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Apple’s greed to only help Adobe with Mobile Flash Player
| By Rich Tretola | October 10, 2009 | |
| 4,645 views |
With all of the buzz around last weeks announcement from Adobe about the new ability to deploy Adobe Flash based applications to the iPod Touch and iPhone, I wonder how many actually know the real story behind this announcement. The illusion is that Apple is actually working with Adobe to accomplish this, however the reality from my understanding is that this is far from the truth. Adobe had to create a way to allow for applications built on the Flash Player to act as native iPhone applications. This was only possible by actually embedding the Flash Player within the application and then submitting the whole thing for approval to Apple just as any other application that goes to Apple for approval.
In fact, it is my understanding that Apple only got wind of what Adobe was up to last week!
So, why when so many companies including RIM, Nokia, Google, Motorola, Palm, Docomo, Verizon, Nec, … have agreed that the Flash Player belongs on their devises running in the browser as well within application marketplaces, does Apple still hold out?
GREED! GREED! GREED!
They are so protective of their precious app store that they will not allow any fair competition. Currently, they have iPhone developers at a disadvantage. First, they force developers to pay a minimum of $99 to join their developers program, next they force any applications to go through an “approval” process, which really means that the applications are evaluated to see if they will hurt Apple’s revenue (see the recent rejection of Google’s Voice application), finally they force all applications to be installed via their app store which again handcuffs the developers. I have heard stories from a few developers who have spent months and months developing an application for iPhone, only to have it shot down at the 11th hour.
So, why do I say that this greed will only help Adobe? It is my belief that Adobe has had an easier time signing up partners like RIM (Blackberry), Palm (WebOS), Google (Android), Nokia (Symbian) etc to allow for the installation of the Flash Player simply because these companies know that Apple is not playing fairly.
So, although I am writing this post on a MacBook Pro, I am pretty disgusted with Apple at this point and also truly admire the Adobe engineers who made it possible to submit Flash based apps to Apple without their help.
It is my sincere hope that public demand or perhaps a courtroom decision will force Apple to relent and join the Open Screen Project. If not, I believe that eventually when every other smart devise has content available to them that Apple won’t allow, their market share will sink and a more open Operating System like Android will become the dominant player in the mobile space. So, perhaps the ultimate irony is that Apple’s greed will wind up hurting their revenue in the long run.
Please note that the opinions in this article are my own and I do not quote any sources at Adobe for any of this information. I look forward to your opinions.
Topics: Flash Player, mobile | 39 Comments »
October 10th, 2009 at 1:24 pm
I’ve been saying for awhile now that Flash Mobile will be a game-changer powerful enough to force the industry leaders to adapt.
Of course, at the time, I was saying it about RIM. But it still applies. Crackberry Addicts would forgive RIM for a Flash-less Blackberry just like the real Apple zealots will forgive Apple’s ultra locked down iPhone. But enough will migrate to where the new cool features are that tomorrow’s smartphone leaders will be those with Flash and AIR.
If Apple continues to rely on half measures and the “Apple Cool” factor, then overtaking RIM won’t be their problem. Overtaking Android and WebOS will.
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Rich Tretola Reply:
October 10th, 2009 at 2:11 pm
True, except that RIM is now on board and Blackberry will have the Flash Player!
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October 10th, 2009 at 1:27 pm
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Kevin Suttle and Joseph Labrecque. Joseph Labrecque said: Yep. RT @kevinSuttle: RT @richtretola: Blogged: Apple’s greed to only help Adobe with Mobile Flash Player http://bit.ly/2ArgjR [...]
October 10th, 2009 at 1:35 pm
“The illusion is that Apple is actually working with Adobe to accomplish this, however the reality from my understanding is that this is far from the truth.”
Not sure how anybody would come to that conclusion if you looked at the video spoof just before the Flash CS5 to export to native iPhone binaries announcement.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNtTfFDena4
Think Adobe has made it pretty obvious that Apple hasn’t been extremely forthcoming helping them get Flash Player on the iPhone and this is their way around that.
The interesting consequence here is that Adobe will soon have an iPhone development toolchain for Windows users. That could be a huge deal for non-Mac users trying to get into iPhone app development.
I also hope Apple will be required to be more open and transparent when it comes to its iPhone platform, doubt any courtroom decision could have them join the Open Screen Project though.
Worth noting when you looked at the sneaks was a way to render FXG (the new declarative graphics format for the Flash Platform) using HTML/Canvas. This could potentially be another way to get at least Flash graphics in the browser on devices that don’t support the Flash Player (yet).
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October 10th, 2009 at 2:38 pm
Coming from a software developer I can understand your opinion. But to me, the success of the iPhone is all about the user. Since the beginning, Apple has always focussed on user experience, combining software with their own hardware. The iPhone is no different. They simply have to protect their brand. As an iPhone developer you know what you are getting into. You know the rules and if you play by them, you’re good to go. And if you do your job right, nothing stands in your way to get your app in the App Store. It was only to be expected that some, and with the exceptional success of the iPhone maybe some more, developers had a bad experience. Talking about greed, don’t you think a lot of iPhone developers are in it because they are just plain greedy? It really doesn’t make sense to talk about greed here. Apple already allowed shitty designed and shitty programmed apps and to be honest, in my opinion, they should be refusing a lot more. Granted, the user doesn’t have to install those shitty apps. But the times I did, only made me wish Apple was even more strict. The amount of rubbish in the App Store is overwhelming.
I’m sick and tired of the discussions about allowing Flash on the iPhone. Just learn Objective-C and CocoaTouch just like you have learned Flash to build stuff. Why do we have to do everything with Flash? Honest to God, I love Flash. Always have. But I love Objective-C and Cocoa(Touch) too. And it doesn’t hurt you to learn something new.
Now, get in touch with Apple. Talk it over. Do some meetings, make some executive decisions, and be done with it. Either do it right or don’t do it all. Currently you all behave like spoiled kids who can’t get what they want.
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Rich Tretola Reply:
October 10th, 2009 at 3:30 pm
Peter, it is very simple. Objective-C and CocoaTouch don’t run in the web browser. So, I agree with you on the point of applications. This is why I want Flash on the phone. So, that the iPhone browser operates just like any other web browser with the Flash Player plugin.
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Peter Lorent Reply:
October 11th, 2009 at 7:34 am
Obviously the two business models don’t mix very well, yet. Hopefully the CEO’s we rely on can find a solution. But accusing Apple of being greedy…, like Adobe bought MacroMedia just for the fun of it. In the end, it’s all about greed so that’s just not a valid argument.
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Josh Tynjala Reply:
October 12th, 2009 at 7:04 pm
No, it doesn’t hurt to learn something new. I agree whole-heartedly with that sentiment. I spent a few weeks playing with Obj-C and I’m glad that I did. However, my conclusion was that it wasn’t right for me, and it makes me happy that I now have an option that I prefer with the ability to use AS3 and Flash tools to build native iPhone apps.
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October 10th, 2009 at 2:52 pm
Great post! In a world without greed I would say the that Apple choose to block the Flash Player because they knew it was the only way Adobe would spend the time and money to improve it.
Apple had valid points at the time. No one in their right mind would develop for Flash Player lite. And the Flash Player 10 could have been optimized more. In fact the numbers for Flash Player 10.1 show it running at half the memory, half the processor speed and from up to 7 times faster!
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October 10th, 2009 at 4:11 pm
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October 10th, 2009 at 4:41 pm
[...] Apple’s greed to only help Adobe with Mobile Flash Player | EverythingFlex: Flex & AIR [...]
October 11th, 2009 at 12:39 am
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October 11th, 2009 at 9:07 am
Hmm, greed? I dont think so personally.
The flash player falls into the same category as any other language/runtime when it comes to the jesus phone.
Apple are restricting app development to Cocoa and Objective-C because they have control of this environment. They can make sure apps look and work consistently. They dont want loads of apps crashing because they use too many resources or are looking and working in a completely different way.
The app store for the large part has worked in this respect.
From a user perspective the apps look and feel a certain way and are also very stable.
Apple would not have achieved this feat if the platform was more open.
Now I do not necessarily agree or like what Apple have done, but I dont think its entirely down to greed.
Now back to Adobe and this Flash2JesusPhone publishing…
Seriously, did Apple know about this iPhlash prior to MAX? Does anyone really think Apple are going to allow apps published this way? Has Apple made any public statement about this?
The answer to all of these is most likely a big NO.
If it does get the nod, does anyone really think the app store will benefit or will simply get polluted with 9/10 iPhlash apps that are poor performing, badly looking, difficult to use apps?
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Judah Reply:
October 11th, 2009 at 3:44 pm
Have you been to the app store lately? There’s 40k apps and 9/10 of those are poor performing, bad looking and difficult to use. Making a good app is the developers challenge not the tool (because it’s compiled to native code anyway).
From what I’ve read Apple knew about it about a week before Adobe announced it at Max.
Adobe’s in the early stages of getting a streamlined mobile version of the Flex framework for mobile devices like the jesus phone. And the good news for the jesus phone is they’ve put considerable effort into providing components out of the box that conform to the look and feel of the iphone. So spread the word. Your app can look the same, act the same and interact the same as other app store apps… if you wanted. If Adobe can make this work, responsive like we hope, then to me this the best news since sliced bread. Watch this and you’ll see what they are planning, http://tv.adobe.com/watch/max-2009-develop/preview-flex-for-mobile-devices/
PS good points. i really hope other phones will soon be able to provide an equally great user experience.
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Jethro Reply:
October 12th, 2009 at 3:04 am
> There’s 40k apps and 9/10 of those are poor performing, bad looking and difficult to use.
From my experience this is just not the case.
> From what I’ve read Apple knew about it about a week before Adobe announced it at Max.
I’d be interested to know where you heard that from. I can find no reference to Apple knowing about this prior to MAX.
> Adobe’s in the early stages of getting a streamlined mobile version of the Flex framework for mobile devices…
Of course they are. The Flex framework is badly performing on a desktop PC! Even when its been rewritten 3 times by MacroDobe. Lets hope they get the mobile version right first time.
> So spread the word. Your app can look the same, act the same and interact the same as other app store apps… if you wanted
I would be amazed if they replicated Apple’s UI components to the point they looked and felt identical.
At the end of the day, they will theme up a mobile flex framework, it will look nice, but it wont look or work like a native jesusphone app.
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Judah Reply:
October 12th, 2009 at 4:18 am
I don’t know. It was something about Apple knew the apps themselves were compiled using Flash a week in advance. The authoring tool, the compilation date and other information are all in the byte code of SWF’s, http://www.igorcosta.org/?p=220. I wouldn’t be surprised if they did the same thing with the meta-data of an IPA. You should watch that link I mentioned. It has a lot of good information about the future of mobile development.
October 11th, 2009 at 10:25 am
[...] More: Apple's greed to only help Adobe with Mobile Flash Player … [...]
October 11th, 2009 at 2:04 pm
Where can i find more information on the fact that Adobe embeds the Flash Player into an iPhone app. Cause that’s brand new information for me
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October 11th, 2009 at 9:51 pm
It’s not embedding the player or anything like that.
It’s not the Flash Player runtime at all.
It’s taking your actionscript code and creating an Objective-C application out of it.
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Rich Tretola Reply:
October 12th, 2009 at 5:44 am
That is not my understanding. Where did you read that it is being compiled to Objective-C?
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Owen van Dijk Reply:
October 12th, 2009 at 5:45 am
How about the FAQ
http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flashcs5/appsfor_iphone/#faq
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Guilhem Reply:
October 12th, 2009 at 10:25 am
Well my understanding from what I saw at MAX last week was that the AS3 of your flash app gets compiled into native ARM machine-executable code…
… and that code is linked by the Adobe toolchain with an execution library (not an interpreted bytecode runtime) that actually contains most of the code of the Flash player
Darren Reply:
October 12th, 2009 at 6:56 pm
@Rich, it’s pretty clear that there’s no runtime in the final binary that Flash CS5 outputs:
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/logged_in/abansod_iphone.html
“We created a new compiler front end… to output native ARM assembly code… When you build your application for the iPhone, there is no interpreted code and no runtime in your final binary. Your application is truly a native iPhone app.”
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October 11th, 2009 at 11:07 pm
Without the greed then there would be no iPhone for you to complain about. Apple is in the business of making money by selling products and services. Just stick to the new platforms that have announced support for Flash Player sell your apps to those users.
I suspect that what you want is to sell your apps on a cool platform like the iPhone. If so teach yourself Objective C or wait for Flash CS5. Don’t look to Apple to change their platform to fit your needs-they are making $$$ as it is. You need to change to fit their platform.
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Rich Tretola Reply:
October 12th, 2009 at 5:47 am
It is not about the app store. I don’t care about writing and selling apps in the app store. I simply want Apple to allow for the browser based Flash Player, just like every other vendor (Windows Mobile, Android, WebOS, Blackberry, Symbian, etc). Apple is the only major vendor who will not allow the browser based Flash Player, and the reason is 100% greed. They don’t want browser based Flash applications to compete with applications that are sold within their app store.
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Jethro Reply:
October 12th, 2009 at 5:59 am
I dont think it has anything to do with ‘greed’ why they dont allow flash in the browser, but everything to do with performance. There are several flash based sites that can bring many a desktop browser to a grinding halt and Apple just dont want Safari crashing on the phone.
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Rich Tretola Reply:
October 12th, 2009 at 10:59 am
So, Windows Mobile, Blackberry, Android, WebOS, and Symbian are all better performing operating systems than iPhone? I don’t think that argument holds up.
Jethro Reply:
October 12th, 2009 at 11:02 am
Rich I’m not saying other phones are better or worse performing. Simply Apple have taken a stance in terms of performance. Apps must perform well. Full stop.
Rich Tretola Reply:
October 12th, 2009 at 11:49 am
I think the whole performance thing (which may have been valid in the past) is a crutch that they will have to give up as soon as 10.1 is rolled out to all of their competitors.
Judah Reply:
October 12th, 2009 at 12:09 pm
i think it’s past prejudices more than greed but yes i think greed is a factor, but it may be multiple things add up:
1. performance (before 10.1)
2. profits (if u can get a clock online why buy the app – for the record i would buy the app even if one was free online. people don’t have time for that. it’s simple lazyness economics. they have to find a wifi, load a browser, load a webpage and finally load the embedded app)
3. past predjudices (flash for banner ads)
4. battery life (flash 10 full wasn’t battery conscience – flash 10.1 is)
5. control (they can help developers make a themed UI with their components and xcode dev tools.)
i don’t think they mind flash authored apps (as long as they are as fast as regular iphone apps). it would be a good test to see who’s compiled app ran the fastest. xcode or flash cs.
Jethro Reply:
October 12th, 2009 at 12:41 pm
@Rich I dont know how you think performance is magically solved with 10.1 seeing as its not even out yet. Same goes for Slider.
Sure performance may well get sorted by 10.1 and Slider, but then then maybe one day it will be sorted on the desktop too!
Rich Tretola Reply:
October 12th, 2009 at 12:59 pm
@Jethro
I agree that until 10.1 comes out, it will remains to be seen for performance. But, the fact is that Adobe has already convinced all of the manufacturers and operating system vendors that 10.1 will perform as they have all already given their blessing. I am sure that Adobe demonstrated the 10.1 player to Apple, just as they did with everyone else. Hell, if RIM is on board, that is saying a lot.
October 12th, 2009 at 8:54 am
Somebody here has some serious math problems… You say Apple is screwing developers $99 a year to have access to the iPhone ecosystem while providing a full set of developer tool in Xcode for FREE, while the white knight of Adobe charges $699 for Flash CS 5 Pro, plus $199 to upgrade to the next version (on a yearly or bi-yearly schedule). And if I also want to use Flash Builder Pro to be able to use the Flex interface components easily, that will be an extra $699 if I want to have access to Adobe’s full Flash development suite.
So just for the price of just Flash CS x Pro alone I’ll be able to write Cocoa apps for the iPhone for the next 7 years.
Hopefully Adobe has managed to make the mobile version of Flash finally not suffer from horrible performance issues that plague the current cutting edge mobile version. Engadget’s review of the recent Flash equipped HTC Hero said that “When browsing to a site heavy on Flash (there are many), the browser loading times were abysmal. Furthermore, trying to view videos in-window produced choppy, nearly unwatchable results.”
I’ll be happy to have Flash on my iPhone once it actually performs as well as the rest of the platform, but I am not going to say that it is finally ready until it is actually out in the real world.
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Rich Tretola Reply:
October 12th, 2009 at 9:13 am
You do not need Flash CS5 to build browser based Flash web applications which is what I am talking about. You can use Flex and the Free Flex SDK to build and compile browser based applications.
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Patrick Reply:
October 12th, 2009 at 12:18 pm
Rich,
Unfortunately at this time Flex is way too much of a resource hog to be effectively used for mobile applications embedded in a web browser, and as far as I know, no current mobile phones even supports Flex at this time.
Adobe clearly realizes that Flex has too much overhead, since there is the Slider project to create a light-weight, mobile friendly Flex framework. As to how it will be licensed, that is currently up in the air according to the published FAQ. Adobe Flash Lite, meanwhile, appears to require the $699 Adobe Flash Pro CS4 for development, and I don’t see any indications that it is an open source system in any of the documents I’ve seen.
Steve Jobs famously said in 2008 that the current Flash Player was too slow for the iPhone, and he dismissed Flash Lite as an inferior solution. Jobs said “There’s this missing product in the middle. It just doesn’t exist.” I don’t see how anyone can disagree with Job’s publicly declared position, and clearly Adobe is well aware that Flash Player needs a lot of improvements. Flash Player 10.1 is a big step in the right direction on Adobe’s part and appears to be their attempt to create that missing product.
The ball isn’t quite back in Apple’s court yet since at this point the new player hasn’t been released – even in beta. I remember Kevin Lynch showing an Android phone running Flash Player 10 at Adobe Max last year during the keynote, and it still hasn’t been released to the public a year later… If Flash Player 10.1 really lives up to Adobe’s claims then Apple will have to justify why they don’t add it to the iPhone AFTER it has been released and proven itself. But at this point, I think Apple’s correctly taking a wait and see attitude before making any announcements pro or con.
As a Flex developer, I look forwards to being able to write mobile Flex apps. But I don’t want Adobe to release a player that makes my apps run as slow as molasses.
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October 12th, 2009 at 11:12 am
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October 13th, 2009 at 4:40 am
Apple’s iPhone success will be its own downfall, not totally, think IBM here folks. If companies cant adapt and change the industry just sidesteps you and moves along. I see Android as the industry leader within 2 years time, just because it has the big manufacturers backing it and it means cheaper smartphones will be flooding the market soon. Sure the iPhone does well in countries among the fortunate that can afford it, but Android can thrive in developing countries where iPhones are only for the rich. This together with the fact that they refuse to leave thier current way of thinking and not playing nice with the rest of the industry leaders is only going to hurt themselves. So unless Apple can change its way of thinking, they will suffer. Me , I cant give a hoot what Apple decides, Im hooked on Android already! Multitasking FTW!
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December 26th, 2009 at 8:48 pm
Buen aporte sobre esta tecnología gracias.
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January 27th, 2010 at 4:50 pm
[...] named “best_experience_20100127.png. It all goes back to the points I made in my post titled Apple’s greed to only help Adobe with Mobile Flash Player from back in [...]