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Adobe Has 'Moved On' in Dispute With Apple Over Flash on iOS Devices

Telegraph.co.uk publishes an interview with Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen in which he discusses his company's long-running dispute with Apple over the device maker's decision not to include support for Flash in its iOS devices such as the iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch. In the interview, Narayan appears to note that Adobe has given up on its efforts to convince Apple to adopt Flash.

They've chosen to keep their system closed and we'd rather work with partners who are interested in working with us.

We believe in open systems. We believe in the power of the internet and in customers making choices and I think a lot of the controversy was about their decision at that point. They've made their choice. We've made ours and we've moved on.

It's a business decision. With the energy and innovation that our company has, we'd rather focus on people who want to deliver the best experience with Flash and there are so many of them.

The dispute between the two companies came to a head in late April when Apple CEO Steve Jobs posted an open letter describing his "Thoughts on Flash" and outlining the controversy from his point of view. Narayan quickly responded in his company's defense, attempting to contrast Apple's "closed" ecosystem with the multi-platform, "open" stance taken by Adobe.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission and the European Commission are currently pursuing an investigation of Apple over its business practices with respect to Flash technology.

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20 months ago
Does this mean they are going to slow down or stop altogether the development of the flash plugin for OS X? I know the article suggest for iOS but you never know.
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20 months ago
I just saw a pig fly by.
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20 months ago
Just put out an app on Cydia. It's officially a legal portal.

That'll stick it to Apple.
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20 months ago
Flash is a closed source product. Adobe needs to acknowledge that they bought a dying product and cut losses. While flash has its uses still - html 5...
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20 months ago
Sadly, I think Adobe is envisioning a future where Android rules and iOS is forgotten. Therefore, they don't see any point in fighting for iOS flash.

Just another sign that iOS vs Android are the new Windows vs Macintosh.

Windows sucks, but it was licensed onto many computers and widely adopted. Macintosh was better, but it was stuck to its own hardware.

So disappointing.
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20 months ago
Apple will rue the day, something tells me.
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20 months ago
Adobe "moved on" from Apple a long time ago.
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20 months ago
Hah! Try telling the ARM community that you're 'open' Adobe! I won't believe it until we get 10.1 version of flash for ARM computers for free!

Seriously Adobe, your products are some of the most closed out there.
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20 months ago
If Flash can be done so it performs fast, doesn’t drain the battery, handles click-vs.-mouseover intuitively, and doesn’t throw monkey wrench into Apple’s own future OS updates, then I’ll support Adobe in this. (But I’ll never pretend they’re “open”—in fact, Apple’s Flash-less Webkit browser IS very open.)

Since none of those are the case, however, it’s one “freedom” I don’t want :)

I DO want Adobe to make truly outstanding HTML 5 tools. I can see that happening eventually—but it will take a while. (Although I’m a Flash developer, I wouldn’t even consider Flash to be a truly outstanding Flash tool :p )


Does this mean they are going to slow down or stop altogether the development of the flash plugin for OS X? I know the article suggest for iOS but you never know.



No. Developers/advertisers would stop using Flash, because they’re not willing to give up the Mac segment of the user base. Adobe’s not that stupid. And they’ve been actually improving Mac Flash lately. (VERY late.)
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20 months ago
Here we go again, now Apple is going to say that they are open and would if Adobe would adopt and open platform...:rolleyes:
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