Adobe man to Apple: 'Go screw yourself'
iPhone's code translation ban 'despicable'
Adobe platform evangelist Lee Brimelow has told Apple to "go screw yourself," upbraiding the Cupertino cult for banning iPhone and iPad applications translated from code Steve Jobs doesn't like. Such code includes - most famously - Adobe Flash.
Yesterday, Apple released an updated SDK for the upcoming iPhone 4.0 OS, and unlike previous incarnations of the kit, it forbids developers from accessing Apple's APIs through any sort of intermediary layer that translates code not officially supported by the platform.
"Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine, and only code written in C, C++, and Objective-C may compile and directly link against the Documented APIs (e.g., Applications that link to Documented APIs through an intermediary translation or compatibility layer or tool are prohibited)," reads the new iPhone 4.0 SDK.
This will likely prevent the iPhone packager in Adobe's Flash Professional CS5 development suite - due for release next week - from converting Flash scripts into native iPhone apps. Untranslated Flash was already barred from the platform.
AppleInsider cites sources familiar with Apple's plans in reporting that the company has made the change so it can implement certain "smart" multitasking APIs. These APIs are designed to pause some apps while other continue to run, the report says, and they would not be able to do with cross-compiled applications.
But Brimelow sees the move as mere Apple pettiness. In a blog post entitled "Apple Slaps Developers in the Face," he says:
What they are saying is that they won’t allow applications onto their marketplace solely because of what language was originally used to create them. This is a frightening move that has no rational defense other than wanting tyrannical control over developers and more importantly, wanting to use developers as pawns in their crusade against Adobe
I am positive that there are a large number of Apple employees that strongly disagree with this latest move. Any real developer would not in good conscience be able to support this. The trouble is that we will never hear their discontent because Apple employees are forbidden from blogging, posting to social networks, or other things that we at companies with an open culture take for granted
Brimelow isn't forbidden from doing so. But his words aren't unrestricted. At the request of Adobe, he removed a sentence from his post that speculated on the motives behind the new language in Apple's iPhone and iPad SDK. And though for most of his original post, he seemed to be speaking in his official Adobe capacity, he later added a note to the top of the post that reads: "Adobe would like me to make it clear that the opinions below are not the official views of the company and are entirely my own."
Then, in the last paragraph, he struck through the bit indicating that in previous paragraphs, he'd been speaking for Adobe:
Now let me put aside my role as an official representative of Adobe for a moment asSpeaking purely for myself, I would look to make it clear what is going through my mind at the moment. Go screw yourself Apple.
Earlier in the post, Brimelow - and apparently not Adobe - says that his company would never stoop to Apple's level. "The fact that Apple would make such a hostile and despicable move like this clearly shows the difference between our two companies," he writes.
"All we want is to provide creative professionals an avenue to deploy their work to as many devices as possible. We are not looking to kill anything or anyone. This would be like us putting something in our SDK to make it impossible for 3rd-party editors like FDT to work with our platform. I can tell you that we wouldn’t even think or consider something like that."
He says that Adobe has no intention of pulling its products from other Apple platforms. But personally, he intends to abandon the company entirely. "I will not be giving Apple another cent of my money until there is a leadership change over there. I’ve already moved most of my book, music, and video purchases to Amazon and I will continue to look elsewhere.
"Now, I want to be clear that I am not suggesting you do the same and I’m also not trying to organize some kind of boycott. Me deciding not to give money to Apple is not going to do anything to their bottom line. But this is equivalent to me walking into Macy’s to buy a new wallet and the salesperson spits in my face. Chances are I won’t be buying my wallets at Macy’s anymore, no matter how much I like them." ®
COMMENTS
Adobe, go screw YOURSELF with a splintery piece of wood!
In 1996 when Apple was seemingly on the ropes, Adobe made a crucial business decision and one that is coming back to bite them in the ass. They declared that their primary development platform would be Windows; subsequently, every new application or major revision of a product was introduced for Windows first and followed months later, sometimes never at all, by a Mac version.
After Steve Jobs took over and he was charting out a new course with OS X, Apple reached out many times to Abode to introduce a native version of their suite for the new OS. Adobe never committed – standing by its prediction that OS X would never gain momentum or share and it would ride the Windows ascendancy. Adobe thought that it had the dominant hand and displayed its arrogance in public.
ZDNet, 2001:
Creative professionals will “be able to edit their video in Premiere, edit their images in Photoshop and be able to create DVDs in a very creative way”, Chizen said. But they may not be able to do that on a Mac with an Adobe product. Making a Mac DVD product is “something we’re still evaluating”, Chizen said.
A slice from 2002:
Adobe Acrobat 4.x and 5.0 currently do not offer native support for Apple’s new OS X operating system. Adobe After Effects 5.0 currently does not offer native support for Apple’s new OS X operating system. After Effects 5.0 is supported in OS X classic mode
Adobe FrameMaker 6.0, FrameMaker+SGML 6.0 and FrameViewer 6.0 currently do not offer native support for Apple’s new OSX operating system
Adobe GoLive currently does not offer native support for Apple’s new OS X operating system
Adobe Premiere currently does not offer native support for Apple’s new OS X operating system. Premiere 6.0 also will not work in OS X in classic mode
Adobe currently does not offer native support for Adobe Photoshop Elements for the OS X operating system
Adobe Photoshop currently does not offer native support for Apple’s new OS X operating system
Adobe LiveMotion currently does not offer native support for Apple’s new OS X operating system
CNet, 2004:
• Adobe dropping support for several Mac products, most recently its FrameMaker publishing software and most notably its Premiere video editing application, whose demise as a Mac application was attributed to strong competition from Apple’s Final Cut programs.
• Several new Adobe products have been introduced in Windows-only versions. In the case of Atmosphere, a new 3D animation application, the decision to skip the Mac was attributed to a small pool of potential customers. In the case of Photoshop Album, a light-duty consumer photo application, a similar application was already built into OS X. With its Encore DVD-authoring package, Adobe again pointed to competition from an Apple video application.
• Adobe caused a stir among Apple devotees last year by republishing test results that showed certain Adobe applications running faster on Windows PCs than on Macs.
• Adobe, which could once be relied upon to turn up at any Apple gathering, has skipped several Macworld events in recent years.
It wasn’t until 2005 that Adobe ported Photoshop to OS X.
Matter of fact, it was sure of its decision to forget OS X development that it focused Premiere solely for Windows – only to see Apple turnaround and buy a Macromedia offshoot, repackage it as a Final Cut and cut Adobe out a lucrative stream.
John Nack, 2006:
John Nack has answered the burning question of OS X Adobe app users everywhere on his blog yesterday: when will we see native Intel OS X versions for all the shiny new Macs Apple is rolling out this year? Unfortunately, the response is less than ideal. In fact, I think it belies something fishy is up either with Adobe, Apple or both.
John Nack’s answer is basically that they have no plans to update the current CS2 or Studio 8 suites to run natively on Intel OS X, which means anyone buying a new Intel Mac this year will have to deal with running these apps in the Rosetta emulation layer. While it seems like this might be at least workable for some users, it is by no means ideal. The only way to get an Intel version of either suite, as of Adobe’s current plans, is to purchase a new/upgrade suite sometime in 20
4 years since Nack’s decision, Apple is clicking on all cylinders – it has not only reinforced its dominance in the creative graphics segment but also the web development platform, the mobile development platform and content delivery. Adobe’s not feeling too good about their dominance or that primary development platform choice any more. Are they?
Adobe had multiple chances to prove their worth to Apple and they failed miserably. They ignored the OS X version of Flash. They ignored Photoshop – witness the rise of Acorn, Pixelmator etc.
Sorry, Adobe, you screwed yourself. You made a business decision in 1996 to screw Apple when it needed you most to gain credibility for its fledgling OS with the creative crowd. Somehow, Apple making a business decision to protect its customers from your shitty product is the most egregious ethical concern of our time.
How about Adobe start fixing their relationship with the Apple community one step at a time: fix Flash for the desktop and then we can chat about the iPhone, iPad and i….
Adobe made a wrong bet in 1996 and is suffering the consequences in 2010 and has no one to blame except themselves. It’s Adobe’s turn to show that it matters to Apple and the tech industry. I don’t remember Apple or Steve Jobs whining in 1996-2006 about Adobe not contributing to the Apple ecosystem.
Innovate or die, bitches!
What People Keep Forgetting about
Wow, reading these comments... it seems like people are so tied up in pissing and moaning about "Flash Good/Flash Bad", they're ignoring the bigger picture(s):
1. THIS IS NOT ABOUT FLASH. Jesus Harold Christ, people. Can we please look at what is actually going on? Multitasking eats power but is convenient. iPhones already have poor battery life. Apple figures out a way to implement multitasking on their platform without forcing you to keep your "wireless" phone plugged in at all times. They mandate best practices which include using the only compiler they know will support this. (Other companies do this, too. Quitcherbitchin.) A senior Adobe employee goes ballistic and acts very unprofessionally. End of story.
2. In an UNRELATED move, Apple doesn't want Flash on the iPhone for reasons that, frankly, are valid. Flash is a useful tool, in my opinion. But that's it; it's a TOOL. Not a religion. It's not your significant other. It's not some poor starving Haitian orphan. It's tool. Nothing more. In some instances, it is a good tool. In some, it's buggier than a tropical swamp. In the case of Apple, Adobe's actions have been less than stellar. It makes sense, in my opinion, to not allow Flash on the iPhone--or any mobile device. Heck, I'm thrilled it's not on my BlackBerry. Some people, however, seem to take it personally that we live in a resource constrained world. I wish I could magic all of you up a phone that has a quad core, multi-gigahertz processor, several gigs of RAM, a terabyte or so of storage AND a 2 year battery life. I can't. Not yet. Neither can Apple. Or RIM. Or Microsoft. Thus, tradeoffs have to be made. To capitalize on the outrage of people who don't seem to understand (even though they should) this basic fact of life, a senior Adobe employee has chosen to try and confuse issues 1 & 2 in an unprofessional manner.
Oh, and three asides:
1. The day Flash finally is supported by my BlackBerry is the day I'll start building a way to block it. I like my battery life, thanks just the same.
2. My mum has an older MacBook. She likes watching videos of cats playing chopsticks, etc. Safari on her MacBook was crashing on the average of once a week. I switched her to FireFox. Same deal. I switched her back to Safari and installed ClickToFlash. Not a crash since.
3. The last time I bought a new laptop, I had to "upgrade" Adobe Suites. (Yes, I use some of their products professionally.) The Adobe upgrade cost me the same as my new computer. Something's wrong here.
Collateral Damage
For some reason that I don't care about, Apple hates Adobe. Fine, I don't care.
But this change has enormous collateral damage on app developers using myriad other technologies. For example, mainstream traditional tools like lex and yacc are now banned. Writing the critical bits of your code in assembler is now banned. Using some crufty old Fortran code that computes map projections is now banned. All three of those catch my apps, which could disappear from the app store at any time. So I guess I need to find another income stream. I hear Android is selling OK.
But there are others who are even more seriously impacted, e.g. the people who are doing cross-platform app development using Unity, MonoTouch, and embedded scripting in things like lua. This is not just a few apps on the fringes, but many very-mainstream apps including some of the top-selling games.
FYI there is much discussion of this on the Apple developer forums, but the threads are being deleted or locked by Apple's moderators.
Crazy times....
Exactly
Adobe has never accepted any sort of criticism, constructive or otherwise. They insist their buggy crap is the best stuff on the planet, and refuse to make any bugfixes or improvements.
For example, flash stopped working in Firefox on Debian until I set GDK_NATIVE_WINDOWS=TRUE. Why? WTF? Nobody really knows. It's just a magic word you have to say. And it took many hours of googling and hair-pulling so I could use some work-related sites that the assholes insisted on coding in flex.
That's why I'm forced to agree with Jobs for a change. I doubt he can bash them hard enough to get any customer service out of them, but at least he's raised the issue and gotten some movement on it.
I have always bitched about flash and refused to use it, but people just looked at me funny and treated me like some sort of net-luddite. Now they say "oh you're just jumping on the Apple bandwagon..."
Lovely, friendly Adobe
It's nice to know that at Adobe only has the best interests of its customers at heart.
Oh, no, wait, they're a bunch of money grubbing little shits who annually screw over most of the creative world by charging obscene amounts for their software.
Glad we got that one sorted.
