The battle between Apple and Adobe has been going on for years with Apple refusing to support the Adobe flash platform on the iPhone and more recently on the iPad. Apple has argued over and over again that Flash is resource intensive and will quickly drain the batteries of their mobile devices. I’m not a flash fan, actually I hate flash, especially in web based applications. Nevertheless, I feel the choice should be given to the user to install flash without any restrictions from Apple. In a more recent twist on the subject, Apple’s decision to alter the iPhone’s developer licensing agreement to exclude Adobe’s forthcoming packager function of Flash CS5 that could allow developers to export flash applications into native iPhone Apps sends the message that Apple has declared war on Adobe and it’s flash platform. Apple’s decision is not surprising at all and it could very well be backed up with valid technical arguments especially with the introduction of multitasking in iPhone OS4 and the need to have some sort of control over the way applications are compiled to accomplish clean multitasking on the iPhone and iPad platforms. However, what about restricting applications that are not complied using native C/C++/Obj-C or javascript to running in the foreground only? I guess that is not an option at this point in time.
In a non related subject, I just recently purchased an HP 311 netbook PC with Nvidia’s ION graphics processor, hoping it would be a good platform to view videos and play flash based games on NickJr.com while traveling with my daughter who is just in love with Dora the Explorer TV show. While the machine is capable of playing HD video content without dropping one frame, it was unable to play standard definition TV shows purchased from the iTunes store! After doing a quick research and extensive testing, I realized that Apple is not supporting this platform. Is the lack of support due to the fact that this platform is in someway competing with the iPad? Probably so. Although I found a quick solution for my daughter to view her favorite videos at Walmart, I started wounding about Apple’s ethical fiber and the way they conduct business eliminating support for any slightly competitive product that could effect the the sales of their own. I now can see more clearly, if Apple was reasonable to argue the quality of the flash player with Adobe and allow a cleaner version of the flash player to run on it’s mobile devices, then applications sales might be lower than it’s current rate given that more people would probably hunt down free flash games online as a alternative to purchasing few games from iTunes’s App Store. This is my personal take on the subject and in no way I favor a PC over Macs, in-fact I own mostly Macintosh computers and the purchase of this tiny HP was the first PC purchase I’ve made in almost 6 years.
Is Apple in the right? I would love to hear your comments.