The Apple Adobe Spat Continues. Flash Available for iPhone, but Only in Lab
Seeing Apple and Adobe fight is like seeing Mom and Dad argue. The latest point of contention in the two companies longs standing bitterness towards each other is Flash on the iPhone. Apple says they don’t want it because it will suck, Adobe says its great but there are licensing issues. Why can’t Apple and Adobe just kiss and makeup?
During Adobe’s Q2 earnings call Monday, chief Shantanu Narayen said that Adobe had tackled some of the technical challenges to getting Flash to work on the iPhone:
We have a version that’s working on the emulation. This is still on the computer and you know, we have to continue to move it from a test environment onto the device and continue to make it work. So we are pleased with the internal progress that we’ve made to date.
Sounds promising. But once the technical work is done, Adobe still has a big business hurdle ahead: Convincing Apple to let Flash onto the iPhone. Apple boss Steve Jobs has been critical of Flash for the iPhone in the past, suggesting that the mobile version of Flash isn’t powerful enough for the iPhone, and that the Mac version is too bloated for mobile gadgets.[via]
Matter of fact Apple consciously avoided Flash when they created “MobileMe”
Apple, continuing its reliance on open-source technologies, is using an open-source project called SproutCore to provide rich Internet applications like its new MobileMe service.
The idea is to use to keep Apple from being “locked into the browser plug-ins for…one particular standard.”
What is SproutCore? From the SproutCore Web site:
SproutCore is a framework for building applications in JavaScript with remarkably little amounts of code. It can help you build full “thick” client applications in the Web browser that can create and modify data, often completely independent of your Web server, communicating with your server via Ajax only when they need to save or load data.
SproutCore gives Apple a way to enrich its Web experience without locking itself into any other vendor’s technology, as the SproutCore site notes:
Nobody likes using software running in a sandbox, and no one likes to download plug-ins before they can use your software. If you want to create an application on the Web that is fast, fluid, and native, and usable by everyone, use the only technologies that come built right into every browser: HTML and JavaScript. SproutCore makes it easy to do just that. [via]
Seriously, I think with two large and influential companies feuding it is only bad for the consumer and could hamper development and adoption of future products by both companies.
