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back to article Adobe declares 'LOVE' for Apple

Adobe now says it loves Apple. But that's just a way of getting your attention so it can point out that it doesn't love Steve Jobs' pathological efforts to control the world's developers. On Thursday morning, Adobe launched a new ad campaign in newspapers across the globe that catches the eye with an apparent change in …

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    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      unnecessary Flash sites

      I keep in touch with the guy who used to do marketing where I work. He's building a Flash site for his new employer. He doesn't want to do anything you couldn't do with CSS but he doesn't know anything about CSS. He was taught to use Flash at uni so Flash is what he uses.

      He wasn't hired specifically to do the site btw, he's probably just the only one at the company who even knows what a website is. That goes some way to explaining why there are so many pointless Flash sites out there.

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  2. Mark 65

    Do they also...

    Love Security flaws and badly written code?

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    1. Barry Lane 1
      Reply Icon
      FAIL

      @Mark 65

      I'd have more sympathy for Adobe if their software was more reliable and didn't cost a squillion quid to buy. I stopped upgrading after CS3, when prices went stratospheric. Flash had for a long time been the only little local difficulty on my Mac, but now Illustrator needs restarting a couple of times a day.

      Is Corel still in business with Mac apps?

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    2. Doshu
      Reply Icon

      Oh the good old days...

      ...when macromedia was still their own company and needed to keep flash trim and fit to survive. Adobe showed they just don't care -- hell, they've even let their flagship softs go down the instability crapper. Sucks (especially considering the cost).

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  3. Adrian Esdaile
    FAIL

    Great ad, but they forgot....

    We love Malware

    We love pwning your system

    We've heard of security - that's the guys in grey in the carpark, right?

    We lgve bug5. cryakjdjfnz

    A fatal exception 05h has occurred at 1e3f:ffc23a1

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  4. calagan
    Jobs Halo

    Adobe killed Flash by not improving it

    Since the acquisition, Adobe hasn't done much to improve former Macromedia technologies: ColdFusion is dead, Dreamweaver is getting worse at every CS release , while Flash is still buggy, not secure and way too CPU-consuming.

    Steve Jobs is not the only one who has griefs against Flash (MS also joined the bandwagon), he's just one of the few actors on the market who can actually afford to side against Adobe.

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  5. Richard 51
    Thumb Down

    Standards ?

    Why are we debating whether flash is a standard? It's not! But it is used on a large number of very useful websites, Apple talks about HTML 5 as the standard, well guess what Apple is pushing H.264 for video, which is not a standard. I think the issue for me is that Apple for whatever reason is deliberately making a large part of the web innaccessible to me. I love my iphone but I won't buy another apple product until Apple allows technologies in common use on the web to be used on their safari browser. Whether Apple allows Adobe technologies to build applications for the Apple Iphone is a completely different arguement.

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    1. RichyS
      Reply Icon
      Jobs Halo

      I think H.264 is a standard

      I think H.264 is a standard, in that the specification is open and published. It's just not a 'free' standard (under certain circumstances -- it's free like the NHS is, rather than free like speech/beer, delete as applicable).

      H.264 is not a current web standard; though may be when HTML5 is finalised (I think the debate right now is whether to choose H.264 and/or Ogg Theora as the standard codec for web video).

      Flash, however, is completely closed and proprietary. Some people have tried to reverse engineer it (in the same way that OpenOffice will work with MS Office files). But that's down to a lot of hard work; not by having access to the standard.

      Me? I think Flash sucks and can't wait for it to do. The transition period will be a bit painful; but then it was almost as painful when world+dog stuck Real Audio on their website. In those days I refused to put a Real Audio player anywhere near my PC for similar reasons to disliking Flash.

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    2. Daniel Pimley
      Reply Icon

      H.264 is a standard

      It's just not free to implement.

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  6. Anonymous Coward
    Grenade

    They're all bastards!

    I am no fan of Adobe or its products. I HATE flash and always have - it's a pointless and annoying "thing" and Adobe's software is consistently crappy.

    Apple on the other hand are just doing what Apple have always done - creating closed systems running closed services (and yes, I am a Mac user). However, since its re-incarnation some years ago, it is (as everyone knows) on a crusade to extend that closed-off control to pretty much anything it can - music, video, and now applications. The extra-annoying thing with Apple though seems to be the way it bangs on about freedom and openness and yet at the same time doing all it can to prevent and block such notions (I'm, thinking iTunes, H264, locking-down their hardware, etc etc).

    And then there's good 'ol Microsoft who must be sitting on the sidelines watching this spat with glee, just like the rest of us. Nobody needs reminding of what MS are like and hat they do.

    The point is, all these companies and may others besides have only their own interests at heart. None of them give a fig about "freedom", or "openness", on the web or anywhere else. Apple's and Adobe's arguments may be different, but it all amounts to the same thing - they are trying to protect their bottom-lines. And they are mostly prepared to do this regardless of the financial and social cost to their users. In fact it is much worse that, because what these companies do effects everyone that has anything at all to do with computers or the web, whether you use their particular products or not.

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    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      There are varying degrees...

      I've always found Apple to have a pretty light touch. Take OS installation as an example. I use both Windows and the Mac OS, and my experiences installing either of them has some marked differences.

      With Windows (and practically any Adobe software) I'm asked pretty early on to enter a huge serial number, and then it has to repeatedly check the 'authenticity' of my purchase practically every time I update (and - as many have discovered to their cost - it doesn't always work). If disaster strikes, and your machine is completely knocked out, you have to go through hell to transfer the licenses onto a new machine. And while I'm trying to work, I'm constantly barraged by notifications and queries ("are you sure you want to do that", "look, I'm doing this for you", and "such and such has been plugged in/removed"). I feel under constant suspicion of being a thief and/or an idiot.

      On the Mac, I fire up the installer and run it without any mention of serial codes. Nor does it make any subsequent checks. It's taken for granted that you legitimately purchased the software (and I love that). Likewise with Apple's software - just and install and go. If the machine dies, restore the lot from Time Machine onto a new Mac and you're up and running with absolutely no fuss. No secret communications with Apple, no monitoring - it's a real breath of fresh air. The OS also allows me to work with a bare minimum of intrusion, assuming that I know what I'm doing and only providing notification where I might really need to know (like the mouse is about to fail because the batteries are almost flat). And I have a wealth of free development resources at my fingertips, both proprietary and open-source including a great front-end for gcc and pre-installed libraries from a huge array of open-source projects. And Apple openly supports the installation of another OS, so I can bring together the best of all worlds into one machine.

      All this debate seems to be about a phone (and more recently a tablet/e-reader/whatever). This is only one segment of Apple's line-up, and it's designed for a market largely populated by (tech) neophytes, i.e. people who don't know why it's bad idea to have an SSH installation with the default root password. Many iPad purchasers simply don't have (or desire) the know-how to manage a full lap-top. Apple is striving to produce something that 'just works' even for the person with no tech experience. Software like Flash doesn't have a good track record for 'just working'.

      If freedom/control is a priority for you, buy one of Apples laptops and have all the freedom you like (run Flash too if you want). That's what it's designed to do. It's a far cry from the control Adobe/Microsoft exert over their customers!

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      1. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Stop

        I'll take a few points there....

        ...First up your comparing a pure software maker, with a hardware / software vendor. Therefore it very easy for Apple to get your software and go , yup it's a Mac, if this wasn't true, you could installl it on any old platform. For the likes of other companies, they have to say, ok it's a pc, but is it THE pc they have paid for it to be on, this is how they make their money.

        "And I have a wealth of free development resources at my fingertips, ......both proprietary and open-source including a great front-end for gcc and pre-installed libraries from a huge array of open-source projects."

        So LInux / Windows don't have these.

        "And Apple openly supports the installation of another OS, so I can bring together the best of all worlds into one machine." Yes, but an utterly stupid arguement. Apple are happy for you to run Windows on a Mac, but run Mac OS on a non Mac and expect the lawyers to come a knocking. Many here will have dual boot Linux / Windows machines, so again I fail to see your point, MS don't give a shit what else you run on your pc, so long as your copy is legit, who cares? MS are happy to sell you Windows, because that's how they make money, Apple don't like to sell the OS, because they will not make a large mark up on the hardware.

        "If freedom/control is a priority for you, buy one of Apples laptops and have all the freedom you like"...Ok I'd like an AMD processor please.

        This isn't an anti Apple rant, more an a correction of you response.

        I don't use an Apple, but that's my choice, i'm grown up enough to make a choice as are you...

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  7. Rob Burke

    Adobe... open?

    Okay, so Adobe's criticism of Apple might be spot on, but then I find it a bit hypocritical to advertise slogans like "We Love Open".

    If they loved open so much, would there have been a need for GIMP and Free PDF Creator? And where can I download my open version of Adobe Flash?

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    1. Fartin Fantastic
      Reply Icon
      Happy

      "And where can I download my open version of Adobe Flash?"

      Here's a ton of free open source alternatives.....

      http://osflash.org/projects

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    2. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      FAIL

      Open Adobe

      For Flash Player, most developers start here: http://www.mozilla.org/projects/tamarin/faq.html

      There are too many open source Flash players and editors to list, try Googling - Adobe's own Flash development platform (Flash Builder) is built on the Open Source Eclipse. Flash Studio is aimed at designers not developers.

      I doubt Adobe are remotely threatened by GIMP/PDF creators (and a thousand other editors which support Adobe formats). Most people aren't going to fork out for CS5 and if there was no other means of editing their formats, people would gravitate elsewhere.

      However much of SJ's piss and vinegar you regurgitate without checking, the fact is that PDF and Flash are so dominant because they are so well supported by non-Adobe products.

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  8. Bonce
    Thumb Up

    I'm waiting for the day

    when corporates start forming private armed forces with mercenaries.

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    1. RichyS
      Reply Icon
      Grenade

      Been there, done it.

      Last time we tried this, we came away with India...

      Grenade, obv (though I don't think the East India Company had access to grenades!)

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      1. Basic
        Reply Icon
        Thumb Up

        Damn

        You just made me spray coffee over my desk.

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  9. Lord Lien
    Jobs Halo

    @ Daniel Pimley

    Nope. I'm saying that Apple, is security by obscurity. There market share is to low for a would be hacker to bother to find an exploit. Some thing I'm quite happy about. I can surf the web in peace & not have to worry about getting spyware/malware on my machine :)

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    1. Daniel Pimley
      Reply Icon

      Understood

      But it's possible that Preview has secuirty by obscurity *and* by design.

      1 1
  10. Anonymous Coward
    Grenade

    Cuteness

    First of all, the cuteness of his holyness St. Jobs' open letter being on a page that requests to install quicktime, is just hilarious. As if Quicktime is so much more open that Flash? Right.

    Then we have the nasty trick Adobe could actually pull to hurt Apple, might even help their bottomline, not hurt it (and at the same time leave some scars for his Holyness):

    We all agree that the Creative Suite is ridiculously overpriced, and that the current price actually INCREASES piracy (since the enthusiast users, not fortune-500 ones, aren't very likely to go out and purchase CS5):

    What if Adobe cut the price for the Creative Suite in half? This would mean a lot of the enthusiasts suddenly could afford going legal, and thus actually increasing sales for Adobe.

    Then imagine Adobe only cutting the Windows version in half. This would mean that a new semi-decent workstation plus Adobe CS5 master collection for windows, would be cheaper than CS5 for a Mac. This _WOULD_ hurt Apple.

    Just a clue.

    Anon, for fear of the rabid response teams of the Church of St. Jobs.

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    1. The First Dave
      Reply Icon
      Boffin

      @AC

      Except that the Mac faithful would just run the windows version under Parallels, or Fusion or Boot Camp...

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      1. Quxy
        Reply Icon
        Thumb Down

        Kicking and screaming, perhaps

        As has already been pointed out, the UI in the Windows versions of Adobe products is pretty nasty compared to what the "Mac faithful" are accustomed to. Mac and Linux users have already been forced into that situation with Framemaker, and it's an unpleasant, frustrating experience.

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  11. Alan Bourke
    Pint

    (settles back with HTC Desire)

    ... this is gonna be GREAT.

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  12. Anonymous Coward
    Jobs Horns

    Haha

    Apple and Adobe arguing about 'openness'.

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  13. richard 69
    Pint

    didn't apple used to own a chunk of adobe?

    ahh..the old days...when flash 3 was nice and easy to use, freehand was my weapon of choice and sausages had no skins...

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    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      I don't know but...

      ...Macromedia were in charge of Freehand and Flash back then.

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  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Hope Apple does stay away from Adobe

    I purchased the Adobe PDF package for windows 2k awhile ago.

    About two-three years ago I tried to upgrade.

    NOTHING MADE Sense as to the numerous options confusing wording of how to upgrade then Openoffice came along and did not bother any longer

    Then there is Adobe Reader - what a jewel. Nothing like your system not shutting down due to Adobe latching onto everything in the box for some reason and hanging up the entire system

    I stay away from Adobe as much as I can. Don't care that my touch cannot view a few things.

    Steve Jobs is right

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  15. Scott A. Brown

    I'd prefer a world without flash, but...

    ...it does a whole raft of things fairly well. I block by default all Flash but it's there for when I need it. My main gripe is when video or sound auto-plays when you're on a page but that's not Adobe's fault, it's the developer thinking it's a great idea. It isn't. If I want to watch a video, I'll press play, just like I do on every other device.

    Surely in the long term Apple will have to support Flash, if everyone else is. iPhone owners are always going on about how good their phone is. If it does less than the next person's then they'll be complaining about not having the best of the best (in their eyes, anyway). They'll simply abandon their shiny shiny pretty glossy phones and move to an Android-based phone or whoever.

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  16. FARfetched
    Grenade

    Meh

    Adobe: Fix. Your. Crappy. Code.

    Honestly, if Adobe put 1/10 of the effort into coding that they waste on whining, this article would have never been written.

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  17. Adam 10
    Jobs Horns

    Irony?

    Wait... Apple complain that Flash is a closed system?

    Is this the same Apple that forbids people from installing their operating systems on hardware that wasn't bought from them?* The same Apple that forbids people from developing software for their hardware unless they pay the Apple tax?

    The same Apple that has the cheek to charge actual money for a service pack that basically just allows the user to gain access to the 64-bit hardware that they have already paid for?

    * I have no desire to use OSX, but with the whole "bound purchase" ruling situations that have been applied to MS, I don't see how it can be legal.

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  18. vincent himpe
    WTF?

    pot, kettle and a good chance of being called black

    Facts

    - HTML5 is not a standard (yet)

    - H264 may be open but is not 'free' as in gratis. that codec is expensive. especially for content creators and its a cpu hog .

    - Flash is not open , but there are non adobe players and flash creators a plenty.

    What is the heart of the matter is simply this : Adobe flash allows you to make a product ( game , movie , whatever ) and publish it to different targets with the click of a button. Windows, Linux , Android , Windows Mobile , Symbian , iPhone, iPad (ehh scrap those last two, since Steve said No). For developers this is heaven. Code once, deploy everywhere ( just what java promised but never fully succeeded at)

    Apple is sitting in a comfotable position. People buy iPhones and iPads because of all the apps. If the same apps become available for non apple platforms you are beasically steamrolling the playing field. Now it doesn't matter who's kit you buy. If i can buy a device at half the cost that does the same i'd be an idiot to throw little green pieces of paper with pictures of dead presidents in Apple'ss general direction. There goes Apple ... their stuff is always way pricier.

    So, by blocking this cross compilation you force the developers to pick sides. Apple is betting that the developers will pick Apple because of the dominant platform for now. It will also block or slow down the uptake of other platforms. On the other hand, if the developers side with non-apple... the future is grim for said company.

    Everybody is talking about the Adobe Flash, but there are at least 3 or 4 other of these cross platform compilers out there that are heavily used for iPhone development. We seem to forget they they are also blocked with this terms revision by Apple !

    just my 2 cents...

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  19. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Open is to software...

    What natural is to US food advertising/product marketing...

    Meaningless.

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  20. sleepy

    Bad Adobe - try putting engineering above politics

    Adobe screwed up and won't have a viable cross-platform mobile Flash, probably for years. So they thought they'd let Flash developers cross-build for iPhone while they wait; and sell in Apple's App store to Apple's customers, to be 100% ready for the time when mobile Flash is viable - on maybe 200 million iPhone OS devices - but 2 billion others.

    Not surprising Apple said "Go bootstrap your own ecosystem if you want to save Flash and make our platform irrelevant."

    It's 13 years since Apple broadcast its intention to change the world with the "Think Different" campaign. They've barely arrived where they want to be, and there's no way they'll immediately and freely give Adobe the resources to help break up the platform, as happened with Mac.

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  21. Malcolm Weir Silver badge

    Blending issues

    Jobs has done a great Job (hah!) of blending two related but distinct issues, and El Reg's Orlowski has continued the confusion (obviously, Jobs did it deliberately, not sure why Orlowski did).

    The first is the merits (or lack thereof) of the Flash environment for developing web apps.

    The second is the merits (or lack thereof) of the Flash player for deploying those apps.

    Claims that the player side is "closed" are just false; others have pointed to FOSS players. Yet that is what Jobs wants to convey. And all this started because Adobe produced something that would translate Flash apps into something THAT WASN'T FLASH, but would run on the iThings.

    Comments about the quality of the developer environment are all very well, but like it or not, I'm not seeing anything like the Flash developer environment for HTML5/CSS/H.264 *at the moment*. They will come, I'm sure, but you need more than tools, you need classes in tech and design schools, you need confidence that the thing will prevail, etc.

    Finally, Jobs makes a big deal about how Flash crashes Macs etc. So why doesn't he spend a little of that mountain of cash in having his engineers make the FOSS Flash players run on Macs? Oh, right... he doesn't care about that. He cares about the cross-platform nature of Flash. So... what do we think Apple is going to do to block cross-platform development of HTML/CSS/H.264 apps? Hmmm..

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  22. Malcolm Weir Silver badge
    Coat

    Not exactly relevant... but Photoshop....

    Not sure why so many people think Photoshop has any relevance on the Flash saga, but:

    The UI of PS (at least since PS CS3) is virtually identical regardless of whether you use a Mac or a PC. OK, so you have to substitute the Apple key for the Alt key (or the Alt for the Apple), and the app-control mechanisms are native to the platform (so minimize/switch window/maximize etc. operate as the platform user would expect). Granted, this last bit can make it harder for a Mac user to work with PC Photoshop (and vice versa), but it's the exactly same with (say) Firefox!

    (Actually, I happen to believe that the windowing capabilities of CS2 was *better* on a PC than on a Mac, but Adobe made them common with CS3).

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  23. Jamie Jones Silver badge

    "We love all platforms"

    So, why isn't flash available for mine then?

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