After chief executive of Apple, Steve Jobs, last week released a letter reiterating the reasons behind why they chose not to incorporate Adobe’s flash software into their devices, Adobe has responded by confirming that they will no longer look to develop any software for the firm.
Whilst Mr Jobs cemented views that Apple had moved away from flash because it wasn’t fit for a smartphone market, Adobe said that legal changes implied on developers by Apple meant that they would no longer look to the Apple market. Explaining the move on his blog, chief technology officer at Adobe, Kevin Lynch, said “We feel confident that were Apple and Adobe to work together as we are with a number of other partners, we could provide a terrific experience with Flash on the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.” Instead he explained Adobe would develop flash for devices made by Nokia, Palm, RIM, Google and Microsoft. With Flash Player 10.1 arriving on Android from May Mr Lynch added “From that point on an ever increasing number and variety of powerful, Flash-enabled devices will be arriving which we hope will provide a great landscape of choice.”
The decision came after Mr Jobs posted his views in a letter called ‘Thoughts on Flash’ which said that Apple didn’t want to allow “sub-standard apps” on their devices. Expressing that Flash was a closed system, drained battery power from phones and wasn’t open to multi-touch interfaces he added that the software was “the number one reason Macs crash.”
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Given the detail in Steve Jobs’ letter, it’s a little disappointing that Kevin Lynch responded with ‘we’ll play with the other guys’ without answering a single criticism directly.
Apple 1; Adobe 0.