
Apple Slaps Developers In The Face  - revolvingcur
http://theflashblog.com/?p=1888
======
mdasen
So, there are a couple things here that jump to my mind.

1\. Adobe isn't completely innocent. They're pretty close to a monopoly on
their type of software and charge dearly for it (their Creative Suite costs as
much as a MacBook Pro). They've done a lot to make sure there are no non-Adobe
Flash players even when that's just hurting customers and not costing them
money since they don't sell the player. They're not exactly "open" and "free".

2\. Apple could be said to have an interest in not supporting intermediaries.
Intermediaries are likely to create less efficient code and I'm sure they
don't want to deal with developers using up their support time over things
that are the fault of Adobe's Flash SDK or Novell's C# one.

3\. It's also in Apple's interest to get people using Objective-C and their
toolkit. It brings developers to the Mac by forcing them to buy one. That will
have positive externalities in more software for the Mac. It gets developers
into the Obj-C camp which means more people with Mac development skills. It
means that apps can't be re-compiled for iPhone, Android, and webOS - and
that's huge for customer lock-in. We all know how users get attached to their
apps and I think it's easy to imagine Adobe building an Android compiler right
after the iPhone one got finished.

Do I like Apple's stance? No. As a user and a developer, it's bad for me.
However, Apple's the market leader and getting people to use their API gives
them control and means that app developers will always be ready to use the
latest new features they add while building a wall of incompatibility against
Android and webOS that will keep users buying iPhones for apps in the way that
users bought Windows computers for their apps for ages.

Jobs wanted web apps. Developers balked. Web apps would have been cross-
platform (at least with Android and webOS). Apple responded to developers and
now they've seen their chance to lock users and developers to their system.

Adobe isn't known for being open. Given the chance, Adobe seems to wall itself
off as much as Apple. Companies tend to go for openness insofar as it's in
their interests.

~~~
Qz
The Flex SDK is free, you can develop and compile Flash apps and web apps
without buying any of their software. And they don't require a $99 fee just to
have the opportunity to sell your work, or take 30% of the cut.

~~~
petsos
And they also don't provide hosting, credit card transactions and millions of
users that can buy your app with one click.

I too don't like what Apple did, but you are comparing different things.

~~~
Qz
They don't provide that, but it's not like there aren't plenty of companies
that will provide all of those things. The main factor here is that with Flex
or (almost) any other platform, you have the _choice_ of how you want to go
about selling and distributing your work.

------
houseabsolute
I continue to be impressed with the license Adobe gives their official
representative. This is not the first unprofessional reaction I've seen on
this blog. Yes, it is understandable. Is it wise? Maybe a better worded
response could inflame the minds of the abused more effectively and not sound
like a temper tantrum.

~~~
Qz
theflashblog.com is not an official Adobe blog.

Let me clarify -- theflashblog.com is not produced by Adobe, the company. It
is written by an official representative of Adobe, but it is not the official
response of Adobe the company, and the site is not an official Adobe site.

~~~
houseabsolute
> Now let me put aside my role as an official representative of Adobe for a
> moment . . .

~~~
Qz
I clarified my comment -- there is a distinction between an official adobe
blog, and a blog by an official representative of Adobe.

~~~
houseabsolute
Be that as it may, I said nothing about the blog being Adobes official blog,
only that I was surprised by license and freedom they give to their rep.

~~~
Qz
That's true, however since the original HN thread title was "Adobe Reacts...",
which combined with your comment gacw the impression that the post was an
Adobe response by an Adobe representative. Of course now the title has been
changed (at my suggestion...) which makes this all look a bit silly :).

------
csytan

      The trouble is that we will never hear their discontent
      because Apple employees are forbidden from blogging, 
      posting to social networks, or other things that we at 
      companies with an open culture take for granted.
    

...

    
    
      Comments are closed.
    

A little hypocritical don't you think?

~~~
jeiting
I wish we could all be as open as Adobe.

Please do not reply to this. Especially if you do not agree.

------
mambodog
Honestly, I still think people writing native code and using the native APIs
for a platform like the iPhone is something worth enforcing. On the desktop
multiplatform development toolkits consistently fail to deliver a user
experience that is seamless and on par with apps built with the native APIs
(especially on a platform with different interface conventions and guidelines,
ie Mac OS) and for a platform such as the iPhone where resources are not
infinite, and the interface is especially important, it just makes sense to
enforce people doing things 'properly'. If that knocks out a few decent
applications along with all the lazy, rubbish ports then I think that's
acceptable. If they're really that amazing, then they probably justify being
rewritten natively.

One place where I do have issue with this policy is in the case of game
engines/middleware (ie. Unity). Due to the complexity and development
requirements of game middleware I think an exception, or a more refined
policy, is required to allow middleware to give the required 'leg-up' to game
developers. Additionally, while Apple has provided an awful lot of what
developers need to create great View-based applications for the iPhone with
Cocoa Touch (within the constraints what third-party apps are allowed to do,
at least), they haven't done so for games. This is understandable, again due
to the aforementioned complexity of game engines, but it makes games a special
case.

~~~
mambodog
Why reply to someone with a reasoned argument when you can just downvote...
nice.

------
nopal
_Any real developer would not in good conscience be able to support this._

I hate such broad-sweeping statements.

 _What is clear is that Apple most definitely would [abuse their loyal users
and make them pawns for the sake of trying to hurt another company]._

Apple has always been about the experience of using their products, and I
think a lot of what they're doing with their mobile devices still stems from
that focus. Maybe they're being too heavy handed, but, then again, they're not
allowing grandma's phone to be overrun with software that affects the
perception of the device itself.

 _Comments disabled as I’m not interested in hearing from the Cupertino
Comment SPAM bots._

I also find this highly patronizing.

~~~
rbanffy
> _Any real developer would not in good conscience be able to support this._

> I hate such broad-sweeping statements.

I know no "real developer" who really likes Flash either, so, I find all this
"oh no we want Flash" thing rather amusing.

~~~
rbanffy
What?! Do you really _like_ ActionScript?

~~~
iron_ball
It's Javascript with optional classes, optional static typing, and a sane API.
What's wrong with that?

~~~
rbanffy
The IDE around it ;-)

------
bilbo0s
"...Personally I will not be giving Apple another cent of my money until there
is a leadership change over there."

Uhhh

What?

The Apple Board?

Fire Steve Jobs?

Yeah, good luck with that buddy.

~~~
smackfu
Yeah, the Apple board would never push out Steve Jobs. Well, not again.

~~~
bilbo0s
Exactly, they won't make the same mistake twice.

History is foremost in everyone's mind right now.

~~~
philwelch
Ironically, if Jobs wasn't pushed out in 1985, Apple would have gone bankrupt
even faster. Jobs' perfectionism is an asset now that he's let it be ever-so-
slightly compromised by market necessities, but the Mac wouldn't have been a
viable platform into the 1990's if, as Steve continued to insist, they not
include a hard drive or any fans. His same perfectionism over the NeXT cube
(and over such details as which shade of gray to paint the factory) nearly ran
NeXT into the ground.

I think Jobs learned from those failures, but the history is a lot more
complicated than "Jobs gets pushed out from Apple, Apple starts floundering,
Jobs comes back and Apple succeeds."

~~~
rbanffy
> Jobs' perfectionism is an asset now

You know that "too much of a good thing" thing, right?

~~~
philwelch
I would say that's the central message of my post.

~~~
rbanffy
And that's a shame. Jobs is brilliant, but he needs adult supervision.

------
sosuke
We've been down this road before with the HTML5 vs Flash iPad post that Lee
Brimelow made. The title is wrong, this is not Adobe's official response this
is from an Adobe evangelist.

~~~
tvon
It's clearly not their official PR response, but the author obviously speaks
as a representative of Adobe.

~~~
tvon
Note that at this point there are disclaimers above and below the piece that
were not initially there.

------
sunchild
Many posters are missing the point here. Apple is heading Adobe off at the
pass, so that Flash is not a viable development platform. The fact that the
agreement term can be interpreted to prevent umpteen different other cross-
platform development environments is only relevant to the extent Apple's
agenda includes enforcing the terms against the makers of those environments.

Now, assuming Apple is using this language to defeat the expectation that
Flash is viable on the iPhone OS, who really loses? I would argue that
elimination of Flash is win for everyone but Adobe, but that's my opinion.
Even if you like Flash a lot, you can't fault Apple for not accommodating
Adobe given the belligerent history between them.

I guess I just have a hard time mustering sympathy for Flash developers after
years of frustrating, shoddy, inconsistent web experiences with Flash. There
are a few exceptions (artists like <http://yugop.com/> come to mind, as well
as the acceleration of online video) but, overall, Flash has been a nightmare
for opinionated web users like myself. Good riddance.

------
Qz
Someone should edit the title for this post -- theflashblog.com is not an
offical Adobe blog, and the post is simply the reaction of one Adobe employee.
This is not the 'official Adobe response'.

------
stcredzero
Possible business opportunity: Objective-C to Java/Android cross-compiler?

~~~
cubicle67
There's a few things you can do in Obj-C that would be pretty hard to do in
Java, but...

It's not the language, it's the framework. UIKit and friends really are very
good; they're the secret sauce of the iPhone OS and I'm not sure Android has
anything comparable.

~~~
stcredzero
That's actually good news. If iPhone SDK is a superset of Android capabilities
and all of the glue/compatibility framework has to be on the Android side,
then this further insulates users of the translation kit from punitive actions
from Apple.

(The framework itself needs to be implemented carefully to avoid Apple's ire.
Apple itself may want to implement it, as it would put their Obj-C toolset in
the position as the original, and other platforms get the copy.)

------
jluxenberg
_[Sentence regarding Apple's intentions redacted at request from Adobe]_

did anyone read this before the post was edited?

~~~
ilike
"What is clear is that Apple has timed this purposely to hurt sales of CS5"

As many other commenters pointed out here, theflashblog.com is not an official
Adobe blog.This is definitely not "Adobe's reaction" as the title suggests.

~~~
cubicle67
I get the impression he's paid to write things Adobe would like to say, but
can't

------
oscardelben
Are apple employees really forbidden from blogging and posting to social
networks?

~~~
apike
Of course we aren't. Plenty of Apple employees blog about things other than
their jobs.

~~~
elpuri
Of course the question everyone is interested in is are you allowed to
publicly comment on / criticize issues like Apple strategy, policies and
technologies. So are you?

~~~
apike
I've never experimented with that boundary. Publicly criticizing your employer
is unwise and unprofessional no matter who you work for. I don't imagine there
are many Fortune 500 companies where you would last very long doing that.

~~~
elpuri
Yeah of course that's obvious, but is there or is there not a company rule
that prohibits employees publicly commenting on company matters like the Adobe
guy says?

Edit: I just realized that you're not allowed to comment on it if there is one
:)

~~~
thebigshane
Right, so blink once if there exists said rule, twice if not. No response and
we'll assume the former. /s

------
jherdman
I'm sorry, but I really don't give a damn. There's a lot of speculation here
(and elsewhere), and until I hear anything official from Apple I refuse to get
too wound up.

~~~
gamache
We have something official, more official than any press release: the
developer contract.

No matter what Apple says in the next few days, nothing short of removing the
new clause can prevent Apple from enforcing it at will.

~~~
jherdman
Well, that's sort of what I'm driving at. Apple clearly has an agenda with
this clause and its not 100% clear to the developer community what that agenda
is. Do they mean things like PhoneGap are dead, or simply things that provide
an alternative API (e.g. running apps via the Adobe Air runtimes). How about
cross compilers? Does Apple really give a damn if you write something in
Scheme and then have it transcoded into Obj-C? I highly doubt.

~~~
gamache
My point is that their agenda, while useful to know, mean nothing in the long
run, because as long as that clause is active, Apple has the ability to
enforce it capriciously.

Whether or not they "mean" things like PhoneGap are dead, etc., is irrelevant.
The ability to kill _any app_ because of its original source language is the
important thing.

~~~
Psyonic
You do realize that "ability" was already there? They've always had full
control of what they allow in the store, so this latest change is only
significant in intent, not ability.

------
hkuo
I think this person will regret writing this post tomorrow, if not sooner.
This is akin to having an emotional reaction to someone's email and returning
an immediate flame email, later feeling like a complete jerk. But this is on a
much grander scale, writing a blog post as an official representative of an
entire company. Very poor taste.

Though I'm enjoying the show quite a lot!!!

------
raganwald
"Any developer would not in good conscience be able to support this."

Oh? Raganwald seems to be ok with this, especially since he does his iPhone
development on the web platform and doesn't need Apple's permission.

"Any _real_ developer would not in good conscience be able to support this."

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman>

------
anon95110
sheesh... while one half of Adobe's brain (the flash-obsessed Macromedia one)
is still screaming and flinging mud, the other half already used some of the
perfectly Apple-endorsed C/C++ code they've got lying around and build a
useful iPad App: [http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/adobe-ideas-1-0-for-
ipad/id36...](http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/adobe-ideas-1-0-for-
ipad/id364617858) \- It's not like they're all about Flash; although it's
obviously this guy's job to make it look like it - hence the title of
evangelist.

~~~
angstrom
Funny, I was thinking the same thing. All the huffing and puffing about
openness when they list C/C++ among the ordained languages. Have that many
people completely divested themselves of the most cross-platform compatible
languages there is? I realize they're ugly step sisters, but if you structure
the projects right it's not like it's impossible.

~~~
kelnos
The language is mostly irrelevant. It's the framework that matters. You can't
plop a gtk, MFC, Qt, or whatever app on an iPhone. You drop a UIKit app on the
iPhone, and that's it.

------
jongraehl
There probably isn't anything Apple can do to prevent people implementing
cross compilers _from_ i{pad,phone}-legal code to other platforms.

So this is merely offensive and insulting to programmers, and can't create any
lasting competitive advantage.

~~~
Psyonic
Sure there is. I'm not saying they'd go there, but they could make a blanket
statement that all i{pad,phone} apps be exclusives, and if they see the app
appear in another mobile store, it's gone. Again, I'm not saying they'd go
there, but they certainly could.

------
cmeranda
I find it ironic that while Brimelow claims: "Any real developer would not in
good conscience be able to support this. The trouble is that we will never
hear their discontent because Apple employees are forbidden from blogging,
posting to social networks, or other things that we at companies with an open
culture take for granted." it seems unlikely that he's actually able to take
his "open culture" much for granted when they've openly censored several parts
of his post, as he freely admits.

------
ROFISH
_"Go screw yourself Apple."_

How professional.

~~~
mcantor
I was really shocked at how partisan and flagrantly accusatory this post was.
Does Adobe really want this kind of mudslinging associated with their company
name?

~~~
jongraehl
An honest and justified gripe is fine with me; I even respect people for not
being afraid to accuse in such a case, but I guess they should consider people
who value decorum higher, as you do.

------
frou_dh
I think I've been brainwashed because I had immediate involuntary disdain for
the guy because it says he's a Flash Evangelist at the top of the page.

------
c00p3r
Apple wants developers to develop iPhone's apps and share the profit, instead
of flash sites (and share the troubles with crashing crappy plugin). That is
clear and obvious.

------
hackermom
Quite possibly the lamest blog post ever from an Adobe employee - and there
have been a good deal already.

I personally reason entirely with Apple's choice. I understand every bit of it
(and it's not just my fervent zeal of dislike for the obese, sluggish behemoth
that Flash has become.)

------
Batsu
I'm going to leave this thought here, because I don't know where else to leave
it without a blog.

Apple doesn't like Flash (or Adobe, depending on preference).

Adobe develops Flash to iPhone compiler.

Apple bans anything-to-AppStore apps that aren't "originally written in C/Obj.
C"

...

* Adobe writes Flash to Canvas/HTML5 Apps ?

Apple has nothing to lose from that cornered last step to get onto the
iPhone... The internet as a whole doesn't have anything to lose...

For once in my life I feel like an Apple fan. It's a shame it only happened
under the influence of alcohol.

Edit: I feel very dirty all of a sudden.

