back to article Apple in shock public attack on Adobe

Apple has issued a shock public attack on Adobe Flash. Of course, it's not the attack that's shocking - just the public bit. Typically, the MO of the Jobsian cult is to abuse Adobe Flash behind closed doors - or simply ban it from popular handheld devices. On Wednesday, Apple PR sent a - gasp! - statement to CNET regarding …

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  1. Christian Berger

    When Apple and Adobe are arguing...

    this can only mean good news.

    Adobe's only chance is to move to open formats.

    1. /etc

      They don't think so

      "Adobe's only chance is to move to open formats?"

      They don't think so. Adobe CS5 can export to HTML5's Canvas, so Adobe sees which way the wind is blowing. But it's still hoping on Flash.

      They quite clearly hope that, as it were, Google will save them. If you listen to Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen's video, he specifically mentions Google.

      Of course, Adobe still haven't got an acceptably working version of Flash (the full thing not Lite) for Android or for *any* mobile platform and have now put back their release date *again*.

      1. mdoherty-adobe
        Stop

        Poor assumptions

        We will release Flash Player 10.1 on Android devices in the first half of 2010, the schedule is unchanged as published 1 year ago.

        http://www.webkitchen.be/2010/04/19/flash-player-10-1-for-android-still-on-track-for-h1-release/

        Additionally, our CS5 products do not export to HTML5 Canvas. This was a futures demo and may not appear in products, although it makes sense for us to support HTML5. Check out our comparison of the two technologies here:

        http://vimeo.com/10553088

        http://www.theregister.co.uk/Design/graphics/icons/comment/stop_32.png

        1. Youngdog
          Thumb Up

          Now that is class

          Good for you for actually having the balls to sign up and post that response. Fair play to you sir you are a gentleman and a scholar.

          I for one welcome our insecure and resource-hogging overlords etc. etc.

          1. Youngdog
            Thumb Down

            yes I have just noticed...

            ..I typed 'insecure' instead of 'unsecure' - apparently this sort of thing is quite common and was first described by the granddaddy of modern psychology in his 1901 book "The Psychopathology of Everyday Life" as 'fehlleistungen' but has since entered the common parlance as a god-I-hate-my-life- everyone- else-is-an- utter-bastard slip

  2. Len
    Headmaster

    h.264

    Of course h.264 is an Open Standard. Everyone can download the spec for free and build their own implementation. Distribution of your implementation is not always free and can incur some costs, depending on use type. However, price has nothing to do with being Open or not, Free as in beer has. H.264 is not always Free as in beer.

    Download the h.264 spec at: http://www.itu.int/rec/dologin_pub.asp?lang=e&id=T-REC-H.264-200305-S!!PDF-E&type=items

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Happy

      Free?

      I've never understood the phrase "free as in beer".

      Do you pay for your beer? Do you brew your own? Do you live somewhere where the drinkiing of beer is illegal? Do you have beer bought for you? Nope - I don't get it.

      There is little point having a standard that you can openly get the spec for (like H264) but then you can't actually use because you need to pay someone a load of money to distribute it, or works developed to use it. That's not "free" in any useful way, whether it be as in beer (whatever that means) or otherwise.

      1. Joe Ragosta

        Free Beer

        "I've never understood the phrase "free as in beer"."

        It's not a complicated concept. The entire phrase is something like 'Free as in free speech, not free as in free beer" (or vice versa.

        The point is that when you say 'free' you have to define which type of free you're talking about.

        Are you talking about freedom to do something? The example given is that you have free speech in some situations (not all and not all countries). But the phrase applies when you have the freedom to speak freely.

        Or are you talking about 'free' as in not having to pay for something? In that case, the example is that you may see a party with a sign that says 'free beer'. That doesn't mean beer is always free or that you never have to pay for it. It's just an example that's quicker than saying 'free as in you don't have to pay anything to get it'.

        1. This post has been deleted by its author

    2. Skymonrie
      Troll

      What planet?

      In countries where patents on software algorithms are upheld, vendors and commercial users of products which make use of H.264/AVC are expected to pay patent licensing royalties for the patented technology that their products use. There's a BIG difference between Open Standard and open source with regards to "use" rights, about much more than just development/maintenence.

      I can download the specs for thousands of things at the patent office but, thanks to how anal companies like Apple are, can developers use what could be basic design idea's...No...Just visit http://gizmodo.com/5483689/the-apple-patents-cockpunching-all-smart-phones-an-illustrated-guide/gallery/ for a small dose of such matters.

    3. Cameron Colley

      H.264 is not free at all.

      It might not cost you to use H.264 now -- but in a few years time it may cost you £100000 per video just to watch it. MPEG LA have explicitly stated that it's only free until 2015.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Of course

      just keep developing there, don't worry about that big patent submarine that will come up in 5 years time...

    5. Anonymous Coward
      FAIL

      s/not always/never/

      You meant to say "Distribution of your implementation is NEVER free and ALWAYS incurs costs"

      MPEG-LA are pursuing developers of all applications using H.264 (AVC) for license fees, including open source.

  3. Libertine

    as ive been saying for some years now

    apple these days is behaving like Microsoft back in the 90's.

    1. aj87
      Thumb Up

      Anti Trust

      ... and why is it that if Microsoft simply distribute IE or Windows Media Player with Windows (i.e. Don't dictate what you can or can't have) they get anti trust lawsuits against them but if Apple ban apps from the App store they still seem come off as being better than old MS.

      Maybe its because its only on a phone but now this restrictive eco-system exists on iPads surely they must be worse legally than Microsoft were.

      Anyone care to explain?

      1. Atli
        Alien

        @aj87

        Microsoft got in trouble because they used their OS monopoly to give their other products an edge over the competition. Apple is (currently) not in as much trouble because the Jesus Phone (or the iPad, or iWhatever) is not in a dominant position over the Mobile market. - Someday they might be (2012 perhaps?...), at which time they will have to follow M$'s lead and start bribing judges left and right.

        The fact is that Microsoft should have been made to split into several individual companies a long time ago. (See the US lawsuit that mysteriously vanished in the early 2000's for a rundown of that.)

      2. Player_16
        Gates Halo

        Too easy...

        Simple. MS says (with stickers of Trust): Our software will run on your machine like it says on the label. The OEM's and corporates: (with stickers of Trust): MS software (and apps certified by MS) will run on our machines like it says on the label: GUARANTEED!

        Apple: Our software (and apps certified by Apple) will ONLY run on our machines: GUARANTEED! But, if you make OUR software (apps) run anywhere else, or if you make other software (apps) that was NOT certified by Apple run on OUR machines, that's your business: we don't care to know.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      FAIL

      But Flash is a buggy piece of shit

      I dont agree with all the bickering, but Flash is a pile of kak, it doesnt scale well and I doubt it was mean to either.

      I use PC's and Macs and one thing is the same, flash is crap on both.

  4. Steen Hive
    Flame

    I'm writing to Stallman

    GPL v4 Should include a clause which mentions Apple by name and specifically excludes them from using gcc. See how the snotty little bastards like a taste of their own medicine.

    1. Michael Brown
      Happy

      No problem

      Apple are moving away from GCC to CLANG-LLVM so they would have no problem with that, so you'll have to come with another childish proposal.

      1. Steen Hive
        Flame

        XNU?

        They are dumping the kernel and IOKit?

        Anyway it's no more ridiculous a proposal than Apple's childish language restrictions. Keep on drinking that kool-aid.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      FAIL

      Silly Ideologue...

      Wouldn't matter. Clang/LLVM is seemingly production ready and by most accounts better quality than the gcc.

      One day, individuals like you will learn not to take the actions of a company personally. Both parties in this sorry affair are acting to protect their business interests. Neither are doing this to piss you off personally. I know it can be hard, but look at things rationally from both sides.

      I can see why Adobe are concerned, they've had to radically rethink a product road map that until very recently looked certain. Had they been less arrogant and actually responded to the crtisism levied at them by actally producing a decent product instead of trying to skirt the real issue, then I imagine things would be different. Adobe have been dining out on Photoshop for a very long time, and have produced nothing but mediocre products since, save perhaps InDesign. They have been called to task on this by Apple and a large proportion of the web design and development community. Adobe have continually spat their dummy out, doing nothing to prove it's detractors wrong. Having senior management publicly state the same old shite makes them look foolish, especially the kind of FUD like "Flash is more open". Apple are merely responding to that. Both should know better.

      The h.264 vs Therora debate adversly affects Adobe because whichever codec wins (so long as the <video> tag is fully implemented), one of the main selling points of Flash disappears. Hell, there is already overwhelming evidence that html5+css+JavaScript can do what Flash does using fewer resources--search for 'Quake 2 safari'.

      Think about it. Apple are a big OSS contributer. They already have inplace a good enough (OSS) replacement for gcc. What good would banning them do, other than satisfy your own over inflated sence of entitlement and petty, and frankly pointless predjudice of something that you don't fully understand?

      1. Steen Hive
        Thumb Up

        Silly humourectomy

        "Think about it. Apple are a big OSS contributer. They already have inplace a good enough (OSS) replacement for gcc. What good would banning them do, other than satisfy your own over inflated sence of entitlement and petty, and frankly pointless predjudice of something that you don't fully understand?"

        It would simply be a reflection of Apple's own over-inflated, supercilious sense of entitlement and pointless predjudices. - Banning *binaries* because they have been written in a different source language - WTF? Mind you, I'll put the "Joke Alert" icon up next time for the hard-of-thinking and similarly disadvantaged.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          FAIL

          Erm...

          What? Were you making a joke? Stick with the day job, there's a good chap.

          The point is that deliberately excluding Apple from the GPL would achieve nothing, as well as completely flying in the face of what Open Source computing represents. Still, I wouldn't expect someone that has to resort to calling people stupid to inflate their own ego to understand such a simple premise. Attack my ideas by all means, but name calling just blunts your point. Big HUGE fail on your part.

          1. Steen Hive
            FAIL

            @Erm

            Get off your high-horse, "Silly idealogue" isn't "name-calling"? - Apple started this spat by including a blanket clause in their T&C to *specifically* target Adobe NOT Flash! ( and not to mention making the future very uncertain for small, innovative companies like Unity, etc. ) and YOU started the name calling.

            The point being that such a clause is just as much a ridiculous abuse as the GPL specifically including a clause to exclude Apple. Sorry if that was beyond you.

            As for ideas, in the video arena you are probably correct in that html5 and friends can do everything that flash video can do, and Adobe have been idiotic in their response to the web community in general - with a bit of foresight they could have opened flash up completely years ago. ( Although I suspect that the codebase they inherited from Macromedia was a complete dog's dinner.) That however is very far from the point H264 is a patent-incumbered published standard, not an open one, and theora has major performance issues. So essentially very little, if anything is gained by replacing flash with either in the long run. Google may very well open VP8 in which case it would be a good candidate, but no-one will implement it for years until they are sure patent-trolls won't crawl out of the woodwork á là WMV9/VC-1.

            Again very far from the point in this little Adobe-Apple spat, because it has nothing to do with "openness" or the future of internet video at all, just odious business practices.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              FAIL

              @Steen Hive

              "Apple started this spat by including a blanket clause in their T&C to *specifically* target Adobe NOT Flash!"

              Which clause would that be then?

              The one that says "no interpreted code". That's been there since day 1.

              Now, if there was a clause that said "no buggy, crash-prone crap" then *that* might be the clause you meant. It doesn't exist though, sorry.

              1. Steen Hive
                FAIL

                @AC

                No not the one that says "no interpreted code" ( although that is stupid enough) But the one in the iPhone 4 SDK that says "no compiled code" unless *originally* written in C, C++ or Objective C, which was specifically designed to target the CS5 native-code implementation developed by Adobe to avoid falling foul of the original stupid "no interpereted code" clause.

                Beyond the pale by a long way.

            2. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              "snotty little bastards..."

              I'll stay up here, thanks. I'd urge you to consider this; arguably trying to hijack someone else's IP with your own closed, proprietary framework in that manner that Adobe would have undoubtedly done (personally, I think it's naive to think otherwise) is at least as odious. Apple are trying to protect *their* business and their IP, as is their right. Adobe haven't been stopped from creating content for the iPhone platform.

              1. Steen Hive
                Thumb Down

                @sbuk

                Please illustrate your argument for "Adobe hijacking Apples IP".

                I'm the last person who would ever defend Adobe in general and flash in particular, so it isn't Adobe that directly concerns me. Apple are playing fast and loose with every developer who invests money and resources in making the platform viable. It seems like nearly every week on this site there is some story about Jobs pulling the rug out under someone's feet, if not by changing T & C at frequent intervals, then by the completely arbitrary way the existing T & C are interpreted. This is market manipulation by dictat, and Apple have a 100% monopoly on supply of iPhone apps. Anyone that finds this sort of behaviour acceptable is definitely a few cards short of a deck. El Reg is to be commended for keeping this sort of shenanigans in the spotlight - and it's quite clear what Apple think of them, for not being the fawning, obsequious inadequates that form the rest of the IT press.

                Luckily I have not developed for the iPhone in Flash or otherwise (precisely because of this rubbish), or I would actually be pissed on my own behalf. Some of my stuff does target MacOS, though and if I get a whiff of anything similar approaching in that area, I'll drop the platform like a hot potato - except maybe bringing up the odd hackintosh hardware driver just for fun.

                Anyone wanna help with an actionscript->Embedded C++/IOKit translator for a laugh? ;-)

    3. Anonymous Coward
      WTF?

      @Steen Hive

      Because most code written under the GPL is Flash, isn't it?

  5. Eugene Crosser
    Stop

    Battle of evil vs. evil

    And you know what? Apple is correct here. Adobe is a closed platform, albeit less closed than Apple itself. Imagine Adobe gone (bought by Apple, perished in an earthquake, ...) - no more flash on this planet. H.264 is license-entangled, yes, but imagine MPEG-LA (or what's the name?) perish, and all of a sudden it's available for everybody. So, yes, h.264 is more open than both iphone and flash.

    1. hj
      Alert

      and how

      Will i stop it on our network? Banning Flash is easy! Just because of that i love it.

  6. John Carter 1
    WTF?

    still more open

    What ever your argument, HTML5 + H.264 are still more open than flash.

    Fed up with everyone talking about Apple's closed environment. It isn't so much that it is closed, more that they use a vertical integration to their advantage. They are much better at implementing standards and respecting them than many other companies.

    It is particularly galling when people say they would never buy an apple product because of this but will buy a windows PC etc. Microsoft are renowned for producing products which purposely break compatibility and spurn standard.

    Do not confuse ubiquitous with open chaps!

    jc

    1. Stu Wilson
      Thumb Up

      this tile is overly zelaous!

      very well said.

  7. Fishamatician
    Jobs Horns

    Screw 'em back

    The reason macs became popular was that photoshop and other adobe apps were optimized to run on them over windows so the 'creative types' prefered them. I'm no great lover of adobe and flash but if apples holding up 2 fingers to them id just stop making new apps or updates for apple versions of my products. Creative people no longer 'need' to buy there overpriced junk and stock drops until they see scence or go belly up.

    Of course that could be why the moved into the executive toy market to balance sales if adobe did do that.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      FAIL

      Way to alienate 70%+ of your Market.

      No, really! You must be a strategic business manager. Or not.

    2. /etc

      Optimization!

      "The reason macs became popular was that photoshop and other adobe apps were optimized to run on them over windows ..."

      I strongly doubt Adobe deliberately "optimizes" for any platform over another -- except insofar as they don't bother much with any platform that doesn't seem so important to them. (And that, BTW, is why Flash is so grotty on everything other than Windows.)

      In truth they don't do Apple any favours. Apple came up with the Carbon toolkit to persuade vendors like Adobe that wouldn't write for OS X to port old "Mac OS" apps. Adobe still took its own sweet time doing so. It also expected its customers on the Mac platform to run PowerPC apps in an emulation layer on Intel chipsets for a darn good stretch.

      Nowadays it always brings out new versions on Windows first. It also dropped Framemaker and Premiere on the Mac. Photoshop was into 64-bit on Windows before the Mac. And Adobe is only now, kicking and screaming, moving to 64-bit and the modern Cocoa frameworks on the Mac.

      So that was a false assertion.

      As for "why don't Adobe stop writing for OS X?" -- that should be obvious enough. As well ask "Why don't Adobe cut off their nose to spite their face?" It brings in a lot of money. That's why.

    3. Euchrid
      FAIL

      re: Screw 'em back

      "The reason macs became popular was that photoshop and other adobe apps were optimized to run on them over windows"

      That stopped a LONG time ago - these days, you get better performance on a Mac by running PS on Windows - in fact when Apple launched Bootcamp, one PC magazine did a grouptest of machines running PS and found the best performance came from a MacBook Pro doing exactly that.

      I think you're overestimating that importance of the creative professional to Apple - it's nothing like what it was ten years, for example - and by that token, overestimating Adobe's power.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      FAIL

      @Screw 'em back

      Let me fix this for you...

      "The reason Adobe became popular was that photoshop and other adobe apps were on Macs which the 'creative types' preferred."

      (Even got that speeelin error for you.)

    5. Anonymous Coward
      Flame

      Seriously?? Adobe made Mac's popular?

      I think you'll find it was the other way around.

      Apple licensed Postscript, that arguably was what boosted Adobe. Adobe then developed several products for the Macs called illustrator then latterly Photoshop.

      Odd that Creative people still buy "that overpriced junk" either they are stupid as you suggest or perhaps there is something about Mac's that are good.

      I'm using 2 mac's without Photoshop and I'm managing just fine without their "over priced shit" on my machines. Aperture does an excellent job for me tks.

      1. Peter W.
        FAIL

        Seriously!

        Yes, actually. When Apple contractually locked Adobe into only releasing their products on the Apple platform for a number of years in the beginning, it did seriously affect the uptake of Mac systems. If Adobe had been free to develop their software for both platforms at that point, do you really believe that Macs would have had as much market share as they did over the past 20 years (particularly over the earlier 10 of those)? It's only recently (last 5 years) that Macs have really started to see major upswings (basically, when they moved over to OS X + Intel was the major shift in market).

        Also, you're now referencing consumer grade programs which have only been available for perhaps 2 years to professional industry standard applications which have been around for decades.... Well played :S

    6. Sean Timarco Baggaley
      FAIL

      Er,

      Adobe have been f*cking up their Apple software releases—never mind their overseas pricing—for *years* already. It took them forever to create a native OS X version of their suite, and they've only just caught up with the 64-bit revolution too. A revolution OS X had over *five effing years ago*. (No, there is no explicit "64-bit version" of OS X, nor will there be: you can mix and match 32-bit and 64-bit apps at will.)

      Adobe canned the Mac version of Premiere, removing all Mac support, for some years, only deciding to bring it back with their CS4 suite in the form of the rewritten "Premiere Pro". (And even so, some of their other video production apps remain Windows-only.)

      I've been using RapidWeaver, Coda and Pixelmator for years now instead of Adobe software, with a couple of other shareware tools standing in for Illustrator's vector art support. (All together, my entire suite adds up to less than the cost of just *one* Adobe app!)

      Adobe's kit isn't *required* for graphic design; it's just popular. Like Flash. And "Pop Idol". There are many alternatives to Adobe's apps today. And—after years of Adobe treating Mac users as third-class citizens—those alternatives are pretty damned good now.

      I've looked at CS5's specs. I'd like it. I certainly wouldn't say no if someone offered me CS5 for free. But I sure as hell don't *need* it.

    7. Anonymous Coward
      Flame

      Total crap

      I think you will find they became popular because they 'just worked' without having to tit around with stupid crap.

      I hated OS9 and below as much as anyone but you have to give Apple credit for making a computer that non-technies could actually use.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Learn the difference between open standards other open things

    H.264 is an open standard. There are even open source implementations of both encoders and decoders. This does not mean that it is free from patents and therefore licensing costs. However even patents are published so in that sense open.

    If you object to paying campaign to change the laws on patents. I would support real change in this area.

    Flash also includes H.264 so if you were distributing a client or non free video you may also have to take the very same patent licenses or take the same risks.

    1. mdoherty-adobe

      agreed

      One of the biggest misconceptions about Flash is that we own all of it. The Flash Platform contains a number of licensed technologies that we pay for on behalf of users.

      Mark Doherty - Adobe

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Joke

        If you really are Mark Doherty - Adobe

        FLASH sucks.

        Get over it.

        "Steve J"

        Sent from my iPad

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Headmaster

      Open Standard means "no patent fees"

      This is a common misconception, so please pay attention.

      Open Source has become very popular in the last decade. Some governments are very keen on it as it helps them avoid vendor lock-in. Many standards (a previous government wheeze to avoid vender lock-in) like, for example, H.264 have RAND (reasonable and non-discriminatory) licence fees enforced to avoid abuse of the market power provided by standards. This made sense in the old days of hardware and proprietary software, but these fees are no longer Reasonable when many products are provided for free and in particular they Discriminate against Open Source products.

      To label Standards that were complaint with Open Source they came up with a brand: "Open Standard" (see what they did there). Now there's many elements to this brand, just like there is to the definition of Open Source itself, but the basic, fundamental one is "no patent fees".

      Have a look at the definitions of Open Standards on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_standards). There are 14 definitions given by various governmental and standards bodies. 12 say (basically) "no patent fees". 1, from the IETF, is a historical artefact just someone randomly stringing the words open and standard together over a decade ago. The final remaining one, is a stroppy tantrum from the patent lawyers that work for the creators of the H.264 standard arguing that their standards are "open", a blatant two fingers up to the governments trying to encourage Open Standards and save some taxpayers money.

      Don't encourage them. Once again Open Standard = no patent fees.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Has a point really...

    title says it all - HTML5 et al, will be implemented (even a naff, none standard version for ie elevenity seven - but at least it will be related) on all platforms. Flash is just a PITA and requires downloads, and uses far too much CPU if the problem has no idea what they are doing.

    1. /\/\j17

      Misses the point really...

      "HTML5 et al, will be implemented (even a naff, none standard version for ie elevenity seven - but at least it will be related) on all platforms."

      No, HTML5 etc MAY be implemented on all platforms and it MAY be implemented in the same way on all platforms - but I wouldn't rely on it before say 2014.

      Lets start now.

      You can build a little Flash app. and, provided you write it to do so it will work on say 80% of PCs and smartphones.

      You could also write is in HTML5 with H.264 video and it will work on..well just people with Google Chrome and Apple Safari (6.5% of market according to Wikipedia). It won't work with IE as no HTML5 support till IE9, and who knows how standard it will be and it won't work in Firefox because they only support (the actually open and free) Ogg Vorbis video format.

      So, write once in Flash that can (be written to) work across 80% of the market or write 3 times - once in HTML5+v.264 for Apple/Google, once in HTML5+Ogg Vorbis for Firefox and once in Flash for IE+older browsers.

      Try selling doing 3x the work you need to to a client...and watch them walk to the next digital agency and who quote less than a third your quote to just build it in Flash.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        @misses the point...

        You've got it right but...

        >You can build a little Flash app. and, provided you write it to do so it will work on say 80% of PCs and smartphones.

        Only smartphone that won't be supporting it by the end of this year is iPhone - maybe you count iPad as a PC - but otherwise I don't see browsers with plans to drop Flash - so we're still looking at 75% of smartphones and 98% of desktops supporting it. Sure video content is inherently portable, but the massive amount of Flash games, almost all elearning content etc isn't going to get rewritten - that alone guarantees more that a couple of years of future life for Flash even if development ceases.

        Only thing that's guaranteed in respect of Flashlack is that iPhone and iPad has a discrete standard for Apps and advertising. Presumably this suits Apple since they are gatekeeper for both - elsewhere and for the bulk of Web content there aren't any compelling reasons for developers/designers to change any time soon

        Will be interesting to see how many sites take the 'iPad Ready' route, pretty much all iPad owners will have access to a (mostly Windows) desktop which supports Flash, Java etc so the arguments for developing additional content to avoid excluding users aren't the same as last time Mac browsing was out of sync with Windows - and even then an awful lot, if not most, sites didn't support Macs.

        1. Joe Ragosta

          Falsehoods

          "You can build a little Flash app. and, provided you write it to do so it will work on say 80% of PCs and smartphones.

          Only smartphone that won't be supporting it by the end of this year is iPhone - maybe you count iPad as a PC - but otherwise I don't see browsers with plans to drop Flash"

          This is, of course, false.

          Windows Mobile has already stated that they won't be supporting Flash. NO existing phone runs a full version of Flash today.

          Adobe CLAIMS that 10.1 will be out later this year, but it requires 800 MHz Cortex A8 or better - so it will be limited to a very tiny percentage of today's phones (and you can be sure that as the phones improve, Adobe will bloat Flash even further).

          EVEN IF Adobe meets its plans, only a very tiny, insignificant percentage of phones will run Flash by year end.

          Why do you Adobe shills think people aren't smart enough to realize that?

          1. fishman

            Phone speeds

            @Joe - Any new phone that competes directly with any new Iphone will be fast enough to run flash. I don't care if an older smartphone isn't fast enough to run flash if I'm buying a new phone - I only care if the new phone I'm buying is fast enough.

            Adobe is claiming that 10.1 will be out in the first half of 2010.

            While html5 might eventually replace flash, 2 years from now (the point that many replace their current smartphone) flash will still be significant.

  10. blackworx
    Happy

    Ha ha

    Between this and the Nokia "camera 'phones will be as good as DSLR's" story you're cheered me right up this morning!

    Lol smiley face.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Jobs Horns

    CS5

    I wish Adobe wasn't a public company with shareholders, then it could just say "CS5 ships for windows in May. OSX will be delayed for 2 years because we just can't be arsed" and watch the bottom fall out of Apple's "creative people" market

    1. Ivan Headache

      and what would happen

      to Adobe if mac users refused to "upgrade" to CS5.

      CS4 works pretty well.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      No change there then...

      Isn't this exactly what Adobe did with Photoshop (and all its other products) anyway? A native OSX version of PS was a good year or so behind the Windows version. Adobe already "can't be arsed" with OSX development so this would be no change at all.

      I think you overestimate the size of Apple's "creative people" market who rely on Adobe products. Macs aren't just for creative types anymore. Adobe need Apple more than Apple need Adobe. Why do you think Adobe are getting their panties in a bunch about this? It's because they need/want to be on this platform. Adobe have only recently began to care about OSX and they are just pissed that Apple aren't allowing them to control what happens on their platform.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Wake up

      Adobe already effectively did that with CS4. How long since the 64bit version was released for Windows while Mac users, who had 64 bit capability built into their OS long before Windows, have had to wait?

      Adobe have been fucking around with shoddy Mac support for over a decade now. Their apps have been extremely poor, their OS support is even worse and their prices for their software have stayed eye-wateringly high for this third class experience.

      Apple are finally in a position to say to Adobe that they aren't putting up with this BS any longer and frankly Adobe can go screw themselves for being a bunch of fucking dicks for so long.

  12. Dave Murray
    Jobs Horns

    Buggy, littered with security holes & a CPU hog

    Sounds like QuickTime and iTunes to me. I've refused to have that crap on my computers for years.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Jobs Horns

      Hear hear

      What has driven me up the wall with both these things is the way they seem to virally turn up on your computer. Install QuickTime, suddenly find you have iTunes even though you don't own any Apple products at all. What also drives me nuts on these apps is why Apple insists on writing the apps to have the Fisher-Price look and feel of Mac OS, rather than fit in with the styling of Window. Which I will admit I prefer. QuickTime and iTunes are definitely banned from all my computers, along with RealPlayer which I also loath with a vengeance.

    2. Rattus Rattus

      +1 from me

      No Quicktime, iTunes or Realplayer is allowed anywhere near my network.

  13. Robert Ramsay
    Stop

    "Someone has it backwards"

    Correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks like *Adobe* making an attack on *Apple* and not the other way around... (Then Apple responds with an attack of their own and so on...)

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    closed and proprietary

    iPot & kettle?

  15. Dan 55 Silver badge
    Thumb Down

    This isn't the diversionary tactic you're looking for

    Isn't this all about Apple blocking Adobe's application despite no technical reason to do so, just a policy of screwing another company...? First refusing to host the Flash interpreter in the App Store and second refusing to host Flash source compiled into Objective C in the App Store.

    It doesn't really matter how open your technologies are there's also a dictator deciding whether or not your application can run on their platform, and often for arbitrary reasons... if you update your app you run the risk of it getting rejected.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Stop

      @Dan 55

      You *can* submit applications if you have the source code in C, Objective-C or Java.

      If Adobe did have an application that converted Flash to Objective-C then there would be no problem, shurely?

      The rules are pretty simple to grasp and have only changed once that I know of (and this was it). Basically, if you had used OSX, you'd know how bad Flash was (and other Adobe products seem pretty half-assed too). I'm not surprised it's not allowed on the iPhone. (The only Flash I ever look at is on YouTube and there's an app for that...)

      If Adobe had stopped trying to deny that there are problems with Flash on OSX and just sorted them then it might have been allowed on the iPhone, who knows?

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    Corrected - you are wrong

    Apple started this skirmish by issuing the latest version of the iPhone OS and specifically putting in a clause to screw Adobe.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    newspeak?

    I guess a lot of this will come down to who has better newspeak.

    Has HTML 5 become an approved standard or is it still in flux?

  18. I Like Heckling Silver badge
    Thumb Down

    Only 2 more to go

    Who cares... they're both closed and proprietary systems and I'm honestly sick and tired of reading about them. Both companies are only interested in cash and exploiting customers to get more of that cash.

    So thanks for posting yet another apple related story... it's gotten so bad in recent months that we actually have a little pool each week in the office to see who can get closest to guessing the number of apple articles each week.... In the last 4 weeks I've won £25 because I guess high.

    So only 2 more articles this week.. and not only do I win, I get the exact number right... which means a bonus payment of a free coffee from the coffee shop across the road from each pool member, and that's 10 free coffees next week saving me an extra £20.

    But if I'm honest... I'd rather be losing this pool than reading another little lapdog article.

  19. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    isn't this tit-for-tat a little boring

    let's be honest here....

    <rant>

    Aside from a few games here and there, the biggest selling point for Flash is video, and I'd hazard, specifically smut... You're typical iPlods aren't really going to be using their iDevices to watch porn on the go, and in reality, that'll be at home so they can stream their wanking to everyone else while they are at it... To those that will inevitably respond and say, but, but, but website design, flashy website - blah- fucking-blah... can any one point out a really useful website that is done in flash? The moment I see a "loading" with progress bar, I'm out of there... all these lazy "web designers" really need to be forced to read Jakob Neilsen...

    So in reality, no-one is missing out on not having it on the iDevices, and the argument appears to be a school ground tit-for-tat nonsense... these companies should just grow up and focus on doing what they can within the "market constraints" to deliver the best they can for consumers, rather than moaning about who did fucking what...

    </rant>

    can we please move on to something a little more important than these childish games...

    1. HelenaHandcart

      4od? ITV Player

      Video isn't only smut. Flash is used for TV catch-up video services such as 4od or ITV Player (and BBC iPlayer). This could well be a significant factor with regard to iPad sales in the UK and other countries with Flash-based TV services. Flash is also used for a lot of e-learning content and so lack of Flash is likely to limit the iPad's usefulness for education.

      Flash isn't only about games and over-designed websites and some of the Flash content that iWhatsits don't allow is the very stuff that people could drive iWhatsit purchases.

  20. Syren Baran
    Grenade

    HTML 5, Flash

    I could really laugh when people declare Flash slow and buggy and praise HTML 5.

    HTML 5 *may* one day be bugfree and fast, but with pretty much untested proto type implementations in just a couple of browsers this argument is just silly.

    Oh great, Quake 2 runs in a HTML 5 canvas. Slower than on a 486. Great.

    QuakeLive runs on every cheap PC at maximum frame rate (granted, its a big plugin itself).

    By the time HTML 5 gets widely deployed Flash may well be bugfree and faster (especially on linux).

    And Apple is just behaving like jerks with their 3.3.1 clause. Give them even a slight bit of leverage and they will engage in anti-competetive bahavior.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Stop

      RE: HTML 5, Flash

      "By the time HTML 5 gets widely deployed Flash may well be bugfree and faster (especially on linux)."

      Don't fool yourself. Adobe have been aware of the problems with Flash on OSX for a loooong time now and have done precisely nothing, except deny that there are any problems in the first place!

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Unrealistic

    Your all dreaming if you think html5 won't be a huge mess of it working on some browser and not on others (current browsers still don't see the current standards the same!). Again we will have bad programmers writing bad code, except this time you can't flash block it and they will now be free to write their own drawing engine causing you no end of cpu cycles. Wow great, i can't wait! If anyone thinks this is about anything other than Apple locking developers to their platform then your kidding yourself (you could just stick a massive warning on installing flash after all).

  22. Anonymous Coward
    Troll

    is Apple going Microsoft way?

    just a troll, ignore me,

    lately I began to wander if Apple is trying to do what MS did years ago. Close their OS so that they will make the OS as well as the Applications for it (which result in the law suite that last for years). With the growing market share that the iPhone have, how long before someone calls it a monopoly and demand that they allow 3rd party applications and stores?

    MS did decide to only allow "signed" application on their OS few years ago (if I remember correctly it was WinXP). At the time, people (mostly Open Source guys) cried foul over the practice, and MS ended up withdrawing the proposal. Now Apple is doing the same thing on their phone and pads.

    what I don't understand is this, Flash can run online applications (which might be the reason it was rejected). But doesn't HTML5 do the same thing? Isn't one of the things that HTML5 suppose to do is make web-applications possible? If I understand it correctly, you should be able to develop applications (including games) using HTML5, so why allow one and reject the other?

    P.S. in the case of Flash, Apple is rejecting a *Partner* and all the developer that depend on that partner. This is why I wander if Apple is going the MS way, Microsoft did the same, it saw the partners as competitors and started to hide things from them. Then it started to integrate the different products into its OS, which made the alternative look like an overpriced headache (even if it was free).

    P.S.S. If Opera fully supported HTML5 and allowed web-applications (including games) to run nicely, will Apple reject the application because it can run un-authorised applications?

    1. Lou Gosselin

      Re: MS signed apps?

      "MS did decide to only allow "signed" application on their OS few years ago (if I remember correctly it was WinXP)"

      I hadn't heard of that, and find it hard to believe. MS knows legacy/third party apps are its lifeline, and ceasing to run those apps would eliminate windows as a candidate for most businesses.

      There's actually nothing terribly objectionable about the OS demanding signed apps, so long as the end user holds the keys. This could improve the security model. However when someone else holds the keys, one must implicitly trust the keymaster and give up any control they'd otherwise have as an owner.

      When it comes to kernel drivers, this is exactly what MS has done, starting with Vista. Arguably this was done to stifle open source innovation rather than secure the OS.

      Due to the negative feedback I keep getting on this topic, it would seem many users don't care that their platform locks them out, however as an active developer the lack of control for owners is a major turn off.

    2. Doc Spock

      Flash vs HTML5

      "what I don't understand is this, Flash can run online applications (which might be the reason it was rejected). But doesn't HTML5 do the same thing? Isn't one of the things that HTML5 suppose to do is make web-applications possible? If I understand it correctly, you should be able to develop applications (including games) using HTML5, so why allow one and reject the other?"

      The reason is quite simple. Apple control the code which interprets HTML5+CSS+Javascript. They do not control the code which interprets Flash. Consequently, the user experience on their mobile platforms would not be fully under their control. They took one look at Flash on OS X and decided giving Adobe that kind of control over the user experience was a very bad thing.

      Same argument goes for other runtimes, by the way. Furthermore, if Adobe opened the Flash spec (i.e. allowed Apple to write their own Flash interpreter), then the iPhone/iPad/etc may get Flash support.

      Of course, there is also the argument about Apple protecting their App Store revenue stream. However, the App Store didn't materialise until nearly 1 year after the original iPhone launch, so if it was just about protecting revenue, why wasn't Flash available from the start?

      So yes, in my view, it is all about Apple having control. But it's about control of the user experience, not about control of the content (although the two are somewhat related).

    3. I didn't do IT.
      Boffin

      MS Practices of Yore

      Actually, the lawsuit was also about opening the API's... MS products used unpublished API's which made MS products more efficient, look better, and have more capabilties than was possible with the published APIs.

      Apple, by contrast, is simply explicitly locking out non-Apple programs that attempt to use any unpublished APIs that Apple uses in their own products... uh... yeah. Hmmm.

      Of course, the only reason it was a viable lawsuit against MS was because of the market share MS had. So, as long as Apple keeps to its little corner of the market place and DOES NOT become overly populare, DoJ doesn't care.

      1. Volker Hett

        and theese programs are?

        I have one problem with cross platform frameworks, they support the least common denominator only and you're on the mercy of the framework vendor if and when new features are supported.

        Flash is a good example, h.264 hardware acceleration on Windows only and not even on any graphics card. Will you're flash app run as good on Ubuntu or OS X or Window Mobile?

        Next example, A20 gate, PCs still have it, due to old frameworks.

        And so on ...

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Boffin

        RE: MS Practices of Yore

        A more accurate analogy might be the fuss made by Commodore that developers should stick to the published APIs, even if they knew about "hidden" functions on chip.

        It turned out that it was because these functions were getting renamed/removed in the next version and a lot of developers had just written code that did nothing except crash...

        Who knows the real reasons? I suspect, given Apple's fondness for giving a nice user experience that it might be to do with the desire to eliminate unnecessary crashing...

  23. Anonymous Coward
    Jobs Horns

    Apple arguing against proprietery?

    Pot. Kettle. Black.

  24. Gulfie
    FAIL

    Adobe is no longer the issue

    The real issue that this whole spat (if that's an appropriate word) has highlighted in big flashing neon that Apple can crap on anybody's business model, regardless of the size of the company, with apparent impunity.

    Given their growing footprint in the smartphone space this cannot be allowed to continue indefinitely. The question is, how long before action is taken? What percentage of smartphone market share would Apple need to get to before this can be actively pursued as an abuse of a monopoly position?

    1. Joe Ragosta

      Nonsense

      "Apple can crap on anybody's business model, regardless of the size of the company, with apparent impunity."

      That is, of course, nonsense. Anyone is free to have any business model they wish. If Adobe wants to sell CS5 with any claimed features they want, that's up to them. They had better make sure that their claimed features work - which they failed to do before selling the Flash converter.

      Apple's role is to play their OWN business model as well as they can - and they simply refuse to let Adobe ruin Apple's very successful business model.

      1. Lou Gosselin

        @Nonsense

        "That is, of course, nonsense. Anyone is free to have any business model they wish....They had better make sure that their claimed features work - which they failed to do before selling the Flash converter."

        Um, perhaps their claimed features did work and apple changed the terms under their feet?

        It seems a lot of people are willing to forgive apple's actions because it has its sights on an easy target, adobe (yes we all have reasons for hating them). While I don't care much for the victim here, I still find apple's attitude towards developers despicable.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          So, Lou...

          Are you really suggesting that Apple owe Adobe a living? Are you suggesting that Apple, in some way, should have sought Adobe's approval first? Should they have made sure that Adobe's business plans and development roadmaps weren't affected before they decide the future of their own platform? Surely Apple are at liberty to dictate the terms of use for their IP as they see fit (obviously within the confines of law)? In fact this is exactly what Apple are trying to avoid. They don't want a third party to be in a position to dictate the future of iPhone OS--which is *exactly* what Adobe want and who wouldn't want a piece of that pie? So far though Adobe have been all talk! Adobe *are* lazy. As of yet they have failed to really respond to the criticisms levied at them. In fact, they spat their dummies out in spectacular fashion! They then tried to sneak their platform on to the iPhone. It was a calculated risk that didn't pay off.

          I would genuinely love to know what Apple are doing that is so loathsome. As it stands, they have said that C/C++/Objective-C are the languages to be used to develop for the platform. I get that ideologically it would be preferable to be able to use any language, but the "won't you please think of the children" type gambits are just irrelevant--if you cannot use any of the stated languages, then you cannot develop for the platform. If a developer really wants to develop for the iPhone platform, then they have one choice--learn C or C++ or Objective-C! I get the impression the majority that are complaining would be ideologically opposed to developing for the platform anyway...

          1. Lou Gosselin

            @So, Lou...

            "Are you really suggesting that Apple owe Adobe a living?"

            Bit of a straw man argument isn't it?

            I specifically said the fact that it's adobe makes it far easier to turn a blind eye to apple's own actions, which are clearly bad for all developers. To the extent that apple censors apps that users do in fact want, apple's actions are also bad for some end users as well.

            I appreciate apple's presence in that it increases competition, hopefully bringing down prices for other devices. However I do fear the competition may adapt apple's market control and manipulation strategies - a scenario where by everyone would loose and consumers and developers both are stuck with proprietary non-portable solutions.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          WTF?

          @Lou Gosselin

          "Um, perhaps their claimed features did work and apple changed the terms under their feet?"

          Well, considering how long they have taken to get the bugs out of FLash on OSX*, I doubt very much whether a translator for iPhone would work at all...

          *it's *years* now and we're still waiting...

          "While I don't care much for the victim here, I still find apple's attitude towards developers despicable."

          Developers have nothing to fear, as long as they write in Java, C or Objective-C. It's all very clear.

    2. nation of stupid

      monopoly abuse from a minority?

      "What percentage of smartphone market share would Apple need to get to before this can be actively pursued as an abuse of a monopoly position?"

      Usually a majority. Certainly a lot more than the less than 20% share they have at the moment. To abuse a monopoly you actually need to be the market leader, not fourth behind Symbian, RIM and Android. A bit difficult to be accused of monopoly abuse when there are plenty of alternatives.

    3. Volker Hett

      Support Android, RIM and Symbian!

      And it won't come as far. Oh, and demand Flash for Windows Phone 7 from Microsoft :)

  25. LinkOfHyrule
    FAIL

    *Buys more popcorn*

    You can't beat a good ol' tech bitch fight!

  26. Wobblydog
    Jobs Horns

    Control freaks strike again

    So, I can use Flash on everything else but the iPhone (and the overblown iPad). Hmm. Looks like the loser will be Apple. Do they seriously think that the IT world revolves around their dinky little objects? Do I stay with Flash - available on an internet browser near you or go with h.264? I guess most of us will stay where we are. The market is much, much bigger. One day Apple might rule the world but they've only got to look at Microsoft's attempts to keep browsers under proprietary control to see where that leads.

    1. Joe Ragosta

      EVERYWHERE?

      "So, I can use Flash on everything else but the iPhone (and the overblown iPad)."

      No. I wish you Adobe shills would stick to reality instead of your silly fantasies.

      As of today, there is not a single mobile device which runs a full version of Flash. None. Zip. Nada.

      Granted, there is Adobe vapor that might run on a tiny percentage of today's phones at some time in the future, but that's not the issue. So stop with the blatant lies.

      1. tgm
        FAIL

        really?

        "As of today, there is not a single mobile device which runs a full version of Flash. None. Zip. Nada."

        http://theflashblog.com/?cat=56

        seems you're wrong

        1. Anonymous Coward
          FAIL

          RE: really?

          Those were demos at a trade show.

          Show us where we can downloade them...

        2. Joe Ragosta

          Wrong?

          Not at all. You're just apparently incapable of telling the difference between a real product and advertising.

          Get back to us when there's an actual product rather than Adobe vaporware.

        3. Volker Hett

          Where can I download it?

          My sister wants to play farmville on her phone.

      2. Nexox Enigma

        n900?

        """As of today, there is not a single mobile device which runs a full version of Flash. None. Zip. Nada."""

        I was just using the desktop version of youtube on my Nokia n900 yesterday, with flash 9.x or something. Seemed to work just fine for me, and it has since the device was released last Nov/Dec or so.

        Though I do admit that Flash is so irritating that I leave the plugin disabled unless I really need to see a video of something. Otherwise I just get bogged down loading advertisements over 3G...

      3. DaveFish83
        WTF?

        Tosh

        With the greatest respect, what a load of nonsense.

        *Cough* n800, n810, n900... shall i go on?

        I'd make sure you're facts are straight before accusing others of shillery, fantasism and outright dishonesty.

        1. Joe Ragosta

          Go on

          "*Cough* n800, n810, n900... shall i go on?"

          Sure. Go on - maybe you'll eventually find one that runs a full version of Flash - which is what we were discussion.

          Flash Mobile (which those devices run) is far too limited to be of use - most Flash sites don't work, so it really doesn't help.

          The first FULL version of Flash for mobile devices will be 10.1 - IF it ever comes out. And IF it is any good.

    2. jbravo
      WTF?

      Really?

      Which smart phone CURRENTLY has full Flash (not just flash light) and can play Flash games online? You're all blaming Apple for not supporting a technology that doesn't even exist...

      It's interesting that you mention browsers under proprietary control. Are you serious? Apple is fighting proprietary technology (Flash is proprietary and closed. Surprise!) with wide open standards. In which bizzaro world do you live?

    3. Anonymous Coward
      FAIL

      RE: Wobblydog

      I've got Flash turned off on my machine. I only ever turn it on for YouTube (there's an app for that).

      I've not missed Flash at all, in fact, I'm glad it's gone.

      "Do I stay with Flash - available on an internet browser near you or go with h.264?"

      Well, since one of them is playable on just about any platform and one of them is a fully-proprietary, bug-ridden lump of excrement, fast looking obsolete and desperately trying to stay afloat, despite the flush...

  27. Edwin
    Stop

    Apple worried?

    I guess Apple is a little worried since Flash apps are (still) so popular. Not so worried that they'll sacrifice their revenue stream though.

  28. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Reg in shock public attack on Apple

    /EOM

  29. Citizen Kaned

    pot kettle

    as most of the none work pc issues ive seen this year come from that shite POS that is called itunes. yup. its a fucking media player that manages to make such a mess of windows its untrue. ive NEVER had any issues with lfash, i wish i could say the same for apple products. ive seen many viruses that dont do as much damage or cause as many problems as bloody quicktime and itunes - and arent both of those closed proprietory systems??

    1. Joe Ragosta

      iTunes

      "as most of the none work pc issues ive seen this year come from that shite POS that is called itunes."

      Well, if you want to play anecdotal evidence games...

      In any event, Adobe is free not to install iTunes on the computers they sell - as long as their rules are vendor-agnostic.

  30. takuhii
    Jobs Horns

    WhatevAAAAAAAr!

    If Apple is taking the early incarnation of Flash 10 as it's benchmark then I agree with them, Flash 10 did nothing but cause problems, telling users to install Flash Plugin when they already had it etc... (this was on the "snooper" that comes with Flash when you publish your works to SWF).

    HOWEVER Flash has got better since then, and I'm more than happy with v11. If Apple aren't careful they will end up the same way as Microsoft, hell bent on world domination and in front of a European court being told to stop being as Asshat and play nice...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      RE: WhatevAAAAAAAr!

      "I'm more than happy with v11."

      I thik you meant to select the "joke" icon. Either that or you're thinking of Flash for Windows. Adobe just don't care about development on other platforms and as a result, their software sucks.

  31. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Amazing

    Apple are actually making Adobe look good. I never thought I'd see the day...

  32. Eddy Hall

    Open standards

    I think people should convince themselves that MPEG creates open standards, and that proprietary closed source products are closed. Because they do and they are.

    If you wanted to say that H.264 has associated licencing costs, then say it. That is also true. But trying to convince people that Open Standards is the same as licence free or freely-licenced is stupid and grossly misleading.

    For goodness sake, if you are going to resort to polemic, at least find the actual issues in the argument. H.264 costs money, quite a lot is you buy an off-the-shelf implementation. But it is open source, as is HTML5, CSS, ECMAScript, Javascript, XHTML, XHTML Mobile Profile, XMLHTTPRequest, MPEG 4 part 2 & part 10 etc.

    1. Martin Owens
      Grenade

      Free and Open

      It's not free as in freedom and it's not compatible with most open source licenses (and no Free Software licenses). If they remove the per copy licensing then it might, perhaps, be an open standard.

      Until then it's just a published closed standard.

  33. Flybert
    Coat

    when do we see the picture ..

    .. of the Guru Shantanu and His Steveness sitting down for a nice cup of java ?

  34. sleepy

    Apple just wants to be itself...

    ...and that means being able to make money out of innovative gadgets for normal humans and being able to move forward on their own terms.

    And what happened the first time around? Even though it took Microsoft ten years to adequately copy the Mac, Microsoft could then put Apple out of business, but chose not to, because Apple's existence "proved" it was possible to compete with Wintel, and so there was no need for government intervention. And Microsoft even made money out of Mac software. Not just all of Microsoft's "partners", but also Apple, were crippled and unable to innovate, because anything new and original naturally leaked away over time to the monopoly platform (including a large number of Adobe and Microsoft applications that started on Mac).

    Apple put Postscript in the original Laserwriter, and desktop publishing was born, turning Adobe from startup into a significant player. But Adobe has since repeatedly tried to shaft Apple with license fees (Postscript fonts, display Postscript), and later by ignoring the Mac platform (even though it generated half Adobe's revenues), hoping it would die. More recently the Flash plugin on other platforms than Windows has been a buggy, poor performance, unmanageable security risk. Nevertheless, Apple is not throwing it off the Mac. Adobe declined to convert its software for OSX, so Apple had to spend years building a transition API for them. Then Adobe failed to use that for more years.

    Steve Jobs has always been the kind of guy to set up I win/you win deals. But time and again the partner breaks the deal, and his vengeance knows no bounds. An early example was Rodime (Scottish disk drive maker) who built external disk drives for Apple.

    Apple has spent twelve years redefining itself and its products, so they can innovate again. Their model is to ensure a full implementation of industry standards across all platforms, combined with a tightly controlled proprietary platform that is restricted to Apple's hardware. Apple is still a small minority platform, but its open source Webkit development is used by Google, Nokia, RIM and many others. While Apple has a minority platform (MS sells more PC's; Nokia and RIM sell more smartphones), cross platform tool chains will leak all Apple's uniqueness out to the majority platforms.

    All Apple wants is for some other companies to show an iota of innovation and produce alternative sustainable proprietary hardware platforms. But they are all so lame, all they can think of is to copy Apple. If Apple becomes the majority platform, opening up cross platform development will create a reverse migration - alternative platforms will collapse. Apple doesn't want that either. It's nearly impossible to innovate if you have 80% of the market.

    Microsoft bootstrapped its monopoly from IBM's monopoly, and Apple is currently trying to bootstrap a secure future, not beholden to Adobe, MS et al, out of the mobile carrier cartels. And I hope they succeed.

    Unless the rest of the industry grows up and gets on with develping new stuff independently, they will wake up to an Apple monoply one day. But it's not what Apple wants. That way lies being a slave to the market, and government intervention, just like Wintel. Neither the better CPU architectures Intel has designed, nor the attempts at better OS's MS has built have been accepted by the market - they're trapped with X86 and XP. You think Apple wants to live like that?

    oops - I accidentally ranted!

    1. Martin Owens
      Pint

      Except

      Webkit is actually khtml and Apple innovated nothing, they took a good solid Free Software web rendering library for Konquorer and turned it into Safari. Their vested interest in khtml / webkit is what proves FOSS has a strong economic model based on self interest. It doesn't however prove anything about Apple's openness, because Apple have no choice but to abide by the original FOSS license.

      Next you'll be telling us that cups (now Apple owned) was invented by them. *roll eyes*

      Apple is a very clever company, it uses lots of existing software and then locks it away. At least Microsoft has the good grace to shoot themselves in the face by trying to reinvent everything ever invented in order to lock it down.

    2. Skymonrie
      Heart

      Innovation

      What's all this tosh about innovation???

      Apple don't innovate, they have some great designers which make existing products user friendly for the masses. In this day and age, they don't bring anything other than "style" to the market and fair play for that...This post reminds me of that great game, Lemmings :3

  35. James Katt
    Stop

    So long farewell... Flash is dead.

    So long farewell, auf weidersehen adieu

    Adobe and Flash

    Adieu, adieu, to you and you and you

    Flash is dead. Flash is dead.

    It will never be allowed on the iPhone, iPod, iPad. Never. Get over it.

    Flash is dead. Flash is dead.

    So long...farewell...auf weidersehen goodbye...

    Good riddance! The world is now a better place without the threat of Flash.

    And thanks for all the fish, NOT!

  36. vincent himpe

    H264 open ?

    Anyone care to guess what the licencing fee for that is ?

  37. Miek
    Linux

    eeewwww

    H264 is rubbish and results in much larger files than the common formats out there, with dubious results.

    Yes flash is buggy and a bit of a CPU hog, but I use it and so do many, many others.

    Having converted various file-types to mp4 using H264 the files only get larger and of worse quality. Just like that nasty quick-time crap Apple are always trying to push on everyone.

    Personally I am waiting to see what happens with the new On2 V8 codec purchased by google. Otherwise it's onto OGG Vorbis with HTML5.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      WTF?

      @Miek

      "Having converted various file-types to mp4 using H264 the files only get larger and of worse quality. Just like that nasty quick-time crap Apple are always trying to push on everyone."

      Quicktime's just a wrapper. It's the internal file format you chose when you saved the file that determines the size...

    2. Volker Hett

      So flash is a CPU hog?

      and you want it on a 450MHz ARM CPU?

    3. Ivan Headache

      Well I have to disagree Miek.

      The H264 stuff that I watch makes flash stuff look like early VHS.

      If your H264 stuff isn't any good then you are using the wrong tools.

    4. Richard Cartledge
      FAIL

      Ooops!

      You are confusing file types (wrappers) with video formats.

  38. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Isn't Flash for video just a wrapper...

    Isn't Flash for video just a wrapper or container and internally its using either h.264 or other video codecs to deliver video in MPEG 2 or 4.

    Flash is proprietary itself isn't it. Only Adobe controls what goes into and out of Flash.

    Imagine if Apple allowed Adobe Flash to be used to deliver apps, wouldn't control of Apple's platform then flow to Adobe. That is if Apple implemented new features on its hardware it would have to wait for Adobe to update Actionscript before a developer could implement features. Why would Apple or any other company permit this to happen.

  39. Nexox Enigma

    Meh...

    I tool Adobe's original comment about Apple's closed platform to be related to the announcement that they were moving to Android, not a comparison between Adobe and Apple.

    And Apple replied that it was open because it supports HTML5 and CSS3... so their web browser meets standards. What else about the Apple mobile platform is 'open'? Surely they can't consider their hardware to be more open than Android kit, right?

    /me goes back to configuring MySQL replication between n900 and desktop (Something to do before the 8th cup of coffee kicks in)

  40. Aaron 10
    Flame

    @vincent & @miek

    Vincent: Open source ≠ free. Just because H.264 requires a licensing fee doesn't mean it's not open source.

    Miek: If H.264 is giving you bad file sizes and bad quality, you're doing it wrong. Based on your post, you're obviously not a video compressionist. H.264 does a very good job at a wide variety of bit rates of compressing a wide range of video... if you know what you're doing.

  41. Syren Baran

    Monopoly abuse

    Well,

    just for those Apple fanbois who dont get it. Yes, Apple has a monoply.

    A monopoloy on the market for apps for the i*whatsoever.

    Argue what you want, yes the iPhone isnt that popular and whatever.

    And you know, from a legal perspective it doesnt matter. Thanks to the iPad Apple has a monopoly on tablets for the short time beeing. They are abusing monopolistic power.

    Well, i´m just doing what every developer in their right mind should do. Show Apple the middle finger.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      FAIL

      So wrong...

      > "A monopoloy on the market for apps for the i*whatsoever."

      Sorry in advance for the shouting, but MONOPOLIES IN THEMSELVES AREN'T ILLEGAL. You really need to understand this.

      > "And you know, from a legal perspective it doesnt matter. Thanks to the iPad Apple has a monopoly on tablets for the short time beeing. They are abusing monopolistic power."

      Can you by alternative devices that allow you to install apps? Are Apple, in *any* way actively obstructing you from doing so? Are they actively trying to stop other companies from designing and manufacturing smartphones? Yes, no and no. So, how are Apple being abusive? How on earth did you figure Apple have "a monopoly on tablets for the short time beeing"? Your argument isn't cogent.

    2. Joe Ragosta

      Monopoly?

      Maybe you should start by learning what a monopoly is. There's no such thing as a monopoly on apps for a given platform.

      It's also silly to argue that Apple has a monopoly on tablets. Other companies have been producing them for years. My daughter's school gives HP tablets (yuck) to all students. IIRC, the worldwide market for tablets was several million units last year - and Apple didn't sell any of them.

      I'd suggest that you start by using that finger to flip the pages in some books and learn something before parading your ignorance.

  42. Martin Usher
    Unhappy

    Six to One

    Apple might have some commercial motive but OTOH Flash has got very obese in the last versions, so much so that it won't run properly on a smaller computer. Why it should be this way is anyone's guess since functionally it doesn't seem to do anything different. Its either bad code or Adobe's got into the spyware business....

  43. Paul RND*1000
    WTF?

    Oh FFS

    This is turning into a playground fight between closed and proprietary format vs closed and proprietary development. We'd be much better off if both just went away.

  44. Anonymous Coward
    Megaphone

    @skymonrie et al

    "Apple don't innovate", eh? They innovate the hell out of just about every pc, mobile phone and music player manufacturer in the universe. Boeing didn't invent the jet aeroplane but look what they've done with it. Rolls Royce and Nikon weren't the inventors either, but they done good all the same, yes?

    Windows copies the Mac OS (rather poorly) and every beige box, cell phone and MP3 player is made in homage to Apple. It doesn't matter what the rest of the world thinks of Apple or Steve Jobs, it's just the way things happen.

    However, Jobs often appears to have some kind of death wish and goes off on one regarding blu-ray or Flash, or whatever. Then, before you know it, the "offending" supplier changes what they were doing and suddenly every manufacturer is doing things the way Apple dictated it. It's kind of odd, yes, but, well... That's the world for ya.

    It's true they have some great designers at Apple and they do have a lot of style, but as poor on features as many claim the iPhone to be, the other manufacturers base pretty much everything they do upon the iPhone. It has become the template for every new 'smart phone" and the one the others must beat.

    Apple may well have only 20% of the cell phone market or whatever it is that an earlier poster said, but Apple is doing it with a single product. It's not doing it the Nokia way, by flooding the market with dozens of very slightly different models and playing the odds at all. One model. It really is a phenomenon.

    Now, I wouldn't want an iPhone because, frankly, I have no need for one. iPods don't interest me at all, thank you and I personally don't have any desire for an iPad, although I can see why a lot of people will want one when they get the chance to clap hands on one.

    Apple PCs are a different matter, however. I've tried Windows 7 and it looks like the Mac OS of about four years ago. Unix is great fun if you're the type who prefers to spend their days with the metaphorical hood permanently in the up position, but a Mac? Frankly, nothing seems to compare and if you think it does, you haven't tried it (and for all those people who will now claim to have used a Mac and it crashed every ten seconds, exploded or sent out for beer and ran off with their sisters, stop kidding yourself and your mates and admit that you're probably just crap with computers). I, too, have used both and have run a department with both MS and Mac machines in it, and the Macs were the ones that didn't need to be fixed or tweaked every other day. In fact I have just given away the last Windows PC I will ever own (a 2.4 GHz monstrosity - the biggest POS on the planet, in my ever so 'umble opinion).

    So don't say that Apple - a company that is probably the greatest innovator in tech that we'll see for many years to come - does not innovate. They are the benchmark for several branches of industry that, were it not for Apple, couldn't innovate their way out of a paper bag.

    1. Nexox Enigma

      (title)

      """Windows copies the Mac OS (rather poorly) and every beige box, cell phone and MP3 player is made in homage to Apple."""

      Both operating systems were a copy of whatever that thing was called at Xerox. That's a pretty well-known fact.

      You're also forgetting that the iPhone interface is largely based on the original Palm OS, which was a pretty revolutionary design. And you're right that many smartphones are attempting to duplicate what the iPhone does, which I agree is pretty worthless. You might take a look at Nokia, however, who seem to be doing it differently.

      Also you missed that point of the posts you were replying to, which was that most of their claims for innovative software are heavily based on open source applications. You can argue whatever you want about their hardware innovation (which I feel has been mostly backwards in many ways for quite a long time,) but a good amount of their software is based on the innovations of others. And a good amount of their "Oh look how open we are, we contribute back to projects that we use" is actually just required by the licenses, so not technically all that worthy of respect.

      1. Richard 118
        Jobs Halo

        There was a difference

        "Both operating systems were a copy of whatever that thing was called at Xerox. That's a pretty well-known fact."

        There was a big difference though, Apple actually had Xerox's permission and paid a royalty for it, Microsoft did not.

        See http://obamapacman.com/2010/03/myth-copyright-theft-apple-stole-gui-from-xerox-parc-alto/

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        re: (Truth)

        "Both operating systems were a copy of whatever that thing was called at Xerox. That's a pretty well-known fact."

        Kinda. Apple was given access to work at Xerox PARC, on the understanding that this would contribute to the work they were doing on a GUI, in return for a load of Apple stock options.

        The whole story has a lot more to it and the way you've summed it up is certainly well repeated, but that doesn't prevent it from being overly simplistic and misleading.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Stop

        Not exactly.

        >"Both operating systems were a copy of whatever that thing was called at Xerox. That's a pretty well-known fact." You seem confused as to what an OS is. What you are refering to is the Xerox Star, whose interface Paradigm (WIMP) was based on the work started by members of the PARC team Eilat working under Doug Engelbart at SRI. Apple actually paid Xerox a licence, a fact later denied by Xerox, but ultimately proven to be true. Microsoft on the other hand copied the idea from Apple. Contrary to populist beliefs, the matter was settled in the now infamous Microsoft rescue of Apple. As an aside--this was also partly done to return the gesture from Apple, who had saved the fledgling Microsoft from finacial ruin in the late 70s by paying for an order up front, giving Microsoft a much needed injection of capital.

        >"You're also forgetting that the iPhone interface is largely based on the original Palm OS, which was a pretty revolutionary design. And you're right that many smartphones are attempting to duplicate what the iPhone does, which I agree is pretty worthless. You might take a look at Nokia, however, who seem to be doing it differently"

        Where to begin!? The iPhone OS interface, if anything, is based on Newton, which precedes the Palm Pilot by 5 years. It could be argued that Newtons UI is similar in function to the original Psion devices. The term "PDA" was actually coined in 1992 by the then Apple CEO, John Sculley. What Palm did do was improve character recognition technology, but this was way after Newton.

        Like it or not, Apple are and always have been innovators. It could easily be said that Jobs and Woz were largely resposible for the home computer (and business computer) revolution--at worst they were an influence on it, and Jobs, like him or not, still exerts a magor influence on the Market. Claiming otherwise is simply fatuous.

  45. Inachu
    Flame

    Grrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!! LET THE BODIES HIT THE FLOOR!

    I can agree flash is super buggy still.

    I can visit hulu using IE 8 on my new windows 7 pro pc that has all the latest updates.

    so far so good but if i click the icon to make the hulu flash window bigger then it plays for a few moments then freezes while the sound still plays.

    FIX YOUR FLASH!!!!

    grrrrrr

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Jobs Halo

      RE: Grrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!! LET THE BODIES HIT THE FLOOR!

      So.... it's not just OSX users then, is it?

      Flash seems buggy and crashes on more than one platform.

      ould that be ... because it *is* buggy...?

  46. Captain Thyratron

    In the red corner: Suck! In the blue corner: Suck!

    Sometimes the pot is actually right when it calls the kettle black. In this case, they're both cast iron.

  47. Richard Large

    Question, because I don't know the answer.

    I'm trying to look further than video streaming, which is what most people seem to fixate on with this debate. Can you create simple games with HTML 5, H.264, Javascript and the like that you can with Flash, that can be played anywhere, on any machine so I can while away a half hour while waiting for a plane or something?

    If yes, then Flash can go away and I wouldn't care less.

    If no, then Flash remains a killer app for me.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      The short answer is yes.

      As many are too quick to point out, HTML5 is still only a draft, it is near enough production ready, as is CSS3. Google "quake 2 Safari". Warning: it is, at the moment, only rendered properly in Safari, but there are videos of it. I know that this isn't "any platform", but give it about a year. Some here said the performance is like a 486, no different to flash then! It's actually better than that. Considering how it has been produced, it's actally quite impressive.

    2. Joe Ragosta

      Games

      "Can you create simple games with HTML 5, H.264, Javascript and the like that you can with Flash, that can be played anywhere, on any machine so I can while away a half hour while waiting for a plane or something?"

      Yes.

      Watch the Toy Story iAds demo that Jobs did earlier this month.

      As I've said before, lots of people are claiming that there are things Flash can do that html 5 won't do - but every time I ask, no one can come up with an example. Just watch the demo and you'll see how flexible html 5 is.

  48. Drunken
    Happy

    Best of both Worlds

    The millions of iPhone and iPad users will cause less reliance on flash all over the web, which is a great thing. While I can buy an open platform device which can use flash so the web actually works for me.

    Thanks iPhone users :)

  49. Richard Cartledge
    WTF?

    Tap to flash

    Like the click-to-Flash browser plugin, the iPad and iPhone should have a similar feature built into mobile Safari. Then the user would see it is only crap when they tap.

  50. Kebabster
    Unhappy

    Who's closed?

    So I run XBMC on my Apple TV... although evidently that's impossible as Apple are the Kings of lock-in.

    I used to enjoy the BBC iPlayer plugin on XBMC on Apple TV... until the BBC kindly turned on SWF Verification in the Flash streams. So this no longer works because only a genuine Flash player can implement SWF Verification or Adobe hunt them down with the legal vultures.

    So which do you reckon is more proprietary and locked-in?

  51. asdf
    FAIL

    insert usual comment

    Apple business models suck but at least they occasionally release nifty products almost worth the forced lock in. Adobe on the other hand are a terrible blight on all things elegant about software development and the sooner their bloated malware products dissappear the more secure and stable all boxes on all platforms will be. The four biggest things you can do to secure your windows computers that have internet access, is make sure you have a firewall between you and inet, make sure you have antivirus program, upgrade IE6 to IE8 and the most important of all get all of Adobe products off your computer asap.

  52. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Come on now...

    Why are so many supposedly I.T literate people such rabid Apple fan boys? Get some self respect for pities sake. Anyone who claims to know their way round computers but then spends twice as much as they need to just in order to get unix with a pretty face needs their keyboard privileges rescinded.

  53. The_Police!
    Coat

    Harass Adobe

    about Flash on the iPhone? Now there is an app for that!

    Yes, yes I am gettin my coat.

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