The ongoing drama between Adobe and Apple regarding Flash on iPhone seems to be drawing to a close, now that Product Manager Mike Chambers has announced that after Creative Suite 5, Adobe is “not currently planning any additional investments in that feature”. In other words, “Go screw yourself Apple.” Chambers doesn’t see the development of CS5 a waste at this point, despite Apple’s lockdown, mainly because it proves that there’s no technical reason why Flash shouldn’t be allowed to run on iPhone, and that compelling content can be created with Flash.
Ever since the first iPhone launched, Adobe has been nagging Apple to include Flash support, until Apple recently put its foot down and made it against the rules for developers to use anything other than Apple-approved environments to make apps, which was clearly a shot at tools Adobe was developing that would enable Flash apps to be compiled for use on the iPhone. Adobe has since decided to focus their efforts on Android, a situation Apple seems perfectly content with. BlackBerry and webOS are also ready to get some Flash lovin’ in the second half of the year, which makes iPhone the only one to put all of their eggs into the HTML5 basket.
Steve Jobs might not miss Flash, but end users very well might. Bigger companies don’t have the problem of dedicating manpower to rebuilding apps with Apple’s tools, but basement devs who started in (or focus primarily on) Flash will be pretty much screwed.
[Mike Chambers via CIO]