Adobe to sue Apple over Flash ban on iPhone OS (Rumor)

The conflict between Apple and Adobe is heating up the point where the duo’s feud over Adobe’s Flash technology is starting to become entertaining. On the one side, we have Apple, who refuses to let any of Adobe’s Flash technology come near their iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad ecosystem. In the other corner, we have Adobe crying foul over Apple’s decision to not only prevent Flash on the iPhone OS, but also to ban iPhone apps that were created by converting Flash applications. That last part seems to have been too much an assault on Flash than Adobe could stand to take. According to sources close to the matter, Adobe is preparing their own assault with a lawsuit against the iPhone maker.

We’ve been watching these two companies butt heads over the inclusion of Flash on the iPhone OS for years. To this day, Apple chief Steve Jobs refuses to let any iPhone OS-powered device work with Adobe’s interactive multimedia technology. That has cost Adobe access to over 50 million iPhone users, 35 million iPod Touch users, and the growing segment of iPad users. That’s been something that Adobe’s been mostly quiet about.

So, what changed? Apple recently updated their iPhone SDK developer agreement to rule out the use of cross-compilers like Adobe’s Flash Packager for iPhone – which basically convert Flash apps into native iPhone apps. The updated language in the iPhone OS 4.0 SDK essentially bans any iPhone apps that started their lives as Flash apps. That apparently isn’t sitting to well with Adobe.

Despite Apple’s affronts to Adobe’s business, the company hasn’t shown too much official outrage. The mood within Adobe, though, seems to be a bit more contentious. There was that Adobe platform evangelist’s “screw yourself, Apple” statement that rolled through the blogosphere recently. Now, reports have Adobe’s legal team going after Apple where it might actually make a difference – in a US court.

It should be interesting to see what happens in the next couple weeks. It’s unlikely that Apple will change their mind about letting converted Flash apps into the iPhone AppStore. It’s also unlikely that Apple will back down from a legal battle. Apple has tons of cash and enough legal firepower to take on just about any company in the world.

Get your popcorn ready!

[Via: ITWorld]

About The Author

Will Park

Will hails from The City of Angels - Los Angeles, California. He spends his time playing with his numerous gadgets and looking forward to seeing what future holds for mobile technology. An avid promoter of a fully "digital" life, he promotes the widespread adoption of truly mobile, paper-less living. He dreams of the day when he can go completely digital. No more snail mail, paper receipts, bound books, notepads/spiral notebooks, credit cards, hard currency. He's a digital warrior - fighting for the converged life. He is an idealist and a realist - he has a perfect view of what the world should be but knows that the world is not perfect. Can we ever hope to see Will's dream become reality? We'll see...

Kevin

“Apple has tons of cash and enough legal firepower ”

Cash and lawyers didn’t help Apple with their GUI claims, or loss to the Visual Voice Mail patent or many other legal suits. They’ll also likely lose the Elan multitouch and other current lawsuits.

The bigger question is, why is Apple trying to take on everyone at the same time? HTC, Google… it’s like they’re burning all their bridges. Is this the fallout of Jobs’ near death?
MD

How does Adobe think they have a legal leg to stand on? Why should Apple, Nintendo, Sony or anyone be required to support Flash or apps compiled in Flash? Anyone who uses a Mac can tell you what a nightmare Flash is on that platform and how it drains battery on laptops. (Don’t believe me, download “Click to Flash” and see how much better web performance and battery you get with Flash disabled.) Maybe Apple is being arrogant, but I don’t see why they must support 3rd party plug-ins that are demonstrably troublesome?
Skip

Kevin, that’s an interesting thought. More likely it’s now that Apple is essential the Apex Predator in the categories it chooses to be, organizationally it doesn’t see the need to keep alliances intact and has more to gain in the short term by vexing it’s frenemies (Google, Adobe) with lawsuits etc.

I also seriously doubt that Adobe’s Lawsuit will go anywhere in the courts in the USA where there are plenty of options for phones, even smart phones. The competitive marketplace for all software and all phone Apps and OSes is not even dominated by Apple.

Apple does sell more apps through the app store than all the others combined, but don’t see that as sharing the monopolistic market dominance and behavior exhibited by Microsoft in the 80′s and 90′s; at least not yet.

I suspect Adobe’s claims will get thrown out of court.
HereAndNow

I just installed the FlashBlock plugin for Google Chrome & it is amazing! Pages load faster, there is less CPU usage, etc. When you want to see the flash content, you just click on it.

Having FlashBlock enabled by default in ALL browsers (smartphone, notebook, tablet, desktop, etc.) might be a reasonable compromise…even with Apple products. The advantages would be:

1. Pages load faster.
2. You don’t waste unnecessary CPU cycles, battery, etc., on the flash content, unless you want to.
3. Advertisers that ALWAYS want their ads visible would gradually migrate to another technology (canvas, SVG, …).
Kevin

This has nothing to do with a Flash browser player.

It’s about preventing developers from using a single tool to create an app that runs on all mobile devices.

But why?

It’s not about quality, since there are plenty of goofy apps already. There are also dozens, if not hundreds, of cross-compiled apps in the store already. Besides, using libraries from others tends to help prevent problems.

Is it fear that such tools will make all app stores and phones equal? Perhaps, since Jobs also did not permit Java onboard.