Apple and Adobe have been at something of a crossroads for some time now. The clashing of these titans has resulted in Apple refusing to let Adobe bring Flash plug-in support to its iPhone Safari browser. But, that may all change in the near future.
First let’s explore what Adobe’s working on.
The new Adobe Flash Player 10 beta 2 pre-release is now available for those of you that just like living on the stability-edge. But, the real significance of the Flash Player 10 pre-release is that it’s promised to bring a 3-fold performance increase to Mac OS X machines. Specifically, Adobe Player 10 runs the GUIMark benchmark 3 times faster than in its previous incarnation.
Now, how does that point toward Adobe bringing Flash support to the iPhone?
Well, Steve Jobs essentially barred Adobe from porting their “unacceptable” Flash Lite to the iPhone. And, the full desktop-version of Flash Player is just too bloated and slow to work with the iPhone’s pared-down processor. So, Adobe has resorted to crafting its own iPhone-optimized Flash player with enough punch to satisfy Steve Jobs and svelte enough to run decently well on the iPhone.
Unfortunately, the iPhone has been locked down to exclude the use of Safari plug-ins and preventing third-party apps from running executable code.
Is Adobe tweaking its Flash Player to give Apple’s Mac machines a performance boost in a bid to try and sway Jobs’s stanve on allowing iPhone Safari plug-ins? We sure hope so. Steve Jobs isn’t exactly known for his kind heart, but if he can find a way to cut Adobe some slack and allow a Flash plug-in for the iPhone, we’d be more than a little grateful. Perhaps there’s some light at the end of the iPhone 2.1 OS firmware-tunnel?
[Via: MacRumors]