WAR : Adobe VS Apple

Apple and Adobe, two ‘A’ class tech giants are at war over Flash support for the iPhone & iPod. Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple referred to Flash as unreliable, 100% proprietary, a battery hog, and a closed system that falls short. Now, those are quite a few strong words which Adobe will never find amusing. Steve denies that Apple’s no-Flash policy on the iPhone, iPod Touch & iPad is primarily business-driven. Steve also pulls up a series of technology issues where he claims Flash is the number one reason why Macs crash, Symantec’s recent highlight on Flash having one of the worst security records last year, and for the battery life Steve remarks that the video on almost all Flash sites relies on software rather than hardware decoding, which uses too much power.

But for the most serious issue of who’s more open, Apple or Adobe, we already heard Adobe accused Apple of running a closed shop because of the App Store policies where iPhone developers have to be prepared for Apple to reject or restrict your development at any time, and for seemingly any reason. It was turn for Apple to fire back saying that Flash products are 100% proprietary and are only available from Adobe who reserves the sole authority to the future enhancement & pricing. While Apple also has many such proprietary products in the form of iPhone and iPad operating systems, Steve Jobs emphasizes that all standards pertaining to the Web should be open.

That pops up the debate of the old and new open-Web standards that Jobs has been mastering for months now: JavaScript, CSS and HTML5, a new Web standard that allows for audio and video streaming. Steve claims that new open standards created in the mobile era, like the HTML5 will win on mobile devices and PCs; on the other hand, Flash seems to be a relic of the PC era that falls short when it comes to the needs of mobile devices.

Steve makes an aggressive step forward with a piece of advice: ”Perhaps Adobe should focus more on creating great HTML5 tools for the future, and less on criticizing Apple for leaving the past behind”. Apple was attacked from all quarters for refusing to add Flash support to the iPhone and particularly the iPad; but Adobe prepares the new Flash Player 10.1 for use on WebOS, Android, Windows Phone and BlackBerry devices.

Adobe noted the offense after Apple added a clause in the new iPhone development kit retraining the developers from using cross-platform development tools such as Adobe’s new CS5 package to build apps for the iPhone or iPad.

Will you go with Steve’s statement that it’s Adobe, not Apple, that’s running a “closed system” or do you see Adobe in the right stand and see Apple as self-serving and hypocritical with the sealed-off universe of Apple’s App Store? Will Apple later offer Flash support for the iPhone/iPad, or stick to HTML5?