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Adobe intends to sue Apple over the recent SDK change that bans iPhone and iPad applications translated from languages Steve Jobs doesn't like, according to a report citing sources close to Adobe.
IT World reports that Adobe will sue Apple "within a few weeks," after the Jobsian cult not only barred native Flash from the iPhone and iPad, but also put the kibosh on Flash apps repackaged for use with Apple's APIs. Last week, Apple introduced an SDK for the upcoming iPhone OS 4.0, and unlike previous kits it forbids developers from tapping Apple's APIs through an 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, released just days before Adobe announced its Flash Professional CS5 development suite, which includes a tool for repackaging Flash scripts for the iPhone.
The iPhone OS 4.0 is due to arrive on Jobsian handsets this summer, and according to IT World, the SDK change was the "last straw" in the long-running battle between Jobs and Flash. Famously, in barring native Flash from the iPhone and the iPad, Steve Jobs called it "buggy," littered with security holes, and a "CPU hog."
Officially, Adobe isn't really commenting. Last week, the company told us it was looking into the matter. And today, a spokesman declined to comment on reports of an upcoming lawsuit.
Yes, it's completely unclear on what basis Adobe allegedly intends to sue.
But whatever the company's official stance, Adobe platform evangelist Lee Brimelow made his feelings quite clear last last week when he told Apple to "Go screw yourself."
"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," Brimelow wrote on his personal blog. "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." ®
COMMENTS
Adobe's faux pas
Adobe likes to say that 96% of all computers in the US have Flash installed. What it doesn’t say is that more than 60% of all smartphone web traffic, and 96% of all “Mobile Internet Device” (that’s a euphemism for “iPod touch”) traffic doesn’t run Flash at all.
Additionally, it’s not as if Adobe had created a great mobile Flash platform and Apple stomped all over it to be mean. Adobe didn’t have a mobile version of Flash that could even play Flash videos until Flash Lite 3 appeared, well after the release of the iPhone. Even then, that product couldn’t run most of the Flash content created for desktop PCs.
Adobe didn’t pass that hurdle until last summer, when it introduced an early version of Flash Player 10 for Android. But that version still doesn’t play back everything the PC version does. The latest 10.1 version for mobiles is supposed to do better, but it’s still in demo stages and requires a Cortex A8 class processor, meaning it only runs on Android or webOS devices from the last several months.
If Apple supported this, it could only run on the iPhone 3GS. So Adobe’s mobile strategy is actually just now emerging. Apple has been selling the iPhone for three full years now. There was no suitable version of Flash to sell, so Apple made its own plans.
To hear from the tech media people who feed from the Adobe propaganda machine like ducks being force fed for foie gras, you’d think Adobe has had a real mobile strategy all this time and Apple has just been playing the role of a conniving obstructionist.
The truth is that it’s Adobe’s fault there’s no Flash on the majority of mobiles, because the company was completely happy just misleading the world of pundits while talking instead of doing. Well it’s not 2007 anymore, it’s 2010, and that’s three years of work that everyone else has put into HTML5.
Adobe hasn’t done anything to earn the rights to cram the Internet back into the Flash box it likes to sit upon as it collects taxes from those creating content that only plays back via Adobe’s own players. Adobe never been on top of things in the mobile world, and the desktop version is not exactly doing all that much anymore either. As companies shift their resources from everything Flash to HTML5, Adobe’s desktop monopoly over interactive content will rapidly erode. It’s not Apple’s fault that’s happening, it’s Adobe’s. - source - Daniel Eran Dilger
Where do you draw the line then?
"...write in the native code rather than use a GUI or higher level language to do it for them?"
Yes lets all start writing assembler shall we???
Yeah...
"Apple wants application lock in"
whereas Adobe just wants us all to have our own unicorn and be nice to each other, right?
"Anyone who thinks this is defending slow apps that don't take full advantage of your iPhone's hardware is just being numb."
Anyone who thinks that cross-compilers like Adobe's Flash packager for iPhone are going to do anything - ANYTHING - other than commoditize the hardware and native feature sets of different phones into a shallow, lowest common denominator pool of supported features, is being galactically disingenuous.
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