RUMOR ALERT — I have not substantiated this with anyone at either Adobe or Apple, so might turn out to be totally false:
Today I got a note from someone I know who works closely with Adobe and Apple. He saw my “Apple stabs Adobe in the Back” post and wanted to give me some details about what’s going on between Adobe and Apple. He says that he’s seen Flash running on an iPhone in a lab and that it’s been running for quite a while and that it’s not a technical issue that caused Steve Jobs to go public about not putting Adobe’s Flash on the iPhone. He wrote “Geez – my Chumby with half the CPU horsepower can run Flash8/AS2.”
So, what’s the reason, according to my source?
Adobe is playing hardball with Apple over their PDF renderer. “Adobe wants Apple to use the Adobe PDF renderer.” His thesis? Steve Jobs is playing hard to get to get Adobe to give up this demand.
Again, I have no idea if this is true or not. But tomorrow’s SDK announcement with Apple is going to be very interesting to listen to.
Scobleizer 
Ya… Flash has been running on the Iphone for a long time internally…. i heard they even tried a few Flex applications on it
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Ya… Flash has been running on the Iphone for a long time internally…. i heard they even tried a few Flex applications on it
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Are we talking about a real flash player like the one you can install on a normal computer with all features, etc. Or are we talking about the flash lite 1, 2 or 3 that is hard to find, hard to install and with limited functionnalities
here are the direct links to the “lite” player
flash lite 3 features : http://www.adobe.com/products/flashlite/features/
flash lite 3 download site : https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/entitlement/index.cfm?e=labs%5Fflashlite3
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Are we talking about a real flash player like the one you can install on a normal computer with all features, etc. Or are we talking about the flash lite 1, 2 or 3 that is hard to find, hard to install and with limited functionnalities
here are the direct links to the “lite” player
flash lite 3 features : http://www.adobe.com/products/flashlite/features/
flash lite 3 download site : https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/entitlement/index.cfm?e=labs%5Fflashlite3
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Thus is the real downside with Apple retaining so much control over the iPhone. They’ll tell me what I want on my iPhone dammit and I’ll like it. Well, F you Apple, I want F’ing Flash on my F’ing iPhone. I couldn’t care what kind of pissing match your having with Adobe. I see no technical reason why Flash shouldn’t work fine on an iPhone. It ain’t F’ing rocket science. F!
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Thus is the real downside with Apple retaining so much control over the iPhone. They’ll tell me what I want on my iPhone dammit and I’ll like it. Well, F you Apple, I want F’ing Flash on my F’ing iPhone. I couldn’t care what kind of pissing match your having with Adobe. I see no technical reason why Flash shouldn’t work fine on an iPhone. It ain’t F’ing rocket science. F!
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robert… wouldn’t it make sense that maybe apple could create a version of flash on their own via a quicktime integration to make it work on the iphone?
seems like adobe and apple are in a pissing match and no one will win there.
seems even more unlikely that apple and microsoft will get in bed w/ a silverlight integration on the iphone…
seems like they could create a standard on their own and go from there vs adobe/etc….
just a thought… love fastcompany.tv btw
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robert… wouldn’t it make sense that maybe apple could create a version of flash on their own via a quicktime integration to make it work on the iphone?
seems like adobe and apple are in a pissing match and no one will win there.
seems even more unlikely that apple and microsoft will get in bed w/ a silverlight integration on the iphone…
seems like they could create a standard on their own and go from there vs adobe/etc….
just a thought… love fastcompany.tv btw
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What would be the upside of Adobe having their PDF reader used in the iPhone? Would Apple then need to pay a licensing fee?
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What would be the upside of Adobe having their PDF reader used in the iPhone? Would Apple then need to pay a licensing fee?
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I think you’re all missing an important detail – Apple didn’t say it’s impossible to get flash on the iPhone and they didn’t say they haven’t done it – they said it’s not technically feasible to put the *full* flash on the iPhone given CPU power and probably more importantly battery life and they said that the mobile version isn’t worth having.
All this adds up if people are confusing the mobile versions of flash with the full desktop version of flash. Technical limitations keep the full version off the iPhone, user experience (as perceived by Apple) keeps the mobile version off.
Jobs has been known to lie before but I doubt he’d lie to his shareholders and then backflip the next day, that’s pretty much asking for a lawsuite. 😛
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I think you’re all missing an important detail – Apple didn’t say it’s impossible to get flash on the iPhone and they didn’t say they haven’t done it – they said it’s not technically feasible to put the *full* flash on the iPhone given CPU power and probably more importantly battery life and they said that the mobile version isn’t worth having.
All this adds up if people are confusing the mobile versions of flash with the full desktop version of flash. Technical limitations keep the full version off the iPhone, user experience (as perceived by Apple) keeps the mobile version off.
Jobs has been known to lie before but I doubt he’d lie to his shareholders and then backflip the next day, that’s pretty much asking for a lawsuite. 😛
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wanna bet it’s about money? My guess is Adobe would like Apple to pay a licensing fee for the Flash player… Apple in return would like Adobe to pay for installing the Flash Player.
Do you really think Nokia is installing Silverlight on all their phones because they think it’s such a cool technology? I would also bet that Nokia is getting paid a bucket load of cash to include Silverlight on their S60 devices… as this move otherwise makes zero business sense to me.
As a matter of fact I would dare to say that Microsoft has a dedicated war chest of 1 billion US dollars to make Silverlight the defacto standard for RIAs…
once they reached this goal they will abandon all support for platforms other than Windows or Windows Mobile. They have done this with Internet Explorer before. Why would they suddenly change their behavior.
But coming back to Apple and Flash, I strongly believe there is a revenue model issue behind the lack of Flash on the iPhone.
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wanna bet it’s about money? My guess is Adobe would like Apple to pay a licensing fee for the Flash player… Apple in return would like Adobe to pay for installing the Flash Player.
Do you really think Nokia is installing Silverlight on all their phones because they think it’s such a cool technology? I would also bet that Nokia is getting paid a bucket load of cash to include Silverlight on their S60 devices… as this move otherwise makes zero business sense to me.
As a matter of fact I would dare to say that Microsoft has a dedicated war chest of 1 billion US dollars to make Silverlight the defacto standard for RIAs…
once they reached this goal they will abandon all support for platforms other than Windows or Windows Mobile. They have done this with Internet Explorer before. Why would they suddenly change their behavior.
But coming back to Apple and Flash, I strongly believe there is a revenue model issue behind the lack of Flash on the iPhone.
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All I read out of what Jobs said was, “Adobe’s Flash versions are either too slow or too crappy for our device. They lack a version appropriate to the iPhone.”
In my mind, I read that with one additional smug-filled sentence, “So we went and wrote our own, because we’re just that awesome.”
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All I read out of what Jobs said was, “Adobe’s Flash versions are either too slow or too crappy for our device. They lack a version appropriate to the iPhone.”
In my mind, I read that with one additional smug-filled sentence, “So we went and wrote our own, because we’re just that awesome.”
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@thomas I totally agree that there should be a revenue model issue behind the scene. But can somebody explain the different models between the player for your computer and the player for your phone. For me what I got is that the phone manufacturer has to pay Adobe to include the player on the phone, but I may be wrong.
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@thomas I totally agree that there should be a revenue model issue behind the scene. But can somebody explain the different models between the player for your computer and the player for your phone. For me what I got is that the phone manufacturer has to pay Adobe to include the player on the phone, but I may be wrong.
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A few months back, I had stumbled upon an article which said that buying Adobe would be the most logical thing Apple could do. Now, if Jobs goes against Flash n lets says he manages to do it well with SVG etc, could this be a fit somehow to support the whole buyout theory? Make a competitor weak, ignore – create another benchmark n someday sometime in future buy it out.
Somewhere I think in corner of the mind that it could be possible. Any comments?
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It’s got to be a matter of time that Apple adds Flash on the iPhone in some capacity. Especially for video and other Flash-based content. Come on Steve, what’s the real reason? Flash would kick @$$ on the iPhone!
Maybe he is playing hardball on PDF’s but would he make the same mistakes of the past and not fully open up system?
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A few months back, I had stumbled upon an article which said that buying Adobe would be the most logical thing Apple could do. Now, if Jobs goes against Flash n lets says he manages to do it well with SVG etc, could this be a fit somehow to support the whole buyout theory? Make a competitor weak, ignore – create another benchmark n someday sometime in future buy it out.
Somewhere I think in corner of the mind that it could be possible. Any comments?
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It’s got to be a matter of time that Apple adds Flash on the iPhone in some capacity. Especially for video and other Flash-based content. Come on Steve, what’s the real reason? Flash would kick @$$ on the iPhone!
Maybe he is playing hardball on PDF’s but would he make the same mistakes of the past and not fully open up system?
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Good point Thomas, I also agree. That’s what it’s usually all about. The mighty dollar.
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Good point Thomas, I also agree. That’s what it’s usually all about. The mighty dollar.
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So bloggers and people from Arkansas can understand…
Drat. Big wrench no works good, and da small wrench no works good either. Sheeeucks. Well I reckon, I needsha medium wrench. Gee Golly, no medium at the’s Ace Hardeeware? Well shucks, I betcha I can make a medium wrench outta some of the lawn car parts. Yesirreee.
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So bloggers and people from Arkansas can understand…
Drat. Big wrench no works good, and da small wrench no works good either. Sheeeucks. Well I reckon, I needsha medium wrench. Gee Golly, no medium at the’s Ace Hardeeware? Well shucks, I betcha I can make a medium wrench outta some of the lawn car parts. Yesirreee.
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I believe it’s mostly politics and money, but there might be a technical issue too. Adobe isn’t exactly famous for writing small, resource-efficient applications. Think Adobe Reader (80MB and 1 minute startup times to read PDF files? WTF!), Photoshop and even the Flash player itself. There’s nothing that eats more CPU and RAM on my system than Adobe’s applications and Flash is often one of the largest sinners.
So if Apple is refusing to run Adobe’s crap because it’s … well — crap — I don’t blame them.
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I believe it’s mostly politics and money, but there might be a technical issue too. Adobe isn’t exactly famous for writing small, resource-efficient applications. Think Adobe Reader (80MB and 1 minute startup times to read PDF files? WTF!), Photoshop and even the Flash player itself. There’s nothing that eats more CPU and RAM on my system than Adobe’s applications and Flash is often one of the largest sinners.
So if Apple is refusing to run Adobe’s crap because it’s … well — crap — I don’t blame them.
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I can’t see this being about PDF. Why would Apple rely on a third party for something that is so core to their OS?
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I can’t see this being about PDF. Why would Apple rely on a third party for something that is so core to their OS?
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Yeah, I keep thinking Apple’s going to make a major acquisition, whether Adobe or someone else.
Wasn’t Jobs just talking about their cash hoard ($18Bln) this week, too, and how they did NOT plan to distribute any of that via either dividends or buybacks?
Maybe Jobs figures the Nokia/Silverlight deal ought to make Adobe more willing to make a deal?
I wonder who else Apple might be looking at, too. It’s sure looked lately like they could use a lot more programmers!
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Yeah, I keep thinking Apple’s going to make a major acquisition, whether Adobe or someone else.
Wasn’t Jobs just talking about their cash hoard ($18Bln) this week, too, and how they did NOT plan to distribute any of that via either dividends or buybacks?
Maybe Jobs figures the Nokia/Silverlight deal ought to make Adobe more willing to make a deal?
I wonder who else Apple might be looking at, too. It’s sure looked lately like they could use a lot more programmers!
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FYI, there’s something wrong with Apple’s PDF renderer. If you use it to generate a PDF you can’t use that file for printing from Lulu.com. People have had numerous problems where pages don’t print correctly, and now Lulu won’t even accept a PDF that’s been created by the Apple renderer.
An Apple generated PDF on Leopard is marked as PDF 1.4, while a PDF created with CS3 (InDesign, for example) is marked PDF 1.6, so Apple’s also behind in that way, too. A switch to Adobe would be an improvement.
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FYI, there’s something wrong with Apple’s PDF renderer. If you use it to generate a PDF you can’t use that file for printing from Lulu.com. People have had numerous problems where pages don’t print correctly, and now Lulu won’t even accept a PDF that’s been created by the Apple renderer.
An Apple generated PDF on Leopard is marked as PDF 1.4, while a PDF created with CS3 (InDesign, for example) is marked PDF 1.6, so Apple’s also behind in that way, too. A switch to Adobe would be an improvement.
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I haven’t looked recently, but at one point, all iPhone processes were running as root, usually understood as a Bad Thing. When (not if) this is corrected, my suspicion is that the iPhone will open up a wee bit more to external development (since non-root apps will have a harder time messing things up).
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I haven’t looked recently, but at one point, all iPhone processes were running as root, usually understood as a Bad Thing. When (not if) this is corrected, my suspicion is that the iPhone will open up a wee bit more to external development (since non-root apps will have a harder time messing things up).
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Ok,
Lets get some facts straight.
Steve, details of not, is misleading the share holders and iPhone owners.
Flash Player has large chunks of machine code to make it as fast as possible.
As the iPhone can play H.264 content, known to be VERY CPU hungry, I find it inconceivable that the iPhone cannot operate well.
If anything, he may be talking about the FULL version of flash and not the Flash Lite version that is more designed for small devices like a Mobile phone.
But really, if it can play H.264, it should easily do Flash (Full version) reasonably. And if some one said, a Flex app was seen on it. That points to full flash support (Which would be great).
This issue has always been about MONEY. Adobe’s business model is licensing Flash Player as an embedded player. That is the long term agenda here. That is why they are making it all Open source for development. The IDE’s etc are also amazingly cheap. The money must be in the licensing. (I have blogged about this before and Adobes plan to take over the world) http://www.crafted.com.au/blog search for “Adobes plan for world domination”
The PDF issues makes complete sense. Books/mainly-Newspapers are on the way out. Adobe would really like PDF to become a dominant format used in that future. But then again, Apple probably wants to take a run at this themselves. They have FairPlay DRM, it’s an important technology to the Itunes empire.
As apple, would you not want to tackle reading material too…
It will be interesting to see what happens. I imagine Adobe will fold. They don;t really have any leverage here… Apart from building pdf readers into flash. Which has been done.. It is an interesting juncture in the evolution of the internet and digital (reading) media.
James
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Ok,
Lets get some facts straight.
Steve, details of not, is misleading the share holders and iPhone owners.
Flash Player has large chunks of machine code to make it as fast as possible.
As the iPhone can play H.264 content, known to be VERY CPU hungry, I find it inconceivable that the iPhone cannot operate well.
If anything, he may be talking about the FULL version of flash and not the Flash Lite version that is more designed for small devices like a Mobile phone.
But really, if it can play H.264, it should easily do Flash (Full version) reasonably. And if some one said, a Flex app was seen on it. That points to full flash support (Which would be great).
This issue has always been about MONEY. Adobe’s business model is licensing Flash Player as an embedded player. That is the long term agenda here. That is why they are making it all Open source for development. The IDE’s etc are also amazingly cheap. The money must be in the licensing. (I have blogged about this before and Adobes plan to take over the world) http://www.crafted.com.au/blog search for “Adobes plan for world domination”
The PDF issues makes complete sense. Books/mainly-Newspapers are on the way out. Adobe would really like PDF to become a dominant format used in that future. But then again, Apple probably wants to take a run at this themselves. They have FairPlay DRM, it’s an important technology to the Itunes empire.
As apple, would you not want to tackle reading material too…
It will be interesting to see what happens. I imagine Adobe will fold. They don;t really have any leverage here… Apart from building pdf readers into flash. Which has been done.. It is an interesting juncture in the evolution of the internet and digital (reading) media.
James
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Maybe Apple is in talk with Microsoft to drop flash and go with Silverlight.
Scott Guthrie Hinted at Silverlight on the iPhone at the Mix 08 in Las Vegas:
http://www.psynixis.com/blog/2008/03/05/scott-guthrie-hints-at-silverlight-on-iphone/
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Maybe Apple is in talk with Microsoft to drop flash and go with Silverlight.
Scott Guthrie Hinted at Silverlight on the iPhone at the Mix 08 in Las Vegas:
http://www.psynixis.com/blog/2008/03/05/scott-guthrie-hints-at-silverlight-on-iphone/
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Abode has been holding back its Flash SDK for Devices and the SDK it only Supports Flash 7.This is a major Issue with the Wii and other devices that support Flash .
http://my.opera.com/haavard/blog/2007/04/13/wii-browser-out-but-why-flash-7-and-not-8-or-9
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Abode has been holding back its Flash SDK for Devices and the SDK it only Supports Flash 7.This is a major Issue with the Wii and other devices that support Flash .
http://my.opera.com/haavard/blog/2007/04/13/wii-browser-out-but-why-flash-7-and-not-8-or-9
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@James Gardiner
regarding h.264 support. The iphone has hardware chips that natively support h.264 support… so it’s not surprisingly that they can support h.264 but not another format such as flash. flash support would require the CPU to process it.
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@James Gardiner
regarding h.264 support. The iphone has hardware chips that natively support h.264 support… so it’s not surprisingly that they can support h.264 but not another format such as flash. flash support would require the CPU to process it.
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I love my iPhone. I’m a designer and adore things that look & feel “pretty”. However, I also appreciate the need for form AND function – and the iPhone is certainly lacking in the latter category.
I simply don’t buy this line that Flash can’t run on the iPhone as it opens them up to it being an inferior product next to the Nokia N95. I am also getting tired of this trite line from Apple suggesting that they are doing us a favour by saving us from ourselves in terms of battery life. This could have been presented, in marketing terms, in a much better way: “The iphone has comparable battery life to competitors” etc.
I wholly agree that there is something else going on here. Only time, with the possible caveat of non-disclosure agreements, will tell on this one.
Rumour or not, thanks for posting this Robert.
Scott.
P.S. Please excuse my quaint, archaic British spelling. Q.V. “Rumour” and “Favour” 😉
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I love my iPhone. I’m a designer and adore things that look & feel “pretty”. However, I also appreciate the need for form AND function – and the iPhone is certainly lacking in the latter category.
I simply don’t buy this line that Flash can’t run on the iPhone as it opens them up to it being an inferior product next to the Nokia N95. I am also getting tired of this trite line from Apple suggesting that they are doing us a favour by saving us from ourselves in terms of battery life. This could have been presented, in marketing terms, in a much better way: “The iphone has comparable battery life to competitors” etc.
I wholly agree that there is something else going on here. Only time, with the possible caveat of non-disclosure agreements, will tell on this one.
Rumour or not, thanks for posting this Robert.
Scott.
P.S. Please excuse my quaint, archaic British spelling. Q.V. “Rumour” and “Favour” 😉
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Mr Scoble – use both Flash and Adobe Acrobat on a Mac. Neither is a good experience and I can’t believe they can suddenly take either of these products and make good, fast versions for a very much less powerful computer running a stripped down version of the same OS. I like a lot of things about Adobe, but these products are horrible. Also, add to this the way they treated NeXT and those inside Apple who remember that, and how slow they were to support OS X.
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Mr Scoble – use both Flash and Adobe Acrobat on a Mac. Neither is a good experience and I can’t believe they can suddenly take either of these products and make good, fast versions for a very much less powerful computer running a stripped down version of the same OS. I like a lot of things about Adobe, but these products are horrible. Also, add to this the way they treated NeXT and those inside Apple who remember that, and how slow they were to support OS X.
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@David Jacobs: “Well, F you Apple, I want F’ing Flash on my F’ing iPhone.”
Not sure why anyone wants Flash outside of porn, cartoons and Flash ads, but there’s a legitimate solution: write it. Here’s some helpful links to get you started:
Installing the iPhone developer toolchain – http://code.google.com/p/iphone-dev/wiki/Building
SFW File Format spec – http://the-labs.com/MacromediaFlash/SWF-Spec/SWFfileformat.html
FLV File format spec – http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/formats/fdd/fdd000131.shtml
Go for it! What’s that? You can’t develop it yourself and are demanding someone else do it for you? Well then, how bout you STFU and take what’s given to you.
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@David Jacobs: “Well, F you Apple, I want F’ing Flash on my F’ing iPhone.”
Not sure why anyone wants Flash outside of porn, cartoons and Flash ads, but there’s a legitimate solution: write it. Here’s some helpful links to get you started:
Installing the iPhone developer toolchain – http://code.google.com/p/iphone-dev/wiki/Building
SFW File Format spec – http://the-labs.com/MacromediaFlash/SWF-Spec/SWFfileformat.html
FLV File format spec – http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/formats/fdd/fdd000131.shtml
Go for it! What’s that? You can’t develop it yourself and are demanding someone else do it for you? Well then, how bout you STFU and take what’s given to you.
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I have a Comment from someone here who has a different POV on this issue:
http://mikecane2008.wordpress.com/2008/03/05/adobe-get-off-your-fat/
And the more I think about it, what good is just a Flash *player*? Don’t we need Flash to be systemwide in the iPhone so that, for example, YouTube or other FLV files play *in place*? Doesn’t that mean at the very least integration into the Safari browser?
There’s already a method for playing FLVs on the iPhone. I suspect it’s converting:
http://mikecane2008.wordpress.com/2008/01/13/reference-flash-video-on-iphone/
I don’t understand this Flash vs PDF issue. I don’t see what Adobe would get out of that other than milking Apple for royalties on PDF. Apple’s own Preview already handles PDFs without Adobe.
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I have a Comment from someone here who has a different POV on this issue:
http://mikecane2008.wordpress.com/2008/03/05/adobe-get-off-your-fat/
And the more I think about it, what good is just a Flash *player*? Don’t we need Flash to be systemwide in the iPhone so that, for example, YouTube or other FLV files play *in place*? Doesn’t that mean at the very least integration into the Safari browser?
There’s already a method for playing FLVs on the iPhone. I suspect it’s converting:
http://mikecane2008.wordpress.com/2008/01/13/reference-flash-video-on-iphone/
I don’t understand this Flash vs PDF issue. I don’t see what Adobe would get out of that other than milking Apple for royalties on PDF. Apple’s own Preview already handles PDFs without Adobe.
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Rendering a web page with Flash ads on a Mac eats up 70-90% of CPU. Sure, Flash is “running on an iPhone in a lab” and “it’s been running for quite a while” – Apple engineers use it to test potential problems with cpu overheating.
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Rendering a web page with Flash ads on a Mac eats up 70-90% of CPU. Sure, Flash is “running on an iPhone in a lab” and “it’s been running for quite a while” – Apple engineers use it to test potential problems with cpu overheating.
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From Matt M’s comment (22) “how slow they were to support OS X”. “Were” is the wrong verb. They still have only limited support for Leopard. My repeated inquiries regarding a release date for Adobe Acrobat Standard Edition for OS X 10.5 remain unanswered. Why? They can get $150 more for Pro if that is all they sell. It’s all about the money.
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From Matt M’s comment (22) “how slow they were to support OS X”. “Were” is the wrong verb. They still have only limited support for Leopard. My repeated inquiries regarding a release date for Adobe Acrobat Standard Edition for OS X 10.5 remain unanswered. Why? They can get $150 more for Pro if that is all they sell. It’s all about the money.
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Here’s my guess on Steve Jobs’ wishlist for Adobe: Use CoreAnimation, CoreGraphics, CoreAudio and CoreVideo in your OS X implementation of Flash, integrate more native OS X controls (because, let’s face it: Flash-based UIs are usually hideous, non-functional and non-standard).
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Here’s my guess on Steve Jobs’ wishlist for Adobe: Use CoreAnimation, CoreGraphics, CoreAudio and CoreVideo in your OS X implementation of Flash, integrate more native OS X controls (because, let’s face it: Flash-based UIs are usually hideous, non-functional and non-standard).
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Me thinks there’s a lot of history behind this…
1) Adobe probably wouldn’t exist if Jobs hadn’t picked postscript, developed the Laserwriter and created the desktop publishing industry which set up Adobe and it’s money making product line.
2) Jobs chooses display postscript for Next and Adobe reams him on royalties.
3) Jobs returns, wants to use display postscript with OSX but gets the big royalty treatment form Adobe, lack of support from them for native apps, lousy Flash player on Macs, etc.
Adobe is probably very high on the Jobs shit list.
The difference now is Apple’s flying high, Jobs doesn’t have to bend over for the traditional Adobe hump.
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Me thinks there’s a lot of history behind this…
1) Adobe probably wouldn’t exist if Jobs hadn’t picked postscript, developed the Laserwriter and created the desktop publishing industry which set up Adobe and it’s money making product line.
2) Jobs chooses display postscript for Next and Adobe reams him on royalties.
3) Jobs returns, wants to use display postscript with OSX but gets the big royalty treatment form Adobe, lack of support from them for native apps, lousy Flash player on Macs, etc.
Adobe is probably very high on the Jobs shit list.
The difference now is Apple’s flying high, Jobs doesn’t have to bend over for the traditional Adobe hump.
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Hi Rob,
Tiny point. When looking for FastCompany.TV clicky saw that your VP @ PodTech job is still listed on the right.
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Hi Rob,
Tiny point. When looking for FastCompany.TV clicky saw that your VP @ PodTech job is still listed on the right.
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It’s pretty clear that Scoble’s source is full of crap. Here’s a link to the Chumby wiki page on developing flash widgets: http://wiki.chumby.com/mediawiki/index.php/Developing_widgets_for_chumby The page says the Chumby runs Flash Lite 3.0, not a full fledged version of flash. It goes on to list several supported and unsuported features (Stylesheets!?) and describes an implementation difference between Flash Lite and Flash Player in how the mouse pointer is detected with a touch screen.
My point is this: if Scoble’s source knows so much about Adobe’s development of Flash I would expect him to know the difference between Flash Lite 3 and Flash Player 8. That he doesn’t makes me believe his other statements are not true.
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It’s pretty clear that Scoble’s source is full of crap. Here’s a link to the Chumby wiki page on developing flash widgets: http://wiki.chumby.com/mediawiki/index.php/Developing_widgets_for_chumby The page says the Chumby runs Flash Lite 3.0, not a full fledged version of flash. It goes on to list several supported and unsuported features (Stylesheets!?) and describes an implementation difference between Flash Lite and Flash Player in how the mouse pointer is detected with a touch screen.
My point is this: if Scoble’s source knows so much about Adobe’s development of Flash I would expect him to know the difference between Flash Lite 3 and Flash Player 8. That he doesn’t makes me believe his other statements are not true.
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Yeahh Flash on the iPhone….that is like Steve Jobs next president of USA!!!
C’mon
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Yeahh Flash on the iPhone….that is like Steve Jobs next president of USA!!!
C’mon
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Your source is yanking your chain. Apple’s Quartz 2D library is the best PDF renderer there is, period (also the fastest). Apple’s not going to damage the Mac by adopting Adobe’s rendering code.
Adobe wants flash on the iPhone and Apple doesn’t. Whatever games Adobe may be playing here, Apple’s not participating.
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Your source is yanking your chain. Apple’s Quartz 2D library is the best PDF renderer there is, period (also the fastest). Apple’s not going to damage the Mac by adopting Adobe’s rendering code.
Adobe wants flash on the iPhone and Apple doesn’t. Whatever games Adobe may be playing here, Apple’s not participating.
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“Adobe is probably very high on the Jobs shit list.”
Actually, it’s more like they’re on the “why do we care about those clowns anymore?” list.
Steve’s not into the revenge thing. When someone tries to fuck with Apple, then Apple will just ignore them.
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“Adobe is probably very high on the Jobs shit list.”
Actually, it’s more like they’re on the “why do we care about those clowns anymore?” list.
Steve’s not into the revenge thing. When someone tries to fuck with Apple, then Apple will just ignore them.
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Most of you commenting that “no way Flash won’t run on the iPhone!” (including the author), are just completely clued out as to the facts. If you do a few minutes of research, you will see that what Jobs’ said is absolutely true and there are severe technical and performance limitations to running Flash on the iPhone pretty much exactly as he said. Regardless of the political stuff that may be happening, Jobs is not lying when he says that is the reason.
To those supporting the “Apple should (or is) buy(ing) Adobe” theory, you couldn’t be more wrong. Apple, like any well managed company doesn’t buy out other companies unless they have something of value.
Adobe is far over-rated right now in terms of value. None of Adobe’s apps are well-coded or well-designed and the code is all *carbon* code, which is virtually useless on a modern Mac. Adobe is in the process of, (and anyone who buys it would also be doing this), throwing out all of the code behind all of their products for the Mac and re-writing them as Cocoa apps. If you have to re-write all the apps from scratch, what’s the value in buying the company?
Controlling the PDF standard is pretty much the only thing of value in the company and it’s unlikely that Apple would pay the necessary millions just for that.
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Most of you commenting that “no way Flash won’t run on the iPhone!” (including the author), are just completely clued out as to the facts. If you do a few minutes of research, you will see that what Jobs’ said is absolutely true and there are severe technical and performance limitations to running Flash on the iPhone pretty much exactly as he said. Regardless of the political stuff that may be happening, Jobs is not lying when he says that is the reason.
To those supporting the “Apple should (or is) buy(ing) Adobe” theory, you couldn’t be more wrong. Apple, like any well managed company doesn’t buy out other companies unless they have something of value.
Adobe is far over-rated right now in terms of value. None of Adobe’s apps are well-coded or well-designed and the code is all *carbon* code, which is virtually useless on a modern Mac. Adobe is in the process of, (and anyone who buys it would also be doing this), throwing out all of the code behind all of their products for the Mac and re-writing them as Cocoa apps. If you have to re-write all the apps from scratch, what’s the value in buying the company?
Controlling the PDF standard is pretty much the only thing of value in the company and it’s unlikely that Apple would pay the necessary millions just for that.
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Great attention grabbing headline, pointless post.
Apple had Windows running on a Mac how far back? How much earlier than the switch to Intel chips made it more REALISTIC to run Windows on a Mac?
As others of have said, Jobs didn’t say it couldn’t be done. What he said was: “it performs too slowly on the iPhone”. Considering how poorly Flash performs on my desktop Mac, a point Robert that you seem to be ignoring completely, I sure as hell don’t want it on my iPhone.
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Great attention grabbing headline, pointless post.
Apple had Windows running on a Mac how far back? How much earlier than the switch to Intel chips made it more REALISTIC to run Windows on a Mac?
As others of have said, Jobs didn’t say it couldn’t be done. What he said was: “it performs too slowly on the iPhone”. Considering how poorly Flash performs on my desktop Mac, a point Robert that you seem to be ignoring completely, I sure as hell don’t want it on my iPhone.
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When Apple is referring to the iphone as one device taking advantage of a “wireless platform” and Adobe is also referring to Flash as a platform, it is easy to see where the conflict lies. If Apple lets Flash on the iPhone it has the potential to undercut the OS as a platform.
They are just looking down the road. Apple does not want to see everyone using AIR apps that run on your phone, and your computer and your Apple TV, and you never see the OS (and it doesn’t matter what hardware you are running). One can understand why pretty easily.
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When Apple is referring to the iphone as one device taking advantage of a “wireless platform” and Adobe is also referring to Flash as a platform, it is easy to see where the conflict lies. If Apple lets Flash on the iPhone it has the potential to undercut the OS as a platform.
They are just looking down the road. Apple does not want to see everyone using AIR apps that run on your phone, and your computer and your Apple TV, and you never see the OS (and it doesn’t matter what hardware you are running). One can understand why pretty easily.
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Flash just needs to go away like the floppy disk! If you had to program that poop, and had to deal with its limitations, then you’d get rid of it too!
Adobe makes tons of money selling lic. so software that is like from the 80’s or something. It’s really lame. I think Adobe needs to quit relying on old stuff and start innovation again so that they can move things forward.
Flash is really backward – I realize there is some pain, but move to AJAX and real plugins like QuickTime for high-end video work. It’s gotta happen!
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Flash just needs to go away like the floppy disk! If you had to program that poop, and had to deal with its limitations, then you’d get rid of it too!
Adobe makes tons of money selling lic. so software that is like from the 80’s or something. It’s really lame. I think Adobe needs to quit relying on old stuff and start innovation again so that they can move things forward.
Flash is really backward – I realize there is some pain, but move to AJAX and real plugins like QuickTime for high-end video work. It’s gotta happen!
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Why is everyone forgetting that Apple needs to control the User Experience. Rich flash applications are too close for comfort for Jobs. If Apple loses control of the UI, then they’ll lose differentiation from their competitors.
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I’d LOVE for my half-assed guess to be proven wrong and shown an iPhone happily running Flash. The argument that the iPhone “plays H.264 just fine” so it must be able to run Flash isn’t that compelling, because I thought iPhone/iPod teardowns reveal chips that have hardware support specifically for H.264 decoding. (IIRC they’ve got support for H.264 encoding as well, not that Apple has implemented that.)
I don’t know why Adobe would insist on using their PDF renderer. On a stock Mac, the Preview app (written by Apple) loads PDFs instantly: Boom. Install Acrobat and load a PDF, and it’s more like, Tick… tick… tick… tick… tick…
(splash screen)
…tick… tick… tick… tick… tick… tick…
(checks watch)
…tick… tick… tick… tick… tick… tick…
(checks calendar)
…tick… tick… tick… tick… tick… Boom.
(apologies to The Hives)
On top of that it seems like every other day, there are holes in Adobe’s PDF renderer you can drive a truck through. So why would Adobe insist upon Apple using something that’s demonstrably slower and buggier? Wouldn’t beating up Steve Jobs to take his lunch money be a lot easier?
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I’d LOVE for my half-assed guess to be proven wrong and shown an iPhone happily running Flash. The argument that the iPhone “plays H.264 just fine” so it must be able to run Flash isn’t that compelling, because I thought iPhone/iPod teardowns reveal chips that have hardware support specifically for H.264 decoding. (IIRC they’ve got support for H.264 encoding as well, not that Apple has implemented that.)
I don’t know why Adobe would insist on using their PDF renderer. On a stock Mac, the Preview app (written by Apple) loads PDFs instantly: Boom. Install Acrobat and load a PDF, and it’s more like, Tick… tick… tick… tick… tick…
(splash screen)
…tick… tick… tick… tick… tick… tick…
(checks watch)
…tick… tick… tick… tick… tick… tick…
(checks calendar)
…tick… tick… tick… tick… tick… Boom.
(apologies to The Hives)
On top of that it seems like every other day, there are holes in Adobe’s PDF renderer you can drive a truck through. So why would Adobe insist upon Apple using something that’s demonstrably slower and buggier? Wouldn’t beating up Steve Jobs to take his lunch money be a lot easier?
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Why is everyone forgetting that Apple needs to control the User Experience. Rich flash applications are too close for comfort for Jobs. If Apple loses control of the UI, then they’ll lose differentiation from their competitors.
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“Thus is the real downside with Apple retaining so much control over the iPhone.”
You conveniently decide to ignore the real upside to Apple retaining so much control over the iPhone: Its the best thing out there right now, at least for me. If flash is so important to you, I’m sure you can find a phone that runs it. Then lets hear you talk about downsides :p
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Sometimes the blogosphere seems to be one giant echo chamber. See the comments at http://tinyurl.com/2ghsdb
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“Thus is the real downside with Apple retaining so much control over the iPhone.”
You conveniently decide to ignore the real upside to Apple retaining so much control over the iPhone: Its the best thing out there right now, at least for me. If flash is so important to you, I’m sure you can find a phone that runs it. Then lets hear you talk about downsides :p
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Sometimes the blogosphere seems to be one giant echo chamber. See the comments at http://tinyurl.com/2ghsdb
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Apple hasn’t said that Flash CAN’T work on the iPhone,they’ve said that performance is or would be lousy. They either know this because it’s on the iPhone in the lab and it sucks, or it’s conjecture based on what they know about Flash and iPhone hardware. Either way they know what they are talking about and I don’t see they’re lying about anything. David Jacobs seems to be an immature little ‘tard. Make your own phone and put flash on it. The iPhone is how Apple wants it to be. If you don’t want a phone like that, get another phone.
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Apple hasn’t said that Flash CAN’T work on the iPhone,they’ve said that performance is or would be lousy. They either know this because it’s on the iPhone in the lab and it sucks, or it’s conjecture based on what they know about Flash and iPhone hardware. Either way they know what they are talking about and I don’t see they’re lying about anything. David Jacobs seems to be an immature little ‘tard. Make your own phone and put flash on it. The iPhone is how Apple wants it to be. If you don’t want a phone like that, get another phone.
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I think there is more to this than meets the eye. I believe QuickTime and the Movie Industry is a factor.
I was writing about that just yesterday:
http://ekive.blogspot.com/2008/03/no-flash-on-iphone-its-not-about-iphone.html
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I think there is more to this than meets the eye. I believe QuickTime and the Movie Industry is a factor.
I was writing about that just yesterday:
http://ekive.blogspot.com/2008/03/no-flash-on-iphone-its-not-about-iphone.html
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I find Flash to be a CPU hog on my laptop. I’m not missing having it drag down the performance and battery life on my iPhone.
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I find Flash to be a CPU hog on my laptop. I’m not missing having it drag down the performance and battery life on my iPhone.
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One: Who gives a shit whether or not Flash runs on the goddamned iPhone. Seriously. Who cares? It’s just another “thing” like bluetooth headsets voice dialing or user-replaceable battery that look great on paper but you would never use.
Two: People, buy devices as they exist today. It’s fine to want to see them improve, but seriously, if you need shitty Flash Lite then get something else.
Three: If you think desktop Flash is coming to the iPhone or any phone, then I would submit to you that you have basically no understanding of web technologies, modern desktop computers, or mobile devices. So STFU.
Four: Robert, you basically called Jobs a liar in the title of your post. You are super classy.
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One: Who gives a shit whether or not Flash runs on the goddamned iPhone. Seriously. Who cares? It’s just another “thing” like bluetooth headsets voice dialing or user-replaceable battery that look great on paper but you would never use.
Two: People, buy devices as they exist today. It’s fine to want to see them improve, but seriously, if you need shitty Flash Lite then get something else.
Three: If you think desktop Flash is coming to the iPhone or any phone, then I would submit to you that you have basically no understanding of web technologies, modern desktop computers, or mobile devices. So STFU.
Four: Robert, you basically called Jobs a liar in the title of your post. You are super classy.
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On your mobile or other portable Internet handheld device, go to http://www.prada.com and let us know if the Flash playback is acceptable.
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On your mobile or other portable Internet handheld device, go to http://www.prada.com and let us know if the Flash playback is acceptable.
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Flash would open up a whole new development platform on the iPhone that Apple wouldn’t be able to control. It would offer developers cross platform support for their apps as well as a steaming video player that would give users more options to put video on their phone outside of buying it from Apple. This goes completely against Apple’s non-open business model.
I’m not doubting that there are a lot of performance concerns, both in processing and bandwidth. I’m sure that a web site running a bunch of embedded flash files would probably run pretty bad on the iPhone, but considering what I’ve seen run on this phone, I’m sure it’s not something that the geniuses at Apple couldn’t figure out. I really feel this is more about Apple wanting total control of the iPhone platform than it is a technical issue. The same is true for Java.
Or maybe Apple is coming out with their own competitor to Flash that runs on the iPhone too. Imagine being able to use core animation, coverflow, ect. on your web site?
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Flash would open up a whole new development platform on the iPhone that Apple wouldn’t be able to control. It would offer developers cross platform support for their apps as well as a steaming video player that would give users more options to put video on their phone outside of buying it from Apple. This goes completely against Apple’s non-open business model.
I’m not doubting that there are a lot of performance concerns, both in processing and bandwidth. I’m sure that a web site running a bunch of embedded flash files would probably run pretty bad on the iPhone, but considering what I’ve seen run on this phone, I’m sure it’s not something that the geniuses at Apple couldn’t figure out. I really feel this is more about Apple wanting total control of the iPhone platform than it is a technical issue. The same is true for Java.
Or maybe Apple is coming out with their own competitor to Flash that runs on the iPhone too. Imagine being able to use core animation, coverflow, ect. on your web site?
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Apple has hired some SVG experts over the last few years. Webkit is growing great wrt SVG support, not only for on-line apps. Maybe it matters?
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Apple has hired some SVG experts over the last few years. Webkit is growing great wrt SVG support, not only for on-line apps. Maybe it matters?
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Anyone want some fresh crow? How shall I cook for you? The first batch comes off the grill in 10 minutes. If you need a towel to wipe off the egg on your face, we have some Microsoft towels to pass out.
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Anyone want some fresh crow? How shall I cook for you? The first batch comes off the grill in 10 minutes. If you need a towel to wipe off the egg on your face, we have some Microsoft towels to pass out.
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PDF is already built-into the iPod Touch and iPhone. There is no need for another license agreement with Adobe (Apple licensed it for OS X years ago). This talk is nonsense.
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PDF is already built-into the iPod Touch and iPhone. There is no need for another license agreement with Adobe (Apple licensed it for OS X years ago). This talk is nonsense.
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Just a thought, but do you consider the difficulties involved in re-creating the ui required by flash in a touch environment to be trivial enough that it’s not part of the reason we don’t see flash on the iPhone? No mouse to mouse-over with; no drag&drop; how to handle both the screen resolution and zooming of moving interactive flash pages?what about all those wonderful UI elements invented by the flash app developers? It all sounds wonderfully hit & miss whether a page would work or not. Exactly the experience. Most iPhone users are looking for….isn’t it?
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Just a thought, but do you consider the difficulties involved in re-creating the ui required by flash in a touch environment to be trivial enough that it’s not part of the reason we don’t see flash on the iPhone? No mouse to mouse-over with; no drag&drop; how to handle both the screen resolution and zooming of moving interactive flash pages?what about all those wonderful UI elements invented by the flash app developers? It all sounds wonderfully hit & miss whether a page would work or not. Exactly the experience. Most iPhone users are looking for….isn’t it?
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Makes perfect sense.
Apple probably was getting back at Adobe with OSX with the native ability to write to a .pdf file from print mode completely eliminating the need for the overpriced Adobe writer ap.
But then again Adobe got were it was from Apple with postcript…
Adobe wants to play with the big boys, but they just don’t have that much in the quiver to give Apple and MS Google a run for the money. Lot’s of free Adobe type aps out there that work just as well…
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Makes perfect sense.
Apple probably was getting back at Adobe with OSX with the native ability to write to a .pdf file from print mode completely eliminating the need for the overpriced Adobe writer ap.
But then again Adobe got were it was from Apple with postcript…
Adobe wants to play with the big boys, but they just don’t have that much in the quiver to give Apple and MS Google a run for the money. Lot’s of free Adobe type aps out there that work just as well…
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That Steve Jobs, he’s a tricky little fellow!!
Global Warming alarmists beware… EvilCarbon.com
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That Steve Jobs, he’s a tricky little fellow!!
Global Warming alarmists beware… EvilCarbon.com
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My G4 titanium powerbook, 800mhz, still worked brilliant fast and had the latest operating system (at that time, Tiger) until I finally replaced it with a MBP.
The tibook could handle anything: loads of apps open, loads of tabs, games, high res videos, whatever.
Except Flash. It really, really struggled with flash on webpages. Not just intense flash structured sites, but web pages with flash ads on them. It would go slow, performance was hideously degraded, flash animations would stutter and stagger and be slow.
There was nothing wrong with it, it just found Flash a struggle. Now I am not technical enough to know how an 800mhz G4 compares with the iPhone’s processor. But I can see why there could be problems with certain implementations of Flash on the iPhone.
That said I would rather take an optional, limited or poor implementation than no Flash at all.
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My G4 titanium powerbook, 800mhz, still worked brilliant fast and had the latest operating system (at that time, Tiger) until I finally replaced it with a MBP.
The tibook could handle anything: loads of apps open, loads of tabs, games, high res videos, whatever.
Except Flash. It really, really struggled with flash on webpages. Not just intense flash structured sites, but web pages with flash ads on them. It would go slow, performance was hideously degraded, flash animations would stutter and stagger and be slow.
There was nothing wrong with it, it just found Flash a struggle. Now I am not technical enough to know how an 800mhz G4 compares with the iPhone’s processor. But I can see why there could be problems with certain implementations of Flash on the iPhone.
That said I would rather take an optional, limited or poor implementation than no Flash at all.
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We’ve just report
the top blogs of the day
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We’ve just report
the top blogs of the day
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You can visit, we are going concern now. But today we have generated
a more pro top blogs daily report . Now I’ve just posted the newest report , see and reply me some comments. Thanks.
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You can visit, we are going concern now. But today we have generated
a more pro top blogs daily report . Now I’ve just posted the newest report , see and reply me some comments. Thanks.
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It’s funny to read some of these uninformed blog posting comments.
PDF support in Mac OS X and on the iPhone is using technology that Apple developed internally and independently of Adobe. (PDF is a published standard). The reason why PDF created by Mac OS X natively is PDF 1.4 is because Apple doesn’t have a huge incentive to keep up with the PDF spec – people can just complain to Adobe :-). The latest spec should be PDF 1.7, when Acrobat 8.0 came out.
The reason why Preview runs so fast is because it just rasterizes the PDF page – displays the image. For better or worse, Preview owns the “MIME” type for rendering PDF. Most people do not need a lot of the advanced features that a PDF created by Adobe Acrobat (like filling in forms) or other Adobe applications. But Adobe Reader does support all the features – that is one reason why the Reader for both Mac and Windows is so fat. And Adobe, at least for the Windows Adobe Reader, has been working on improving the launch of Adobe Reader. If you launch Adobe Reader 7.0 or 8.0 – it will launch faster than previous versions.
No graphics professional is going to export PDF from Mac OS X PDF engine and send it to printer. They will export using InDesign, Photoshop, etc… where the PDF output will be to the latest spec and support the print options and info the print professionals are looking for (i.e. color separation, etc..)
Adobe nor Macromedia has ever charged for the desktop Flash Player for Windows, Mac or Linux for end users.
Adobe does license the desktop Flash Player to corporations if they need something customized or need to distribute it as part of their application.
Adobe does charge to license Flash Lite – the “mobile version” of Flash.
And there is a reason for this – because it takes a lot of work to develop and port Flash Lite to a wide and diverse number of platforms, and that work should be compensated as long as Adobe can derive licensing fees. But that day is probably coming to an end sooner rather than later, because I highly doubt Microsoft is licensing Silverlight as expensively as Adobe is for Flash Lite – in fact, it would not surprise me if Microsoft was giving Silverlight free to Nokia or even paying Nokia to include Flash Lite (unless there is something anti-competitive about that…)
As for the Flash Player 7 SDK – well, the reason why that hasn’t been updated is due to Adobe’s focus on the mobile handset and the lack of interest and ROI case to update that SDK as far as I can tell.
As for all the complaints about Adobe releasing Mac software late, especially for Creative Suites to be Mac OS X native, Leopard, etc.. native – Anyone who has developed software understand the complexities of multiple releases and bug fixes – it is a nightmare. Both Apple and Adobe have their own agendas, yet are still interdependent on each other for part of their success. Apple’s OS releases don’t fit perfectly with Adobe’s releases – and also, neither of their development schedules also align with Microsoft’s. Think about it – Adobe is one of the few remaining large ISV’s that is cross platform for most of their applications for both Windows and Macintosh.
I’d say that in the early days, Apple and Adobe needed each other – and had a symbiotic relationship. The Mac would not have survived without the LaserWriter and PostScript. When Jobs licensed PostScript, he also bought 25% of Adobe. I think Adobe would have been fine without Apple because PostScript was really the only game in town for a great printing engine, and Adobe literally printed $ with PostScript (an old-timer Adobe friend of mine said that in the good old days, Adobe had the highest revenue/employee in the U.S.). All the major laser printing companies licensed PostScript from Adobe in the early days.
When Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1997, Jobs visited Adobe to reassure Adobe management that he was going to fix Apple and wanted to reassure that Adobe was committed to the Mac platform.
After John Warnock retired from Adobe as CEO (he is still co-chairman), and Bruce Chizen took over, I think, for one reason or another, Adobe and Apple started drifting apart. Chizen was more Wall Street oriented.
I really don’t think Steve Jobs has that much respect for Chizen. I met an ex-Adobe person at a MacWorld Expo about 2 years ago, and she told me the story about her first day at Apple, being in an elevator with Jobs. Jobs saw that she was a new employee at Apple and carrying stuff with her to bring to her desk, and he asked where she worked previously. When she said Adobe, Jobs went nuts and asked, “What the hell is Bruce trying to do at Adobe – make it into Microsoft!”
I wonder what Jobs thinks of Shantanu Narayen. At least Narayen has an engineering background, something that Jobs would respect a whole lot more than Chizen, who I think Jobs has always thought of as a “sales” guy.
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It’s funny to read some of these uninformed blog posting comments.
PDF support in Mac OS X and on the iPhone is using technology that Apple developed internally and independently of Adobe. (PDF is a published standard). The reason why PDF created by Mac OS X natively is PDF 1.4 is because Apple doesn’t have a huge incentive to keep up with the PDF spec – people can just complain to Adobe :-). The latest spec should be PDF 1.7, when Acrobat 8.0 came out.
The reason why Preview runs so fast is because it just rasterizes the PDF page – displays the image. For better or worse, Preview owns the “MIME” type for rendering PDF. Most people do not need a lot of the advanced features that a PDF created by Adobe Acrobat (like filling in forms) or other Adobe applications. But Adobe Reader does support all the features – that is one reason why the Reader for both Mac and Windows is so fat. And Adobe, at least for the Windows Adobe Reader, has been working on improving the launch of Adobe Reader. If you launch Adobe Reader 7.0 or 8.0 – it will launch faster than previous versions.
No graphics professional is going to export PDF from Mac OS X PDF engine and send it to printer. They will export using InDesign, Photoshop, etc… where the PDF output will be to the latest spec and support the print options and info the print professionals are looking for (i.e. color separation, etc..)
Adobe nor Macromedia has ever charged for the desktop Flash Player for Windows, Mac or Linux for end users.
Adobe does license the desktop Flash Player to corporations if they need something customized or need to distribute it as part of their application.
Adobe does charge to license Flash Lite – the “mobile version” of Flash.
And there is a reason for this – because it takes a lot of work to develop and port Flash Lite to a wide and diverse number of platforms, and that work should be compensated as long as Adobe can derive licensing fees. But that day is probably coming to an end sooner rather than later, because I highly doubt Microsoft is licensing Silverlight as expensively as Adobe is for Flash Lite – in fact, it would not surprise me if Microsoft was giving Silverlight free to Nokia or even paying Nokia to include Flash Lite (unless there is something anti-competitive about that…)
As for the Flash Player 7 SDK – well, the reason why that hasn’t been updated is due to Adobe’s focus on the mobile handset and the lack of interest and ROI case to update that SDK as far as I can tell.
As for all the complaints about Adobe releasing Mac software late, especially for Creative Suites to be Mac OS X native, Leopard, etc.. native – Anyone who has developed software understand the complexities of multiple releases and bug fixes – it is a nightmare. Both Apple and Adobe have their own agendas, yet are still interdependent on each other for part of their success. Apple’s OS releases don’t fit perfectly with Adobe’s releases – and also, neither of their development schedules also align with Microsoft’s. Think about it – Adobe is one of the few remaining large ISV’s that is cross platform for most of their applications for both Windows and Macintosh.
I’d say that in the early days, Apple and Adobe needed each other – and had a symbiotic relationship. The Mac would not have survived without the LaserWriter and PostScript. When Jobs licensed PostScript, he also bought 25% of Adobe. I think Adobe would have been fine without Apple because PostScript was really the only game in town for a great printing engine, and Adobe literally printed $ with PostScript (an old-timer Adobe friend of mine said that in the good old days, Adobe had the highest revenue/employee in the U.S.). All the major laser printing companies licensed PostScript from Adobe in the early days.
When Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1997, Jobs visited Adobe to reassure Adobe management that he was going to fix Apple and wanted to reassure that Adobe was committed to the Mac platform.
After John Warnock retired from Adobe as CEO (he is still co-chairman), and Bruce Chizen took over, I think, for one reason or another, Adobe and Apple started drifting apart. Chizen was more Wall Street oriented.
I really don’t think Steve Jobs has that much respect for Chizen. I met an ex-Adobe person at a MacWorld Expo about 2 years ago, and she told me the story about her first day at Apple, being in an elevator with Jobs. Jobs saw that she was a new employee at Apple and carrying stuff with her to bring to her desk, and he asked where she worked previously. When she said Adobe, Jobs went nuts and asked, “What the hell is Bruce trying to do at Adobe – make it into Microsoft!”
I wonder what Jobs thinks of Shantanu Narayen. At least Narayen has an engineering background, something that Jobs would respect a whole lot more than Chizen, who I think Jobs has always thought of as a “sales” guy.
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Strange that i-mode internet phones in Japan have supported Flash for several year snow..
doesn’t make sense that something that works fine for developers and users in Japan, on the worlds most successful mobile internet platform, can’t work on an iphone which probably has a more sophisticated operation system.
http://www.nttdocomo.co.jp/eng…..index.html
i always wondered where apple got their “i” in ipod and iphone.. i think i-mode 🙂
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Strange that i-mode internet phones in Japan have supported Flash for several year snow..
doesn’t make sense that something that works fine for developers and users in Japan, on the worlds most successful mobile internet platform, can’t work on an iphone which probably has a more sophisticated operation system.
http://www.nttdocomo.co.jp/eng…..index.html
i always wondered where apple got their “i” in ipod and iphone.. i think i-mode 🙂
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Why doesn’t Apple just buy Adobe . . . and Yahoo, too, while they’re at it?
What can they be saving that $18-billion-cash war chest for anyway?
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Why doesn’t Apple just buy Adobe . . . and Yahoo, too, while they’re at it?
What can they be saving that $18-billion-cash war chest for anyway?
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Let’s not turn speculation on whether the iPhone will run flash into yet
another *yawn* flash-bashing session. I am sooo bored of uninformed
Flash bashing that does not stand up to a grain of truth.
As for Flash running slow on Macs versus PCs, it’s a problem that occurs
mostly in Flash player 8 and below, as a difference in the frame
rendering engine. Any Flash developer worth their salt will know that if
you set the frame rate of the FLA to 21, 31, or 41, that “bug” will
disappear, and mac SWFs will run just as fast as their PC counterparts.
Don’t blame the technology, blame the developer for being too clueless
to know how to code a decent Flash app. And apps designed for the VM2
(AS3) runtime in the Flash player run at the same speed on the PC as it
does the mac. So let’s put that one to rest already.
As for Jobs not willing to put Flash on the iPhone, as a Flash/Flex
developer I can see that as a perfectly reasonable assertion. One reason
I won’t currently touch Flash mobile development with a ten foot pole is
that the Flash Lite player is a pathetically chopped down version of the
Flash player which requires a mix of AS1 and AS2 coding techniques with
a “hackiness” that almost makes Lingo programming look robust. I love
AIR, it’s the best thing since sliced bread for an RIA developer such as
myself; but for mobile, I’m waiting until they improve the technology a
bit. I want my FLV (cue dire straits song :)… in Flash Player 9
thank-you-very-much.
A more plausible reason for there being no Flash on the iPhone is that
there is currently no version of the Flash player that would integrate
well enough with the iPhone hardware: Flash Lite 2 is too clunky and
primitive for such a sophisticated device, and the current Flash Player
9 may be too resource intensive, as its garbage collection routines
could stand some improvement. Given the roadmap discussions on Flex 4 I
attended at a recent Flex converence, and the up and coming modular
nature of the next version of the Flex framework and some of the
improvements to the next Flash player, in all plausibility Apple is
simply waiting for Adobe to license a “fuller” version of the Flash
Player 9 or 10 for use on the iPhone.
I am sure there are a fair bit of politics involved, but in all
likelihood (attention: pure speculation ahead) Adobe and Apple may be in
talks to establish quicktime player capability in the next version of
the Flash Player, as the FLV standard is currently kicking Apple’s
Quicktime off the net as the current de-facto standard for online video,
and it’ unlikely Apple wants to invite that wolf into their home without
some serious adjustments. And given the iTunes licensing model, it’s
quite possible they’ll want some form of DRM for video and audio in
Flash as well.
Everyone assumes there’s this incredibly aggressive war going on between
Apple and Adobe. What if there is no such thing going on, and Apple and
Adobe are merely taking their time to sort out the mutual licensing
rights? Quicktime, PDF, iTunes, DRM, FLV, SWF, Flash Player, iPhone OS
— all these are proprietary technologies, on both sides, and getting
them to legally play well together will take time for the suits to work out.
So please, let’s leave the limp “Apple is doing an f-you to Adobe”
rumours on Slashdot and MySpace where they belong.
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Let’s not turn speculation on whether the iPhone will run flash into yet
another *yawn* flash-bashing session. I am sooo bored of uninformed
Flash bashing that does not stand up to a grain of truth.
As for Flash running slow on Macs versus PCs, it’s a problem that occurs
mostly in Flash player 8 and below, as a difference in the frame
rendering engine. Any Flash developer worth their salt will know that if
you set the frame rate of the FLA to 21, 31, or 41, that “bug” will
disappear, and mac SWFs will run just as fast as their PC counterparts.
Don’t blame the technology, blame the developer for being too clueless
to know how to code a decent Flash app. And apps designed for the VM2
(AS3) runtime in the Flash player run at the same speed on the PC as it
does the mac. So let’s put that one to rest already.
As for Jobs not willing to put Flash on the iPhone, as a Flash/Flex
developer I can see that as a perfectly reasonable assertion. One reason
I won’t currently touch Flash mobile development with a ten foot pole is
that the Flash Lite player is a pathetically chopped down version of the
Flash player which requires a mix of AS1 and AS2 coding techniques with
a “hackiness” that almost makes Lingo programming look robust. I love
AIR, it’s the best thing since sliced bread for an RIA developer such as
myself; but for mobile, I’m waiting until they improve the technology a
bit. I want my FLV (cue dire straits song :)… in Flash Player 9
thank-you-very-much.
A more plausible reason for there being no Flash on the iPhone is that
there is currently no version of the Flash player that would integrate
well enough with the iPhone hardware: Flash Lite 2 is too clunky and
primitive for such a sophisticated device, and the current Flash Player
9 may be too resource intensive, as its garbage collection routines
could stand some improvement. Given the roadmap discussions on Flex 4 I
attended at a recent Flex converence, and the up and coming modular
nature of the next version of the Flex framework and some of the
improvements to the next Flash player, in all plausibility Apple is
simply waiting for Adobe to license a “fuller” version of the Flash
Player 9 or 10 for use on the iPhone.
I am sure there are a fair bit of politics involved, but in all
likelihood (attention: pure speculation ahead) Adobe and Apple may be in
talks to establish quicktime player capability in the next version of
the Flash Player, as the FLV standard is currently kicking Apple’s
Quicktime off the net as the current de-facto standard for online video,
and it’ unlikely Apple wants to invite that wolf into their home without
some serious adjustments. And given the iTunes licensing model, it’s
quite possible they’ll want some form of DRM for video and audio in
Flash as well.
Everyone assumes there’s this incredibly aggressive war going on between
Apple and Adobe. What if there is no such thing going on, and Apple and
Adobe are merely taking their time to sort out the mutual licensing
rights? Quicktime, PDF, iTunes, DRM, FLV, SWF, Flash Player, iPhone OS
— all these are proprietary technologies, on both sides, and getting
them to legally play well together will take time for the suits to work out.
So please, let’s leave the limp “Apple is doing an f-you to Adobe”
rumours on Slashdot and MySpace where they belong.
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Steve Jobs is a clever but ignorant man. If people want Flash, which they clearly do then give them Flash. Thats it.
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Steve Jobs is a clever but ignorant man. If people want Flash, which they clearly do then give them Flash. Thats it.
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And I expect Steve will eventually give them flash as Steve has built up Apple with a “For the people” type philosophy. I expect it masks the corporate nature of Steve and Apple, but it has been extremely successful.
But yes, the people want flash, I want flash. It is an amazing tool. I can knock up control interfaces in minutes. AJAX takes 10x as long. I am not dising AJAX, its great for many things, but Flash is generally better overall from my experience. (Its just harder to learn, and generally I find web developers are set in there ways and don’t like learning new tech)
I must admit, Steve DOES have one point. Flash can EAT all your CPU, but this is usually because the developer writing the Flash app is a CRAP developer. (Common as they are usually designers by trade). Flash is very efficient. Much more then AJAX. It is the bad coding that is the issue. And I can see Jobs having issue here. But then again, you can code a javascript page bad as well..
James
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And I expect Steve will eventually give them flash as Steve has built up Apple with a “For the people” type philosophy. I expect it masks the corporate nature of Steve and Apple, but it has been extremely successful.
But yes, the people want flash, I want flash. It is an amazing tool. I can knock up control interfaces in minutes. AJAX takes 10x as long. I am not dising AJAX, its great for many things, but Flash is generally better overall from my experience. (Its just harder to learn, and generally I find web developers are set in there ways and don’t like learning new tech)
I must admit, Steve DOES have one point. Flash can EAT all your CPU, but this is usually because the developer writing the Flash app is a CRAP developer. (Common as they are usually designers by trade). Flash is very efficient. Much more then AJAX. It is the bad coding that is the issue. And I can see Jobs having issue here. But then again, you can code a javascript page bad as well..
James
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So, on the say-so of an anonymous source, you broadcast the rumor that Jobs is lying. All right. May the same happen to you.
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So, on the say-so of an anonymous source, you broadcast the rumor that Jobs is lying. All right. May the same happen to you.
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Long rumored SVG support? Download WebKit. It’s an intricate part.
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Long rumored SVG support? Download WebKit. It’s an intricate part.
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according to apple announcement, apple just wants to treat all applications which developed with iPhone on their Store and play the application easy and securely for iPhone users. their (new) business model cannot work well when the flash player ran well on iPhone. it is likely game console business model. although Store for iPhone is trial run, he has already noticed the key is distribution. he would just adjust the direction if the model failed after a year, then, it is enough to the Flash support on iPhone.
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according to apple announcement, apple just wants to treat all applications which developed with iPhone on their Store and play the application easy and securely for iPhone users. their (new) business model cannot work well when the flash player ran well on iPhone. it is likely game console business model. although Store for iPhone is trial run, he has already noticed the key is distribution. he would just adjust the direction if the model failed after a year, then, it is enough to the Flash support on iPhone.
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It’s all BS.
I mean, now Sun says they’ll develop a JRE for the iPhone.
So Adobe can’t develop a reasonable flash engine?
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It’s all BS.
I mean, now Sun says they’ll develop a JRE for the iPhone.
So Adobe can’t develop a reasonable flash engine?
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Apple has always played hardball with Adobe over a number of things, basically to keep the core user experience [and support headaches] away from the vendors, this is why:
– Preview App supports basic PDF functionality.
– Ditto Quicktime and basic Flash.
– Ditto TextEdit and *.doc / *.rtf.
These apps run wicked quick on either PPC or Intel desktops.
Now we have a handset based on the [for a desktop, clunky, but for a handset okay] PPC ARM architecture.
If any of you have a jailbroken iphone or touch you know that the apps for RTF, PDF, and **basic** Flash video *cough* Youtube.app *cough* are acceptable.
But no way is Jobs going to allow Fuh-lash, a plugin that has had a checked past on the Mac OSX platform and that has even Intel users gnashing their teeth from time to time on his **new platform** with his **new userbase** of 2.5mil and rising iPhone users. Not with the current sucky telco infrastructure [in the US].
Sun is a whole other kettle of fish. They will develop a RUNTIME that allows APPs that Apple will SIGN.
Adobe wants a backdoor into *Mobile*Safari and Apple’s web experience. For the mobile end user, they want to be ‘the internet’.. And Stevo is saying uh, NO, I’m going after enterprise, and for the flying baloney you have the SDK. This should be painfully obvious.
MobileSafari in firmware 1.x has set expectations. There is no copy/paste [which annoys me], no downloading, and no Youtube or other plugin handoff [*unless* you use javascript/URL transmogrification for Youtube].
But we can already see how Apple is embracing the Youtube/Google AJAX way of doing things, heck, check Apple’s MobileSafari guidelines [“Don’t use or bring up Flash”], and their addition of a Javascript error console inside Safari [Preferences > Safari > dot dot dot.
Actions speak louder than words. What, in their docs as well as Stevo’s little diatribes are they doing? To what end? Draw your own conclusions.
Oh, another piece of yellow journalism from me:
Scooby stabs iPhone in the back:
Go to ipodtech’s ‘iphone.app’ page:
Service Unavailable
The server is temporarily unable to service your request. Please try again later.
Reference #6.4cdcf180.1205151626.2bf7f7f5
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Apple has always played hardball with Adobe over a number of things, basically to keep the core user experience [and support headaches] away from the vendors, this is why:
– Preview App supports basic PDF functionality.
– Ditto Quicktime and basic Flash.
– Ditto TextEdit and *.doc / *.rtf.
These apps run wicked quick on either PPC or Intel desktops.
Now we have a handset based on the [for a desktop, clunky, but for a handset okay] PPC ARM architecture.
If any of you have a jailbroken iphone or touch you know that the apps for RTF, PDF, and **basic** Flash video *cough* Youtube.app *cough* are acceptable.
But no way is Jobs going to allow Fuh-lash, a plugin that has had a checked past on the Mac OSX platform and that has even Intel users gnashing their teeth from time to time on his **new platform** with his **new userbase** of 2.5mil and rising iPhone users. Not with the current sucky telco infrastructure [in the US].
Sun is a whole other kettle of fish. They will develop a RUNTIME that allows APPs that Apple will SIGN.
Adobe wants a backdoor into *Mobile*Safari and Apple’s web experience. For the mobile end user, they want to be ‘the internet’.. And Stevo is saying uh, NO, I’m going after enterprise, and for the flying baloney you have the SDK. This should be painfully obvious.
MobileSafari in firmware 1.x has set expectations. There is no copy/paste [which annoys me], no downloading, and no Youtube or other plugin handoff [*unless* you use javascript/URL transmogrification for Youtube].
But we can already see how Apple is embracing the Youtube/Google AJAX way of doing things, heck, check Apple’s MobileSafari guidelines [“Don’t use or bring up Flash”], and their addition of a Javascript error console inside Safari [Preferences > Safari > dot dot dot.
Actions speak louder than words. What, in their docs as well as Stevo’s little diatribes are they doing? To what end? Draw your own conclusions.
Oh, another piece of yellow journalism from me:
Scooby stabs iPhone in the back:
Go to ipodtech’s ‘iphone.app’ page:
Service Unavailable
The server is temporarily unable to service your request. Please try again later.
Reference #6.4cdcf180.1205151626.2bf7f7f5
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Some more thoughts: All my typos aside [this is some really good booze, inbibe and type], Stevo is just following the telco paradigm for mobile devices. ATT has their own ‘store’ for ringtones etc as does T-Mobile and others. WHY is this a big surprise.
The hacker / jailbreaker community not only has an installer.app paradigm for apps, they also have a Debian like package manager RUNNING NOW. Google Cydia as well as ‘jailbreak’ or ‘installer.app’.
What it boils down to is, Steve wants Flash quarantined to an ‘App’, preferably signed, and NOT in MobileSafari’s web space.. a space devoted to web pages, VERY lean Javascript / AJAX [see Google and Facebook’s iphone pages, etc], and RSS.
Outside that space of Mail and Web, the kids and flying baloney afficionados get the appSpace like ‘game apps’.. hence the show of Spore as a segregated app. Now whether Adobe will play by these rules [they can with AIR] .. well, that’s the question.
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Some more thoughts: All my typos aside [this is some really good booze, inbibe and type], Stevo is just following the telco paradigm for mobile devices. ATT has their own ‘store’ for ringtones etc as does T-Mobile and others. WHY is this a big surprise.
The hacker / jailbreaker community not only has an installer.app paradigm for apps, they also have a Debian like package manager RUNNING NOW. Google Cydia as well as ‘jailbreak’ or ‘installer.app’.
What it boils down to is, Steve wants Flash quarantined to an ‘App’, preferably signed, and NOT in MobileSafari’s web space.. a space devoted to web pages, VERY lean Javascript / AJAX [see Google and Facebook’s iphone pages, etc], and RSS.
Outside that space of Mail and Web, the kids and flying baloney afficionados get the appSpace like ‘game apps’.. hence the show of Spore as a segregated app. Now whether Adobe will play by these rules [they can with AIR] .. well, that’s the question.
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Why should Apple pay Adobe to license Flashlight or Flash; and/or pay Microsdoft to license Silverlight. Instead of paying royalty fees to support proprietary technologies; why shouldn’t Apple just continue to support H.264 codec which is part of the MPEG-4 standard.
Wouldn’t supporting open standards be better for the web, for mobile computing and for Apple and its’ customers, then giving money to either Adobe or Microsoft that has the ironic side-effect of helping to establish a proprietary technology as a defacto standard. If Apple were to try to establish a proprietary technology, it would be their own. But from Apple’s recent history, they’ve made every attempt to build their solutions on standard technologies. Why would anyone think they would act differently when it came to Flash. They convinced the largest repository of videos on the web, youtube, to move from Flash to H.264. What would make anyone think that they would ever get around to supporting Flash, other than to keep it as a negotiating tactic with Adobe. Why give up that chip earlier than absolutely necessary.
Apple did in fact choose to support the ActiveSync protocol on the iPhone which is part of the Microsoft Exchange email technologies. Apple added this technology only out of necessity; to be compatible with Exchange servers already deployed at thousands of corporations. But in that fight Blackberry is already running away with the lion’s share of mobile email, because their system works most of the time; several long high-impact well-publicized outages not withstanding. Apple doesn’t want to be associated with the Blackberry outages that take out all Blackberry devices, even iPhones if Apple were so inclined to support RIM technology. On the other hand if a companies Exchange servers go down, all email is down including desktops. The IT folks and Microsoft will take all the heat.
Plus, I can see Apple building out an email server solution, more robust than the open source solutions that are already included for free with OS X Server.
But as far as Flash or Silverlight is concerned, I wouldn’t be holding my breath if I were either Adobe or Microsoft. Apple is already supporting an open standard (H.264) and getting everyone who would listen to move away from licensed proprietary technologies (Flash and Silverlight) and the obligatory royalties. I can only see that as a good thing. Now all these websites who want to show up on the iPhone will have to provide their content in H.264.
Stop whining! It’s cheaper to encode in H.264 anyway.
LikeLike
Why should Apple pay Adobe to license Flashlight or Flash; and/or pay Microsdoft to license Silverlight. Instead of paying royalty fees to support proprietary technologies; why shouldn’t Apple just continue to support H.264 codec which is part of the MPEG-4 standard.
Wouldn’t supporting open standards be better for the web, for mobile computing and for Apple and its’ customers, then giving money to either Adobe or Microsoft that has the ironic side-effect of helping to establish a proprietary technology as a defacto standard. If Apple were to try to establish a proprietary technology, it would be their own. But from Apple’s recent history, they’ve made every attempt to build their solutions on standard technologies. Why would anyone think they would act differently when it came to Flash. They convinced the largest repository of videos on the web, youtube, to move from Flash to H.264. What would make anyone think that they would ever get around to supporting Flash, other than to keep it as a negotiating tactic with Adobe. Why give up that chip earlier than absolutely necessary.
Apple did in fact choose to support the ActiveSync protocol on the iPhone which is part of the Microsoft Exchange email technologies. Apple added this technology only out of necessity; to be compatible with Exchange servers already deployed at thousands of corporations. But in that fight Blackberry is already running away with the lion’s share of mobile email, because their system works most of the time; several long high-impact well-publicized outages not withstanding. Apple doesn’t want to be associated with the Blackberry outages that take out all Blackberry devices, even iPhones if Apple were so inclined to support RIM technology. On the other hand if a companies Exchange servers go down, all email is down including desktops. The IT folks and Microsoft will take all the heat.
Plus, I can see Apple building out an email server solution, more robust than the open source solutions that are already included for free with OS X Server.
But as far as Flash or Silverlight is concerned, I wouldn’t be holding my breath if I were either Adobe or Microsoft. Apple is already supporting an open standard (H.264) and getting everyone who would listen to move away from licensed proprietary technologies (Flash and Silverlight) and the obligatory royalties. I can only see that as a good thing. Now all these websites who want to show up on the iPhone will have to provide their content in H.264.
Stop whining! It’s cheaper to encode in H.264 anyway.
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