just the processor thermal limit being hit.



    It´s not Adobe´s fault, it´s not Apple´s fault.



    Flash provides things HTML 5 doesn´t.



    Jobs is being a drama king for a reason, to push his own standard.



    Jobs feels like he has to control software because the hardware limitations now demands it.



    Look at the App Store as a prime example.



    No longer can developers write more and more bloated code and wait for the hardware to catch up, because it no longer can.



    Jesus, this means the end of open Mac´s for sure now. *sobs*
  • Reply 20 of 189
    rjosbornrjosborn Posts: 1member
    I don't think that there has ever been a statement that Apple "has banned" Flash anyways. Yes there has been the banning of the cheats that Adobe built into CS5, but Adobe can't say flash is banned until they come up with an acceptable solution for flash content in a mobile browser. Until they solve all of the problems that SJ outlined, they can't say they are banned anymore than Microsoft can say that Office is banned on the iPhone...
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