The Back Button

Flash for iPhone was a gamble that Adobe lost

The tech blogosphere is abuzz at the moment over Apples move to limit the methods in which you're allowed to develop iPhone and iPad applications. The new version of the Developer Program License Agreement, released last week, expands on rules banning private APIs to extend to the banning of cross compiled code. The modification to section 3.3.1 of the License Agreement now results in the following:

3.3.1 — Applications may only use Documented APIs in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any private APIs. Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine, and only code written in C, C++, and Objective-C may compile and directly link against the Documented APIs (e.g., Applications that link to Documented APIs through an intermediary translation or compatibility layer or tool are prohibited)

This means that all future applications for the iPhone and iPad may only be authored using one of the allowed languages, primarily Objective-C, the native language of the Mac and iPhone platforms. The previous version of section 3.3.1 stated that you may only use Documented APIs; non private APIs.

Back in October of 2009, in Los Angeles at their annual conference, Adobe announced at a brand new flagship feature for Flash CS5 - the ability to export Flash authored applications for iPhone.

The Adobe community had been anticipating news about Flash and iPhone compatibility for well over a year, and Adobe finally delivered. It was certainly not the news most had been waiting for (the ability to view browser based Flash content) but it was just as fantastic; the empowerment to take Flash authored content and sell it as an App on the iTunes store for iPhone.

I was in attendance when this feature was announced on stage at the Nokia Theatre @ L.A. LIVE. The community were in rapture over the announcement by Adobe. The iPhone was a key theme for the whole conference, in-fact on the second day, it was used as a stage prop throughout the general session. Adobe were very proud to be able to show that they had already been able to publish Flash Apps to the iTunes store and it was just a matter of time before everyone else could.

What amazed me during the conference was the way they'd been able to dodge around the Flash in the browser issue by creating this distraction. If they were able to ship cross compiling Flash Apps, why couldn't they get the Flash Player for the iPhone's browser. I believe the answer is still quite simple - because Apple will not allow it.

So if Apple, to this day, still blocks Adobe from shipping Flash Player for the iPhone browser, what are the chances that Apple will allow for Flash authored apps in the App Store. This was one of my first questions to people back in October - nobody had a concrete answer. In order for Flash Apps for the iPhone to be a reality, you first need to have a long lasting agreement with Apple - apparently Adobe didn't.

You'd of thought that for Adobe to standup in front of it's entire user community and promise breakthrough feature X, that they would have done so without risk. It would be absurd to promise a feature on a gamble, right? But this is exactly what Adobe did, they knew exporting Flash Apps for iPhone was a gamble, they knew Apple could block the Apps at anytime, but they went with it anyway and lost.

I'd of thought that Adobe would be bearing some of the blame for this, but it seems that most of the community is going after Apple. This is fair to an extent; they don't exactly have the best history in this area. But I do slightly understand why Apple takes these steps; I'm not a fan of platform segmentation either. It seems that Apple wants to be able to control the flow of the developer in order to maintain a certain platform standard/normality.

I think the blame for this should be spread much more evenly between Adobe and Apple. They are both as arrogant as each other. But if I were to side with anyone, I'd put the majority of the blame on Adobe for rallying up its userbase with hype and anticipation about a feature that was filled with risk and uncertainty.

Posted Mon Apr 12 2010 17:01:50 | Comments | Post a Comment