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Adobe essentially says Steve Jobs is a business-killing jerk (Update: “Go screw yourself Apple”)

By: , IntoMobile
Friday, April 9th, 2010 at 12:34 PM

There was another development in Steve Jobs’ war on Flash today, as Adobe told the government that banning this technology on devices like the iPhone and iPad could hurt its business.

“To the extent new releases of operating systems or other third-party products, platforms or devices, such as the Apple iPhone or iPad, make it more difficult for our products to perform, and our customers are persuaded to use alternative technologies, our business could be harmed,” Adobe said in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange commission.

Adobe has long said it wants to be on the iPhone but Jobs won’t allow it – the dude even took a jab at Adobe during the iPhone 4.0 unveiling by saying a rich media ad was made with HTML5. He says his main beef is sluggish performance but I have a sneaking suspicion that he doesn’t want the wealth of Flash content online to challenge the App Store. Apple’s not backing down either, as it recently changed its terms of service to not allow developers to use Flash compilers to create iPhone apps. Apple’s platform has so much momentum that many major publishers are living with the no-Flash environment in order to reach this highly-coveted demographic.

To be fair, Flash has sucked on phones for a while but the company has been working hard to get it up to snuff. Flash 10.1 should hit nearly every major smartphone platform except for the iPhone OS and it will likely include hardware acceleration for rock-solid performance. As you can see in the video below, Flash can work pretty well on the Nexus One.

Will Apple eventually cave to the pressure? I sincerely doubt it. Jobs just doesn’t seem to like the technology and there are no signs he wants to open up the iPhone OS to all comers.

Update: Adobe’s fighting mad about the change in Apple’s terms of service, according to a post on the Flash blog. The blog author thinks the move is a slap in the face to developers and that Apple is willing to abuse its loyal users and “make them pawns for the sake of trying to hurt another company.” The best part’s at the end:

“Now let me put aside my role as an official representative of Adobe for a moment as I would look to make it clear what is going through my mind at the moment,” wrote blog author Lee Brimelow. “Go screw yourself Apple”

[Via Business Week]

About The Author

Marin Perez

Marin Perez has torture tested cell phones and smartphones for industry leaders like CNET and InformationWeek. He remembers when 4G was just a screen on PowerPoint presentations and is fascinated with the amount of innovation out there. Marin has spent a lot of time with BlackBerry and Android but he finally broke down a bought an iPhone to see what all the hype's about. He also has too many tablets.

  • John Dowdell

    Howdy, Lee works at Adobe, but he isn’t “Adobe”, just as I’m not… we contribute to it, and we believe in making it easier for people with a message to reach their audiences, but the company speaks for itself, and we people who work there speak for ourselves.

    Lee decided he won’t be paying more money to Apple… me, I’m glad my last purchase from them was in 2006…. ;-)

    jd/adobe

  • Paul

    Why is it that expiring technologies always try to cry to the government instead of innovating?

    Adobe no doubt has done so much for web developers,movie producers, and the list magnifies beyond limits. Why is it they have to take the low road on this one?

    Flash is outdated, period.

    • Brian Adams.

      If it’s expired then where is the replacement I see none

  • Brian Adams.

    I have a wanly iPhone that does not show my email cos there’s no flash so I then go on my pc to view I have ordered my htc desire … Even my mum has one … Fuck apple fuck ipad how can you get good web or the best experience with blue Lego bricks apple sucks I don’t want another iPhone and my mums desire runs internet way faster .. Screw apple

  • Kevin

    Adobe didn’t invent Flash. They bought it along with other tools from Macromedia a few years back.

    It’s admirable that Adobe is putting so much effort into rewriting Flash mobile.

  • Trey

    Adobe isn’t complaining to the government. They have to report and threat to their bottom line as they are a publicly traded company. What this is basically saying is even though they are telling the public Flash will always be around, they are telling their investors that apple may seriously reduce their annual revenue and make them obsolete.

  • Rrubicon

    I’m done with ipad and iphone. Everything seems to be on flash. Too frustrating. Bye Apple.