Adobe spells out iPhone apps limitations
LOS ANGELES--Adobe Systems' announcement of tools to create applications for the Apple iPhone comes with some restrictions.
Adobe announced on Monday at Adobe MAX, the company's worldwide developer conference, that its Flash Professional CS5 developer tool will enable developers to create interactive applications for the iPhone and iPod Touch. A public beta of Flash Professional CS5 is expected to be available later this year.
In an interview at the conference Monday, Anup Murarka, director of technology strategy and partner development in Adobe's platform development unit, spelled out some of the limitations of creating Adobe Flash-style apps for the iPhone. These limitations exist because the Adobe Flash player is not supported on the iPhone.
Murarka clarified that Monday's announcement was not a joint announcement with Apple. "This is an Adobe announcement. This is just something that's related to our tools and what they output, which is a native iPhone app," he said.
"So, we're not running Flash directly on the device. We're actually allowing our tools to output for native iPhone apps," Murarka explained.
He then described some limitations. "Let's take it from the developer's point of view. They have a very rich environment and language. That's in Flash today," he said. "You're not going to get all of the Flash feature set that would normally be there in the run-time."
Murarka continued: "For example, high-quality video, H.264, is not available with this product because Apple does not make available the decoders. They make you use their own UI (user interface) to play back high-quality video." Apple describes the H.264 video codec as delivering "stunning quality at...low data rates."
He also cited synchronization. "Being able to do synchronization between data and video. Those can be built as Flash applications. In sporting events (for example) using flash for data overlay. Those types of things are not going to possible because we don't have access to the APIs (Application Programming Intefaces) that would give us the video decode along with all of the individual frames so we can do synchronization," he said.
And he spoke about graphics effects. "Some of the filter effects. Some of the capabilities that as a programmer you would easily do within Flash are not available as they are not natural APIs that iPhone platform makes available to us."
Murarka concluded by saying that Adobe continues to work with Apple towards getting Flash on the iPhone. "We're not there as quickly as we would like. We're not able to put Flash in the browser. We're not able to put a Flash run-time on the device directly. But this is a good step," he said.
Brooke Crothers has served as an editor at large at CNET News, an editor at Dow Jones' Asian Wall Street Journal Weekly, and a senior editor at InfoWorld. His CNET blog covers chip technology and computer systems, and how they define the computing experience. He also contributes to The New York Times' Bits and Technology sections. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure. Follow Brooke on Twitter @mbrookec. 
The proper solution to the problem is for people to vote with their wallets. Adobe just announced its launch on the Pre as well, and there were no such disclaimers about being locked out because Palm is taking the open approach.
In fact, they just surprised all the developers in attendance by giving each a free Pre, Touchstone charger, month of Sprint service, and perhaps most telling, the request to go home and hack the hell out of the thing. Now THAT is the mindset that encourages disruptive tech...
You are as deluded as the Obama administration and that do-nothing Congress of jackasses. Please. Get real. The solution is simple: YOU purchase some other product OR, better yet --> you develop a BETTER product and YOU control how that product behaves in the market.
Oh, whats that? You're too lazy? Want the government to wake you up in the morning and wipe the snot from your nose too? Grow up.
"GovCo? Needs to step what up? Do you want to see Apple and even Adobe DESTROYED, like GM has been? You DO realize that GM is dead. Absolutely dead."
Not really that logical. You do realise that GM's problems started not because of any government intervention, but exactly because the guys at GM couldn't deal with free enterprise. And that GM still exists today as an industrial entity, albeit as a shadow of its former self, is only thanks to the former Bush administration intervening. It seems big government is not always a bad thing.
"We, the people, will never get that money back. What about the banking sector? Give Adobe BILLIONS because they cant do what they want with Apple's product and, guess what? Adobe raises prices on ALL its products like the ********* in the banking industry have done to us with credit cards and loans. Yea, thats the solution."
And why did it get that far? Because government thought the less intervention it took in the finance industry the better. And that's why we little guys are now poorer while bank bosses - including the ones that got kicked out - can buy even more and bigger homes and their wives can go on bigger and better spending sprees.
What motivation does Apple have for giving in? None. The lack of Flash will affect only a few geek buyers; average consumers (which are always Apple's target) could care less. Already the iPhone has dominant market share in online activity, and the curve is pointing almost straight up, so content providers would be suicidal to assume Flash availability; they will naturally turn to open standards, rather than manage multiple formats.
Flash isn't going to disappear anytime soon, but the handwriting is on the wall. And good riddance.
Wrong. Average consumers don't care what the platform is - it's the geeky ones who have the opinions on Flash one way or the other. The iPhone is a slightly special case because of the prelidiction of users being more technically 'aware'.
Like it or not Flash is pervasive. That means if person A can run an app on his Pre but person B can't run it on his iPhone that's a loss for the iPhone.
Adobe always treats Apple like crap.
Just look at how Flash on Mac OS X runs 10 times slower than Flash on Windows.
Flash on Mac OS X is so inefficient, Macs overheat because of the resources it hogs.
Flash on Mac OS X causes almost all of the crashes in Mac OS X.
Why would Apple want Flash on OS X (the iPhone's OS), when Flash works like crap
on Mac OS X?
Exactly. Apple doesn't.
Flash as it is runs 3rd party code. By definition, it breaks Apple's rules for Apps on the iPhone. Thus it isn't allowed. Good riddance.
Look: Apple does not have a monopoly on cell phones or smart phones. You can buy anything you want. Apple does not force you to buy its iPhone. Period.
Apple is dominant because people voluntarily want to purchase iPhones in mass quantity. That doesn't make Apple a monopoly. Apple encourages tons of competition. Just look at its legions of competitors, starting with Microsoft, Sony, Samsung, Nokia, Motorola, Palm, RIM, etc. etc. etc. RIM has a huge lead on Apple's iPhone in the smart phone arena, by the way. And no one complains about RIM's Blackberry's.
Since Flash causes almost all of the crashes in Safari - which uses Apple's webkit as its engine, it will be interesting to see how Flash causes the Palm Pre to crash and use up its battery power since the Pre also uses Apple's webkit as its browser engine. Ha ha ha.
why is that?
flash runs nicely on my Win7.
Why does flash crash Mac OSX? Is Adobe's fault? Apple?
Don't move your position Apple. Don't let these assbags gain one inch. They have killed products on the OS X platform in favor of Windows, they have publicly made negative statements about Apple's products on their website, and they purposely make their products run inferior on the OS X platform.
So don't you worry Apple, the majority of users fully understand this and see through the Adobe BS.
I see we also have a few left wing liberal moonbats here too.
Were I a betting man I would speculate that once 256Mb and the faster ARM processors are the norm for the majority of the installed userbase, suddenly Apple will decide it's plausible to have embedded code interpreters running on their platform.
Just a guess.
- by gggg sssss October 7, 2009 6:53 PM PDT
- ha ha enjoy quicktime
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