And with that e-mail flash, Adobe has signaled that it knows, as Steve Jobs predicted, the end of the Flash era on the web is coming soon.
"Our future work with Flash on mobile devices will be focused on enabling Flash developers to package native apps with Adobe AIR for all the major app stores," the quoted e-mail says. In the past, Adobe has released software tools for mobile developers that create a single platform programmers can use to make applications that work across three major mobile platforms: Android, iOS and the BlackBerry OS. The move indicates a massive backpedaling on Adobe's part, a company who championed its Flash platform in the face of years of naysaying about its use on mobile devices.
Despite attempts to breathe life into Flash on other mobile devices -- namely, Android and BlackBerry OS -- Adobe has failed to deliver a consistently stable version of the platform on a smartphone or tablet. The drastic reversal in Adobe's mobile plans comes in the wake of the company cutting 750 jobs on Tuesday, a move prompted by what Adobe labeled "corporate restructuring." You can look at this one of two ways: Steve Jobs was right on the money about Adobe Flash, or Steve Jobs shrewdly worked to ensure he'd be right about Adobe's mobile multimedia plugin by using Apple's leverage to put the tool in a stranglehold.
However you view it, it's death seems all but assured: Adobe's reportedly killing mobile Flash, switching development efforts to HTML5 (the non-proprietary Flash alternative Jobs lobbied for), and laying off 750 people—about 8% of its global workforce—in the process. In a note unveiled by ZDNet last night, Adobe revealed it would end further development of its mobile version of Flash: "Our future work with Flash on mobile devices will be focused on enabling Flash developers to package native apps with Adobe AIR for all the major app stores," reads an email delivered by Adobe to developers. "We will no longer adapt Flash Player for mobile devices to new browser, OS version or device configurations."
Jobs took public umbrage with Adobe in early 2010, calling the company "lazy," according to Wired and stating that Apple didn't support Flash because "it is so buggy." Added Jobs: "Whenever a Mac crashes more often than not it's because of Flash." A few months later, Jobs posted a letter on Apple's website titled "Thoughts on Flash" that outlined Apple's decision to eschew support for Flash on the iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch. After quoting Scottish satirist and historian Thomas Carlyle, Nash comments that "I'll catch only shit for pointing this out, but for what it's worth, Adobe saying that Flash on mobile isn't the best path forward [doesn't equal] Adobe conceding that Flash on mobile (or elsewhere) is bad technology.
Did Apple ensure mobile Flash's demise by preventing it from competing properly? Or did Adobe's insistence on keeping the format proprietary, complicated by Flash's alleged performance issues, tie Cupertino's hands? It had no comment about the Flash Player report. Flash is used to run movies, games and other applications. "We will no longer adapt Flash Player for mobile devices to new browser, OS version of device configurations," it read. A spokeswoman for Adobe was unable to confirm the report.
Post a Comment