14 DAY TRIAL // While some will find it hard to believe that Apple’s Steve Jobs actually regards Adobe well, with the CEO reportedly calling it lazy, at one point, reports suggest the guy actually does. An email reply from the recently chatty Jobs reveals Apple simply chooses not have Flash incorporated in its devices, and that his company’s position towards Adobe is nothing short of respectful.
A MacStories reader reportedly emailed Jobs on May 26 asking whether Apple hated Adobe and its products (not limited to Flash), or just the company’s view on the buggy Flash. “Do you hate Adobe and their products (Photoshop, Illustrator, etc.) or do you just hate their view on Flash?” the MacStories reader asked.
Apple’s CEO, who has recently been willing to answer even even the dumbest questions from supposed Apple fans, reportedly replied with one of his typically short messages, saying, “I respect and admire Adobe. We just chose to not have Flash on our devices.” Frankly, Mr. Jobs’ answer is more than conclusive, considering the 1,600+ words allotted to “Thoughts on Flash” - the CEO’s open letter explaining exactly why Apple chooses not to support Flash on iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad.
However, for those who want more clarification on the matter right now, Softpedia will include two relevant paragraphs from the aforementioned post signed “Steve Jobs,” dated April, 2010.
“Besides the fact that Flash is closed and proprietary, has major technical drawbacks, and doesn’t support touch based devices, there is an even more important reason we do not allow Flash on iPhones, iPods and iPads. We have discussed the downsides of using Flash to play video and interactive content from websites, but Adobe also wants developers to adopt Flash to create apps that run on our mobile devices.”
“We know from painful experience that letting a third party layer of software come between the platform and the developer ultimately results in sub-standard apps and hinders the enhancement and progress of the platform. If developers grow dependent on third party development libraries and tools, they can only take advantage of platform enhancements if and when the third party chooses to adopt the new features. We cannot be at the mercy of a third party deciding if and when they will make our enhancements available to our developers.”
Reports also say that Nokia and Opera have sided with Adobe in the Flash debate. The two companies have reportedly committed to backing Adobe amid Apple's bashing of Flash technology. NBC and Time Warner have reportedly taken up a similar stance. The two actually informed Cupertino that they’d be sticking to Flash for now. A New York Post report citing unnamed sources reveals that, “Several large media companies, including Time Warner and NBC Universal, told Apple they won't retool their extensive video libraries to accommodate the iPad, arguing that such a reformatting would be expensive and not worth it because Flash dominates the Web.”