The war between Adobe and Apple just got hotter. With the announcement of iPhone OS 4.0 Apple has revised the Developer Program License Agreement to ban the use of cross compiler tools like Unity3d, Appcelerator’s Titanium, Adobe’s Flash CS5 etc. for developing iPhone and iPad applications. As per the new agreement developers can use only C, C++, Objective-C, and JavaScript to develop iPad/iPhone apps. Some companies like PhoneGap, Appcelerator and Unity3d having cross compiler products [that can publish the same code for iPhone/iPad or other mobile devices] have clarified or assured that the apps developed using their tools would still be accepted by Apple but there is no official response from Adobe on this. Industry experts believe that Apple has done this solely to block the new feature of Adobe Flash that will allow the Flash developers to publish Flash files to iPhone app without any knowledge of iPhone SDK or Objective-C. (which we think is a smart feature)
We posted earlier that Adobe is working with all the major mobile phone vendors [except Apple] under the Open Screen Project to bring the Flash Player to their devices and make it a de facto standard for mobile delivery. This will ease development and provide a consistent experience across multiple devices. However, to counter Apple’s refusal to support the Flash player on the iPhone and iPad by calling it a memory hog, Adobe introduced a new iPhone publish feature in Flash CS5. The new update in the Apple’s Developer Program License Agreement has once again broken Adobe’s hopes of running Flash based apps on the iPhone and iPad.
With the release of Flash CS5 developing iPhone/iPad apps would have become easier, cheaper and less time consuming as Flash developers could have used their existing Flash/ActionScript skills for development and publish it using Flash CS5 iPhone compiler. The same Flash file published as SWF or AIR app would work with other mobile devices supporting Flash Player 10.1 or AIR 2.0. But now Flash developers (if they wish to develop iPhone and iPad apps) have to learn to use the iPhone SDK and Objective-C which has a steep learning curve. Also this means that each application has to be developed separately – one for iPhone/iPad and another for mobile devices that support Flash player 10.1 or AIR 2.0, which simple means double the work and the associated increase in development cost and time.
Apple is advocating (or actually ‘betting the future‘) on HTML5 [which is still under development and none of the mobile web browsers supports it fully] as an alternative to Flash for developing the cross platform mobile apps. The current implementation of HTML5 in the mobile web browsers will need a lot of optimization to deliver an experience comparable to that of Flash Player 10.1. Here’s a video demonstrating the performance comparisons of HTML5 and Flash Player 10.1 on several mobile devices –
Adobe is understandably frustrated enough to tell Apple to go screw itself. There are some who have tried to explain that Apple changed section 331 because Apple wants to ensure iPhone/iPad users get a better quality experience and performance. In my opinion, if that was the only purpose, Apple could have increased the license fees for developers (to allow only serious ones into the fold) and included some stronger testing at its end to ensure great user experience, after all the App Store is a great cash cow. I’m still not convinced that this isn’t an attempt from Apple to kill Adobe’s Flash.
April 15th, 2010 at 6:18 am
I posted one of these links on an earlier entry from your blog regarding the iPad and some initial disappointment in the e-learning world. But I wanted to post it again along with a couple of others because I think they deserve a read.
http://iansamuel.com/essays/progress-of-the-platform/
and
http://www.devwhy.com/blog/2010/4/12/its-all-about-the-framework.html
and also
http://www.macworld.com/article/150539/2010/04/apple_world.html?lsrc=twt_jsnell
Each of these (with the possible exception of Snell’s piece since it doesn’t focus exclusively on the Flash issue) approaches the issue with a fair bit of criticism for both parties.
But what’s really touched me personally about all of this (other than being an iPad owner) is that, as an e-learning developer, I’ve gone soft. I rely too heavily on the tools developed for me to rapidly produce Flash-based learning or on the snippets of actionscript code and templated components from other developers that have allowed me to crank out elearning quickly and cheaply without thinking much about the future. I really need a kick in the pants to get me thinking about what’s next and about what more I can learn.
April 15th, 2010 at 12:43 pm
First off: the iPhone and iPad are great devices, and Apple has done an outstanding job both with development and marketing. Their extreme focus on controlling all apps and content allowed on the devices allows them to work without any technical issues, which is appreciated by the users.
But:
The rest of the world goes towards “open” standards where you can develop and publish web- and mobile applications using a wide variety of tools for multiple platforms… Apple goes the other way and imposes a Big Brother mentality where absolutely everything has to be censored and approved by Apple. I have a sneaking suspicion that this is done to protect their (extremely lucrative!) appstore, as letting Flash onto their devices would remove the total control they have over any apps for the iPhone/iPad and would (GASP!) allow users to use free apps or apps sold without giving Apple their share of the profit (yes, I know there are free apps on Appstore too..).
Allowing Flash to run in web-browsers on the i-devices would be even worse for Apple, as this would completely remove the current control they have over apps, this will probably never happen.
I think this is a blow to mobile learning, as creating content for iPhone and iPad will be a lot harder and will require re-training a lot of developers at huge cost.
For mobile learning in the short term, my bets are on the large number of devices, including upcoming “iPad-like” devices from a number of competitors, based on Android etc. which supports Flash. HTML5, once full support is implemented in browsers and development tools, will be a great alternative, and hopefully, Adobe will be able to expand the new functionality in CS5 allowing you to convert Flash to HTML5… but I guess Apple will find a reason to block this too
.
April 15th, 2010 at 3:04 pm
@ BJ – thank you for sharing the interesting posts. Flash is indeed the most popular tool for custom eLearning development and with the new capabilities of Flash Player with AS 3.0 it has become even better. The Mac version of Flash Player has issues which Adobe just ignored for sometime though some of the issues were due to the Apple not exposing the important APIs which could make it work better on Mac. As an eLearning developer I feel it’s a great opportunity to get into learning the new languages like Objective-C and HTML5 which has now become mandatory because of Apple’s policy. But at the same time it’s a huge investment for eLearning vendors to train their workforce on these new languages so that they can develop the iPhone/iPad apps and that too without being sure of iPad or iPhone would be big in workplace learning domain at all. Overall I would imagine a company would like to invest less (or no) money on wheels already invented.
@Sevn – yes I agree that iPhone and iPad are great devices but it doesn’t mean that the company developing these devices should control their whole eco system rather they should be more open and allow the user to decide what is good or bad for them. Again that is debatable. I believe blocking Flash on iPhone/iPad is more of a business rivalry ‘inspired’ decision rather than the concern for enhancing user experience. As you have rightly mentioned Apple would lose their share of profit if they allow Flash on these devices. Android market share is growing continuously and I will not be surprised to see the Android devices surpassing the sale of iPhone/iPad in the coming years.
April 19th, 2010 at 6:03 pm
[...] that Apple has over iPhone/iTouch/iPad developers. Now Yogesh Agarwal of the Upside Learning Blog tells readers of a nasty little war between Apple and Adobe over the use of Flash. Apple won’t support Flash on the iPhone and [...]
April 19th, 2010 at 11:56 pm
Sounds like the old PC/Mac war. In the end, PC got the biggest market share not because PC are better, everyone knows than Mac are more stable because Apple controls what goes in it, but because the fact that there was many providers which made them more accessible.
If Apple wants to keep controlling everything, they will still end up loosing the battle. Apple will only keep those hard core Apple users, the rest will move to other OS since in the end, the user wants to be able to port his content from his computer, to his smartphone and if the IPhone cannot do that than someone else will.
You can’t expect different results when you keep doing the same thing.
April 20th, 2010 at 1:52 am
Easy to resolve. Just don’t use the expensive Apple products for mobile learning. I know my company won’t go that way for a long time!
April 29th, 2010 at 7:56 pm
I like the two comments above mine. Guy and “nobody”. As much as I like my iPod Touch, Adobe is doing the right thing here. I sincerely hope that Google and other devices kill Apple’s iProducts when Flash 10.1 is finally released. Hopefully Apple’s middle finger to Adobe will be replied with a faster release of 10.1 to multiple mobile devices.
April 29th, 2010 at 7:58 pm
Oh, by the way, who’s to say that somebody won’t write an HTML5 app store and circumvent the need to use the apple store too. Will Apple block that too?
May 31st, 2010 at 12:18 pm
Whats more interesting is that adobe has got a strong hold in HTML5 dev tools withs its Dreamweaver CS5.
I would imagine taht adobe would very soon get the Flash->HTML5 compatibily. Then Apple ’s decsion would really fall Flat!