Apple

Adobe has admitted it can't bring Flash to the iPhone just because it thinks that would be a neat idea.

Comments made Tuesday by Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen were widely interpreted Wednesday morning as confirmation that Adobe and Apple have figured out a way to make Flash available on the iPhone. Unfortunately, that's not exactly what Narayen said, and the company has now also clarified that it can't simply use the iPhone software development kit to bring Flash to the iPhone unless Apple approves.

Narayen's comments weren't exactly definitive, but they were judged by several media outlets to be a confirmation of Adobe and Apple's plans to put a Flash player on the iPhone. They aren't; they're merely a statement of what Adobe would like to do with Flash. Wishing things to happen and actually making them happen are sort of different.

Getting Flash onto the iPhone will require fancier footwork than getting AIM onto the iPhone.

(Credit: Corinne Schulze/CNET Networks)

On Tuesday, Narayen said, "We are also committed to bringing the Flash experience to the iPhone and we will work with Apple. We've evaluated the SDK, we can now start to develop the Flash player ourselves and we think it benefits our joint customers."

The comments came during a conference call announcing Adobe's quarterly earnings (the company did pretty well). Adobe obviously would like to get Flash on one of the most buzzed-about mobile Web surfing devices in recent history, especially coming off its deal to license it for Windows Mobile, but let's look a little closer at Narayen's statement.

First of all, working with Apple can mean very many things, and that seems to have been missed in the early reports. "Working with (company)" often means you're trying to sell skeptical executives on the merits of your idea, not actually collaborating on technical development. If you call up Apple with a great idea, and leave a voicemail on Tim Cook's extension with your pitch, technically you're working with Apple.

But Narayen also seems to have misunderstood the terms of the SDK, much like Sun executives did when they announced, then backed off, plans to release Java for the iPhone.

Flash isn't a mere third-party application, like a game or an instant-messaging client. It's a plug-in that would have to work very closely with Safari on the iPhone, and that's something Apple has declared off-limits to third-party developers at this time unless they get a hall pass.

And even if Adobe was granted a special dispensation to dig deeper into the iPhone, it couldn't actually distribute Flash onto the iPhone unless Apple approved its inclusion in the App Store or bundled it with the iPhone. That is, unless Adobe wants to hook up all those jailbroken iPhones with Flash, which I guess it could technically do but would probably ruin its chances of ever getting an official blessing for Flash on the iPhone.

Adobe clarified Narayen's comments in an official statement on Wednesday.

"Adobe has evaluated the iPhone SDK and can now start to develop a way to bring Flash Player to the iPhone. However, to bring the full capabilities of Flash to the iPhone Web-browsing experience we do need to work with Apple beyond and above what is available through the SDK and the current license around it." Key words there: "beyond and above" (I always thought it was the other way around).

Now, none of this means Apple and Adobe really aren't working to bring Flash to the iPhone. There are clearly benefits to having Flash, even Flash Lite, on a mobile device, and the two companies have worked closely for years. Apple CEO Steve Jobs' main problem with the technology is that he believes Flash is too big, and Flash Lite is too small, for the iPhone.

It's quite possible that the two companies are working together "beyond and above" on making this happen, and Narayen simply spoke out of school regarding their secret project. However, it's important to note any such collaboration is not what Narayen implied, which was that Adobe could just put Flash Lite on the iPhone using the SDK.

I asked an Adobe representative to comment on whether or not that technical collaboration was taking place, and they're looking into it. Don't hold your breath waiting for an update.

This post was updated at 10:15 a.m. PDT to correct the spelling on Anup Murarka's name.

Even though it has plans to release a competing technology, Microsoft has agreed to license Adobe's Flash Lite technology for its Windows Mobile operating system and browser.

The two companies early on Monday announced that Microsoft has signed a license to use Flash Lite and Reader LE in future Windows Mobile handsets as plug-ins for Internet Explorer Mobile. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, such as what the companies plan to do when Microsoft releases Silverlight for Mobile, a competing technology.

Flash Lite is a stripped-down version of the ubiquitous Flash video player that allows mobile handsets to view Web sites created with the Flash technology. Think of Flash Lite as a slightly older version of Flash; the most current version of Flash Lite can't properly display Web sites created with the newest version of Flash, Flash 9, but it works with sites created using older versions of the technology.

As smartphones become more and more common, people are starting to get fed up with the basic Web surfing experience offered by many phones. They want something that looks more like a PC experience, with rich graphics and video. But that's hard to duplicate on a device with a smaller screen, less memory, a slower processor, and battery life requirements.

Enter Flash Lite. "Past technologies have failed trying to get into mobile by cramming a desktop experience into a mobile device," said Anup Murarka, director of technical marketing for mobile and devices at Adobe. "The technology has to bend to the use cases, rather than the use cases bending to the technology."

Microsoft's Derek Snyder agreed. "One of the hallmark experiences on any smartphone is the Web browsing experience," said Snyder, a product manager with Microsoft's mobile-communications business. Strengthening that experience, as well as adding support for PDF documents through the Reader LE license, was the motivation for Microsoft to make the deal, he said.

Flash Lite has several limitations compared with regular Flash, beyond the inability to support much of Flash 9. Apple CEO Steve Jobs rather emphatically declared his disdain for Flash Lite at Apple's annual shareholder meeting, saying Flash Lite was "not capable of being used with the Web." Murarka declined to comment specifically on Jobs' put-down, but noted that Flash Lite ships on 500 million mobile devices.

He did acknowledge that developers using Adobe's Flex tools can't build Flash Lite Web pages, although the newer CS3 suite of tools does support Flash Lite.

But one huge advantage of Flash Lite is that it's currently available for mobile devices. Microsoft's Silverlight for Mobile is not.

Silverlight is Microsoft's attempt to rein in on Adobe's position in the Web development market with Flash. Microsoft is fighting an uphill battle, though, in trying to get Web developers to build sites using its technology as opposed to Adobe's.

Earlier this month Microsoft said it wouldn't have a mobile version of Silverlight out until later this year. A technical preview is expected to arrive in the second quarter, but no other details have been released. Snyder declined to elaborate on the time frame for a production version of Silverlight for Mobile.

With Microsoft's Windows Mobile team now having to meet a surge in demand for Web-friendly mobile phones, led by the iPhone, licensing Flash Lite makes sense as a "for now" solution, at least until the company's own dog food is ready. The iPhone has been able to capture mobile Web surfers without any support for Flash technologies, something that other mobile devices running IE Mobile or Opera's mobile browser will likely try to exploit later this year.

Eventually, Microsoft expects to support both Flash Lite and Silverlight on its Windows Mobile handsets. "Flash is, for a lot of people, something they've already invested in," Snyder said. Having support for the incumbent while it tries to get Web developers on the Silverlight team makes sense; "it's good to have both," he said.