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One of them makes the world’s most coveted products. It may be considered overpriced by some, but its sheer power and sleek visual appeal help it hold on to a firm fan base. Going beyond a personal computer, its entry into the world of phones produced, arguably, the flood of change that smartphones needed.
The other makes software that is considered a must for every professional’s arsenal. Starting with a simple offering of fonts, it has worked its way up to provide everything from graphic design to reading documents. Some time back, it acquired Macromedia, one of its rivals, to add to its product line Flash, among other things.
Apple and Adobe are some of the biggest companies in the computer world and are known for having vast armies of supporters, some of whom love both the giants. The problem starts here, when the giants fight and ask the masses to make a choice.
In the previous decade, when the future of Apple looked dull, without the fanboy craze surrounding their iProducts to support it, Adobe made a choice – one that it may regret now. Cutting off support for some software on the Mac and diverting R&D funding to the Windows section may have seemed the more profitable path at the time but this has resulted in an alienation that Mac users, and Apple itself, are unwilling to forgive. As support was withdrawn, Apple made its own software, some of which even displaced Adobe in a few markets. A small turf war that started then remained a thorn throughout and has culminated in Apple declaring that Flash did not figure in the future of mobile devices.
When the iPhones came out, they had no Flash support. This has not changed with future releases either. It was hardly a surprise when the iPad also turned up, sans Flash. Adobe developed a system in response which allowed coders to convert their apps to run on the iPhones. Since most of these were converted from Flash coding, it was not uncommon to see them fail to tap the full potential of phones. Even with these restrictions, the users hobbled on with the apps that were produced by this conversion process. All this changed when Apple declared with the release of iOS4 that it would no longer allow these converters to be used. Such restrictions ensured that the coders that used Flash could no longer do so to make apps for the iPhones without breaking legal norms.
The effect outside the battlefield of the giants was predictable, even if not immediately visible. Many sites rely on Flash for their operations and some are even built on it. A notable example would be the video streaming site YouTube, which depends on Flash for its functioning. Flash was known for its load on memory resources and these were cited as reasons for not providing Flash support in smartphones and other mobile devices that did not have the same processing power as a Desktop. However, the move by Apple sealed the fate of Flash as far as any of their products was concerned. It went on to ask developers to look for alternatives, as it felt that the load of Flash on an iPhone would reflect badly on the phone’s performance to the end user. Understandably, Adobe was not happy.
What happens now will determine the future of Flash on a platform which is probably the most celebrated, irrespective of the justification. A huge market in the form of the Apple app store users is now out of the question for any developer depending on Flash for development. With little more than insults flying between the two companies, there seems to be little progress as far as talks are concerned.
Although a few months have passed since the hostilities began, it remains unclear whether any hatchets are being buried. As Thomas Claburn of InformationWeek posted, "Apple is all but immune to public pressure. Witness how it has refused for years to bring out a real two-button mouse."
Even if the iPhones are out of the question, it shouldn’t be forgotten that a larger market still remains open with the rest of the OS world still welcoming Flash with open arms. Companies like Google are not jumping to either side on the HTML5 – Flash debate and are welcoming whatever the users would like. Android 2.2, which released recently displayed full Flash support with early reviews coming in with huge praise of what Flash 10.1 has to offer.
There is no major threat for Adobe at the moment, but there is the loss of, what could have been, a rich picking on the Apple app market.
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