Adobe Responds to Jobs

[samd]

Adobe is basically saying that Flash will be available on competitor's phones and the market will decide; which is exactly the right response. I wish most tech bloggers would take this view and just shut up with the endless "analysis" of Flash and Apple. Flamewars don't decide anything, the market does.

[allenp]

Yeah this was a clearly worded and classy response, definitely better than I expected.

[gill_bates]

Go back through the history of Apple's (and its many, many sycophantic fans) proclamations - such as apps on the phone, push notifications, multitasking - and there is a disturbing trend of Apple (and its followeres) making moral pontifications, stamping their feet, and then quietly and shamelessly backtracking when proven wrong.

Jobs is trying to undermine the competition because he fears that he made the wrong choice.

[allyt]

Let's keep in mind, however, that there is not really one monolithic "market". Just as McDonalds co-exists with Jean Georges, the legions of Android clones running Flash, etc. will peacefully coexist with iPhones, except without the responsive UX, battery life, or even a fundamental sense of taste. (edit: would the downvoters like to justify themselves? have they seen a Android device with a responsive UI? I haven't...)

[jstevens85]

>Adobe is basically saying that Flash will be available on competitor's phones and the market will decide; which is exactly the right response.

Perhaps not.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/29/adobes-ceo-jobs-flash-let...

"There's no official transcript yet, but the Wall Street Journal just live-blogged an interview with Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen, in which he responded to the Steve Jobs "Thoughts on Flash" letter posted this morning. Substantively, Narayen didn't offer much we haven't heard Adobe say before, but his frustration with Apple is palpable even in summary form: he called Jobs' points a "smokescreen," said Flash is an "open specification," and further said Apple's restrictions are "cumbersome" to developers and have "nothing to do with technology." What's more, he also said Jobs' claims about Flash affecting battery life are "patently false," and suggested that any Flash-related crashes on OS X have more to do with Apple's operating system than Adobe's software."

Haven't watched the video, but it sounds like Adobe is giving more than just a "market will decide" response.

[buster]

No, sadly, i think marketing does. It's not flamewars, it's not "the market", aka the consumer. It's what Apple can make the world believe. Especially in the case of Apple, my believe is that 90% of their sales are accomplished by excellent marketing. This Blogpost is just another move. I think we can agree that, when looking at hard facts, Steve is plainly lying to his customers in a lot of points. Me, as the nerd i am, can look at some facts and behind the words of that letter. The most sad and disappointing fact on the hand is, that most users will take the letter for granted. Steve writes as if all the things are facts, true and _many_ people will just believe him! He will sell even more units and from today on Apple customers will looks at me, disturbed, why i have Flash on my Phone/Tablet, that it will only drain the batteries, bla bla bla. This is basically what really makes me angry about this. He could have just written "we are not allowing Flash because we want to protect the Appstore". Everyone would understand, that's the fact, ok. But no. He wrote together a big pile of lies.

[richardw]

Bloggers don't get clicks by STFU'ing. Probably best to just not read them :)

[Mongoose]

I'm glad that Adobe decided to take the mature route. Further lashing out against Apple would have only exacerbated the situation.

In the end, Jobs provided a very rational argument and the brevity of Adobe's response lends itself well to that conclusion.

[rayval]

Here's one developers catalog of "lies and half truths" in Jobs' message:

http://jessewarden.com/2010/04/steve-jobs-on-flash-correctin...

[schammy]

> In the end, Jobs provided a very hypocritical argument

FTFY

[rbarooah]

This is going to be interesting, because if they do manage to put flash and Air on a broad range of other platforms then we will see Jobs's assertion about cross platform frameworks slowing down progress be put to the test.

[psyklic]

It already has been put to the test, in countless other situations. For example, look at video game consoles -- crossplatform libraries ensure that really high quality games can be ported to every major platform. Do they lack some features of some consoles? Yes. Regardless, are they still hella fun to play? Of course!

[zmmmmm]

Another aspect to this is the constantly cited metric of "number of apps" (which seems totally bogus to me, but that's another argument). The instant Flash arrives on a platform it becomes arguable that that platform rivals if not exceeds the iPhone app store in number of "apps".

When iPhone advocates say "but we have 200,000 apps" and Android advocates can simply reply "well we have 50,000 apps and 200,000 flash apps of at least the same quality as 150,000 of the apps on the iPhone".

[petercooper]

Apple could buy Adobe. They have more than double Adobe's market cap sitting around in cash. Forgetting Flash, Adobe is a cash cow, has a lot of great engineers, and some amazing software I'm sure Apple would love to brand as their own.

[stuntmouse]

I've also been thinking about this lately. Flash and related products are only a small part of a not very large company, relatively speaking. Why can't Google or Apple just make a deal for Flash/Flex? It's clear that the web (and mobile web) is critical for both.

[rafa8a]

You and me as consumers decide what to buy or not to buy.

[Herring]

When it comes to products with strong network effects, you really don't. Sometimes an inferior product (i should say platform) can take over a market simply because it was there first. You can find any number of examples of this in the tech world.

[jsz0]

It's going to be very interesting to see how Adobe handles Flash on all these different platforms. There's a lot to consider: Various screen resolutions, CPU/GPU speeds, memory capacities, browsers, touch vs. non-touch devices, etc. This covers about half a dozen major platforms and probably hundreds of different handset models. It seems like a monumental task to take on. Can they keep up with frequent platform updates?

[jarek]

Devil's advocate, I'm not a big fan of Flash, but: with the exception of touch, this is exactly the diverse situation Flash has dealt with -- and partially derived its popularity from -- on the desktop.

[gill_bates]

Are you kidding?

There response was brilliant, and it is right on the money. Steve Jobs arguments are contradictory and largely asinine, and they aren't worth retort. Adobe has essentially wiped their hands and said "Whatever, troll" which is truly brilliant.

Jobs must be seething.

[mahmud]

Apple had to speak at length to explain all the mess it has created in the last few weeks, and it tried its best to make it all about Adobe.

Adobe didn't need to make such grandiose statement, there was no messiah speaking here; just a humble CTO with better things to do in his day than write press releases.

[bshep]

It even sounded like they are dropping flash on Apple. They probably meant for Apple Mobile Devices, but who knows?

If they really meant dropping Apple completely, IMO that is a bad idea, time will tell.

[callmeed]

"Clearly, a lot of people are passionate about both Apple and Adobe and our technologies."

Ha. I haven't met many people who are "passionate" about Adobe technologies. I don't see Flash stickers on cars or people lining up around the block to buy Photoshop CS5.

I don't think the people taking Adobe's side on this do it out of passion–they do it because they don't like how Apple is handling the situation.

[spot]

the only reason i have a mac is to run photoshop and after effects. otherwise ubuntu is a fine replacement for mac os x.

[davidedicillo]

As somebody said in another post, Flash great distribution it's because it was something that designers could do with little programming (if not none at all). What Adobe should really focus is to create a valid equivalent for HTML5 and try to become the standard editor for HTML5 for all those people who don't know how to code.

[elblanco]

A good strategy might be to go ahead and make flash work on the Apple devices. Being able to demonstrate that the limitation is purely political and not technological would be helpful for people that don't understand what's going on. Plus when Apple reverses this silly nonsense, they'll be ready to roll.

[cjoh]

Apple v. Adobe is like watching two drunk bus drivers take to the streets. You don't just want off the bus, you want off the road.

[whalesalad]

Does this sentence make zero sense to anyone else?

We feel confident that were Apple and Adobe to work together as we are with a number of other partners, we could provide a terrific experience with Flash on the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.

[heyitsnick]

It's interesting that many find the English subjunctive hard to parse. I think in a generation or two it will will not be seen in contemporary prose.

[whalesalad]

Thanks for clearing it up guys, I misread about 3 times in a row.

[Lazlo_Nibble]

It parses okay for me, though a comma between "work together" and "as we are" might help.

"If Apple worked with us, as a number of other partners do, we could provide..."

[gill_bates]

I makes total sense. Shall I reword it slightly for you?

Were Apple and Adobe to work together, as we are with a number of other partners, we feel confident that we could provide a terrific experience with Flash on the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch

[eds]

Yeah, it's a terrible sentence. First they're "we," then they're "Adobe," then they're "we" again, and while you were distracted by all that, behind your back they snuck in "as we are [working]" when they meant "as we do."

[kqueue]

mouse hovering will be funny on these platforms.

[gill_bates]

Always with the mouse hover. You know that the DOM/HTML(5) includes mouse hover, right? I guess the web just doesn't work.

[dchs]

This article looks crap on my iPhone.

[powellc]

While I don't appreciate much of what Apple is doing these days, surely one has to also appreciate the draconian, closed nature of Flash? At least HTML5 is some kind of standard. Now, if we could just get Apple on the Ogg train...

[mahmud]

You know what is draconian? removing a programming environment for children from the App store.