Adobe Overstates Its Intentions with the iPhone

Tuesday saw Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen saying that Apple’s iPhone was getting flash from the San Hose-based software company. That, of course, was an overstatement, as Adobe also needs Apple’s approval and guidance to do it.

This is Adobe’s position on Tuesday: "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," Shantanu Narayen said during a conference call announcing Adobe's quarterly earnings.

In the meanwhile, Adobe realized that Apple’s helping hand was crucial in getting flash on the iPhone. There’s just one little problem: Apple isn’t keen on getting flash up on that baby: Jobs once said the iPhone "needs something much better than the current Flash player that Adobe makes for cellphones. The Flash Player option that fits the bill is made for devices like laptops that are larger than the iPhone; as a consequence, it performs too slowly on the iPhone."

If Adobe can’t do it itself, Apple sure isn’t going to reduce its schedule to look into the matter. Adobe’s clarification (Wednesday) on Narayen's comments…:

"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."

You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to realize that Adobe is asking Apple to lend a helping hand, while Apple, as mentioned above, isn’t that crazy about iPhone flash for the time being. Sure, flash would be an advantage, but it seems the Cupertino folks have other priorities with their touchscreen handset.

Look at it this way: had Apple been really interested in Adobe’s proposal, wouldn’t they have at least made an official announcement saying "Yeah, sure, why not? We’ll help you guys do it."

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