Heard of Craig Oldman's Hand Written Letter project? We asked five Aus design studios to write to Craig: http://t.co/2i4Q614l
I’m not sure if you have been following the hullabaloo that’s been going on for some time now between Adobe and Apple, but it seems that this stand off isn’t over just yet. When Adobe began talking about the release of CS5, they were chuffed to announce that the suite would come with the capability to create Apps for iPhone in Flash. It was kind of exciting because it meant that fledgling developers who saw Flash as an easy way to develop apps for mobile could branch out beyond the ‘PC based’ phones and now create for the Apple platform. This feeling of solidarity between platforms was short lived however, as Apple soon came stomping out onto the parapet to advise that it had decided only native Apple software was good enough to use to create apps for the iPhone and iPad. Fair enough, some might say, it’s their product, however it was bad news for Adobe. This meant no Flash App development for iPhone. Then began the showdown of 2010, with Steve Jobs spouting anti-Flash sentiment and Adobe coming right back with accusations of competition and innovation stifling. To that end Adobe have just taken out some full page ads in USA newspapers stating: ‘We love Apple’ but essentially calling Apple out on its closed door policies. It look like it’s getting heated, and we all love a good fight.
To be honest though, while I can see both sides of the coin, I really don’t want Steve Jobs telling me what I can or can’t put on a product I have paid good money for. I’m sorry but it’s mine now, and it’s a tool to get things done. Yes I love my Mac, my iPhone and I do want an iPad, but I don’t want to feel trapped into doing things a certain way. I’m a bit claustrophobic when it comes to technology – I don’t sign up for phone plans and free modems won’t make me commit to an ISP for two years. Apple’s haphazard decisions on which apps it thinks are suitable for its customers, as well as its wholesale banning of some apps for some obtuse reason, is also a bit of a concern and only leads me to think that I might be missing out on something by committing to Apple.
The next few months or years will be very telling as far as the mobile and tablet industry is concerned, and whether or not consumers will actually have an affect on issues such as this will remain to be seen… watch this space.
I haven’t been following this, but I’ve been hearing about it regularly. This is one of the reasons I don’t use apple products, aside from my iPhone.
I was extremely happy when adobe announced flash based apps as I know a little actionscript, but then apple squashed that feeling.
Imagine if Microsoft announced that they would only allow authorized development for windows.
oh Snap! That’s an awesome ad!
“I really don’t want Steve Jobs telling me what I can or can’t put on a product I have paid good money for.”
Absolutely! Isn’t this in the same anti competition vane that haskMicrosoft in court for years? I thought that Apple was all about embracing creativity and innovation – hence the massive support for Apple products by Creatives over the last ten years or so but this constant bickering between the two companies has only polarised the design community.
To be quite frank I won’t be buying an ipad that doesn’t support Flash. I spend all of my days designing and developing with Adobe products so my allegiance is quite clear. And I’ve lived just over 30 years without an ipad, I’m sure I can wait a little longer for them to suck it up and support the flash player.
Next thing you know Flash won’t even be allowed to install on a MAC.
meh. It’s apple’s product, they can make whatever restrictions they like. If you don’t like it, don’t buy it. I find these open letters/ads from Apple and Adobe catty and juvenile. Get back to innovating already
I think Adobe needs to grow up.
Steve has said why he doesn’t like flash, and as a web designer I agree with.
Adobe should concentrate more on their suite and listening to designers, who would like lower upgrade prices.
Andre – the worst life of a designer was during the Browser wars – develop for this browser, that browser ……then along cam flash and BANG – all sorted. Now its just getting worse and worse and worse – customers are paying through the nose for snotty, trivial arguemnts – if we all used flash – there would be no issues. If we all used HTML5 we would have one tenth of the web we have today – and it wouldn’t work.
Lets get rid of HTML – in fact – I can see that this is what is going to happen – Adobe is going to make flash open source – and FCK you HTML5 kids right were the sun don’t shine – canvas will be some novelty that wen the way of Beta video.
I don’t really care if the ipad plays flash or not – to be honest, I’m getting a bit tired of all the mindless sheep flocking to Apple stores to graze on every new product they put out….yawn.
It is nice however to watch Adobe get a little bit of what they so often give.
I agree with the author about decisions that apple’s following. I too feel a little claustrophobic about how to create when I have already invested in previously accepted platform.
Also, Apple wants to monopolize the devices which is not good news for a free speech society. Granted that the devices are created and owned by Apple but we, as customers, pay a lot of money to get an apple product and so we should decide how to create apps for it.
I am a designer and I love Mac but lets just say that Adobe is irreplaceable, atleast for me.
I would just like to say that stop fighting like kids and grow up.