Steve Jobs’ Flash Concerns Are Answered in Full by Adobe’s CEO
![Steve Jobs’ Flash Concerns Are Answered in Full by Adobe’s CEO [Shantanu Narayen Responds to Apple CEO’s “Thoughts On Flash”; We Love a Quarrel Between Giants]](http://nexus404.com/Blog/thumbnailimages/alt/shantanu-narayen-adobeTFTSThumb220153.jpeg)
Just earlier on today we looked at Steve Jobs’ long press release / open letter in which he expressed various “Thoughts on Flash.” We expected Adobe to respond as fast as possible and it looks like the company has prepared a reply even faster than we could have hoped for. And we can always go for a little argument between titans so go get your popcorn ready.
The Wall Street Journal had a chance to talk to Shantanu Narayen, the CEO of Adobe, and he wasn’t particularly happy with Steve Jobs’ reasons for Apple not supporting Flash on the iPhone, iPod and iPad.
Narayen seems to think that Adobe is offering open content to developers. The whole Creative Suite software was meant to work on multiple devices and he claims that Apple “shows that they are concerned about Adobe being able” to offer such product that’s ready to work across multiple platforms.
It’s funny how Narayen kept referring more to CS5 than to Flash only. We know CS5 is available on various platforms, but, not wanting to defend Steve Jobs here, we have to remember his essay was entitled “Thoughts on Flash” not “Thoughts on CS5”.
While he said Adobe is certainly shipping on Android’s latest version, whether it’s Android 2.1 or Android 2.2, Narayen also concluded that Apple is putting up “a smokescreen” when talking about Flash and the App Store. Furthermore Adobe’s CEO accused Apple of restricting developers and forcing them to develop “two workflows” one for Apple and one for the others.
Steve Jobs blamed Flash for crashing Macs but Shantanu Narayen had a great answer for that by implying that if Adobe makes Apple crash that has something “to do with the Apple operating system.”
Adobe’s CEO also seems to think that Jobs is basically lying when saying that Flash is draining power from Apple’s devices and that “for every one of these accusations made there is a proprietary lock-in” which doesn’t allow Adobe to innovate.
These are definitely some very tough responses but then again it’s a tough business these CEO are involved in. Narayen believes that this multi-platform world, or Adobe’s world, will eventually prevail over Apple’s single-platform view.
And, in case it matters to anyone, Adobe’s CEO uses a Google Nexus One, at least for now, and Adobe is working on “dozens” tablet projects with other companies. So it’s pretty much safe to say he won’t be playing with an iPad. Wonder if he’ll ever buy one for someone close to him.
What do you say, folks? Whose side of the story do you prefer best? Apple’s or Adobe’s?
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In the first sentence you state that Shantanu Narayen is the CEO of Apple, when in fact he’s the CEO of Adobe.
Thanks for pointing out the error. I guess it’s pretty obvious though that I meant Adobe instead of Apple. I must be writing too much about the other CEO!
Please get your CEOs name’s right…”Shantanu Narayen, the CEO of Apple,…”
Sheesh!
Of course Jobs is lying. If Flash can work perfectly fine on non-Apple platforms then there must be something wrong with Apple platforms where it has problems. It is a well known fact how Apple keeps many critical APIs proprietary and that is the reason why no other company can make serious app on Apple platforms. Reason is that Apple does not want them to. They think that they can do everything from building hardware, writing s/w and retailing better than everyone else.
For Jobs to extoll virtues of openness is like Bin Laden preaching peace.
I think I already addressed this just earlier, didn’t I?
Both viewpoints have credibility.
there seems to be one strong camp on this issue that apple is evil and steve jobs ______________ (evil comment here.) The rest of the world seems to be taking a pretty rational approach the situation.
Some IT friends I’ve talked with agree with the decision, and some don’t. It would be best summed up, in my opinion, that apple’s rejection of flash on their portables (ipad and ipod/iphone) is a win for small developers CONTRARY to what most anti-apple camp-people say. By stopping flash content from being viewable on ipad/pod it allows a market whereby small time app developers can make a living or atleast learn cocoa while making some money programming.
another important win by not using it is definitely the delay in flash programming to machine code. Any dude and his bro can program some flash game or website very poorly whereas cocoa is not such an easy language, but offers more powerful response as it is closer to machine code of the ipad/ipod
a negative side could be that creative experts using flash to provide clients with high quality webpages will be deterred from using an ipad/ipod or buying one as they could not show clients their webpages.
In the end it is a tough decision by apple. I can sympathize with either side. I think the retort that apple is putting up a “smokescreen” isn’t true, as I read steve jobs letter and it even mentions that apple has many proprietary areas. In either case Flash has long had poor operation on mac os, yet the adobe ceo is blaming apple for this when for some reason all the Adobe Pro -apps are commonly favored in pro-media to be used on Apple platform?
My opinion leans more toward steve jobs in that Adobe originally released statements saying how great flash is that half the web content is on flash but neglected to mention how almost all of that is also in html5 or h.264 video format aswell.
I feel like I’m watching my parents have an argument. Maybe it’s because I work several hours a day running Adobe products on Apple machines. It surprises me that Narayan has such a weak response to Jobs’ damning assessment of Flash.
Both Flash and Apple are closed ecosystems and both are jockeying for dominance in mobile content delivery. Apple is obsessed with quality and is willing to forgo not only Flash but other Apple desktop features to ensure a great mobile user experience. Adobe just wants to keep people using Flash whether or not it’s an elegant or stable.