Adobe hits back at Apple with a sappy ad campaign

By on May 13, 2010 at 7:00 PM
Software May 13, 2010

adobe-flash-ad

Today, in a bizarre — but not entirely unexpected — move, Adobe launched an advertising campaign designed to garner support for its ongoing battle against Apple and their anti-Flash crusade. Flash-based banners are starting to appear all over the web going on about Adobe’s love (“<3" actually) of: Web, Flash, HTML5, Authoring Code Only Once, All Devices and Platforms, Our 3 Million Developers, and Freedom of Choice. Adobe founders Chuck Geschke and John Warnock even found the time to pose for a very creepy picture and co-author an op-ed piece entitled "Our thoughts on open markets." The piece more or less goes over all of the pro-Flash arguments we've heard countless times throughout this ordeal, and proves that they're much warmer and fuzzier men than Apple's -- more specifically Steve Jobs -- by repeatedly using words like: believe, freedom, create, innovation, and express. It's all very touching, and is sure to get a lot of people fired up, but peace, love, and harmony? Very quaint Adobe...however, when you're dealing with Apple you best put on your boxing gloves.

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  • AT&TAtlantaRegionalManager

    YES! there will be a answer back at this but i love the tug of war between these guys..funny reading

    • ultra

      The lack of openness on the iPhone is one of the main reasons why I am DUMPING my iPhone and SWITCHING to the HTC Evo.

      I predict a mass exodus from iPhone due to Apple’s stubbornness in refusing to open their device to other markets and exerting way too much CONTROL over what people are allowed to put on their iPhones.

      Also, iPhone is no longer that cool anymore. Everyone already has one and the new iPhone doesn’t look that impressive compared to the HTC Evo.

      • Cold Dead Fingers

        So your one of the people who bought the iPhone because it was “cool?” That just makes you look bad. Plus, the mass will by iPhone still because they want a simple phone to use. 4G probably not even in your area, but you’ll still pay a $10 premium for what you don’t use, so much for having a choice. I’d rather get the HD2, but hey, that just makes sense.

      • Cold Dead Fingers

        *you’re*

      • MikeD

        To paraphrase Walt Mossberg said “Open is a loaded word. Flash is proprietary to Adobe, not open; developing for multiple platforms is nothing new”

        Walt is spot on whats really at play.

        Watch somebody who is totally nuetral speak on how both the iPhone and Flash are both CLOSED platforms.

        Jump to time code 3:26 to watch Walt Mossberg break the whole situation down.
        http://tinyurl.com/2coluym

        Why can’t Android users just admit they prefer flash. Thats perfectly okay. But don’t spread misinformation that Flash is open because its not. The reality is FLASH IS NOT OPEN.

        Now I have said many times Adobe needed to let control go and have flash be open source but its just about too late.

        Maybe the Android users and other Pro-Flash people can write a petition to push flash to truly make flash open.

        Anybody else on this board claim Flash is Open doesn’t know jack. It is without a doubt proprietary.

      • jeff

        Spot on, I fully agree with this.

      • ObiwannaAdobe

        well, you know what is open…. your mom!

      • ernielm

        That’s TOTALLY stupid. If you don’t have the brain power to contribute, then shut the hell up!

      • Lmaozer

        @ObiwannaAdobe

        lmao.. +1

      • http://toomany caleb

        here’s the deal though, flash encoding is open (via flash media encoder) flash viewing is open (all browser plugins are free) and the majority of the free video programs available can encode to flash with no problem. only the flash program, where you develop apps, is not free, and rightfully so. apple’s final cut isn’t free, neither are most of the apps for the iphone/ipad. neither is apple’s wasted attempt at a streaming server. nothing is free and open source – even platforms like linux are severely limited in what they can do….

  • AT&T Thug

    Yawn. Adobe must fix Flash 10. It’s raping lagging Hulu on every browser I own.

    • MikeD

      You are not kidding. Look at how it crash a Nexus One.

      - – - – - – - Peter Church Posted May 13th 2010 7:56AM
      “Here’s what happened: On his Mac, Ryan pulled up a site called Eco Zoo. It is, seemingly, a pretty intense example of Flash development — full of 3D rendering, rich interactions, and cute little characters. Then, he pulled up the same thing on his Nexus One. The site’s progress bar filled in and the 3D world appeared for a few seconds before the browser crashed. Ryan said (paraphrasing), “Whoops! Well, it’s beta, and this is an intense example — let’s try it again.”

      He tried it again and got the same result. So he said to the audience, “Well, this one isn’t going to work, but does anyone have a Flash site they’d like to see running?” Someone shouted out “Hulu.” Ryan said, “Hulu doesn’t work,” and then wrapped up his demo, telling people if they wanted to try more sites they could find him later and he’d let them play with his Nexus One.”

      http://jeffcroft.com/blog/2010/may/08/android-flash-demo-flashcamp-seattle/
      - – - – - – - -

      I ran across this on Engadget.

  • Matt Thompson

    I think the day is coming where there will be a line across the digital world, with every company on one side or the other.. it’ll look like a giant comic book cover where all the heroes are on one side, and all the villains are on the other.

  • theft

    If Adobe made all these complaints after they had mobile flash shipping and kicking ass, they wouldn’t ring so hollow. I paid for a cross-compiled flash app for my iPhone. Ze Frank’s Memari Match. Really simple game. It was slow and it ran down the battery.

    • russdogg

      I’ve paid for about 70 apps in the 2 + years that 3rd party apps have been out. I’ve had maybe 15 of those that were seriously buggy that lagged a lot. None of those were made in flash. Flash is a tool, just like Objective C, and it depends on the developer to make that game work well w/out memory leaks. The only flash cross-compiled iPhone app I’ve used was the south park one and it was pretty responsive.

  • American Patriot

    They should’ve designed the heart with a bite taken out of it.

  • JC

    YES, Adobe. Don’t bundle us w/ Flash. We wanna freedom of web.

  • Dad

    We all know, that Apple will respond, we also all know that Apple (AKA steve jobs) will either cave in and allow Flash on there “i” devices, or they will create another excuse to make Steve’s personal gypsy beliefs seem real. Flash for mobile devices is a reality Steve, get with the program.

    • Eldest Son

      STFU, Dad. And stop beating mom and drinking so much. Jerk.

      • Cold Dead Fingers

        Hahahahahahaahahahaha +1

    • Cynder70

      It’s not a reality yet.

  • VZWHoustonRegionalManager

    Flash just isn’t meant for mobile phones. And unfortantely for Adobe, web browsing is headed more towards the mobile world.

    • Jimmy

      What a stupid thing to say. Define “meant for”. Was the web browser “meant for” mobile devices? I guess we should ban Safar for iPhone.
      Come up with something better.

      • Jimmy

        Safari

      • QuickWeevil

        Flash isn’t “meant for” anything with a battery. Having to power flash purely through software is a resource hog. If it was through hardware then that’s a different story. That’s what he meant!

  • Jimmy

    “however, when you’re dealing with Apple you best put on your boxing gloves.”

    LOL… can you get any more fanboy?

  • 3 Phones Jugglin

    “But wait, Android has Porn!”

    • Soddy

      IT DOES?!?! F*CK MY IPHONE!

  • American Patriot

    I don’t want to have anything to do with ‘warm & fuzzy men’. Thanks, tho.

  • Tim

    Steve Jobs is just a tool pure and simple. He thinks he can bully people around by simple decree. Regardless of his opinions (some more valid than others) he can not simply will Flash out of existence.Millions of websites use flash and that is not going to change overnight.

    HTML 5 is not even an official specification yet. It wont even be DRAFT until next year. And then we will have a decade of various websites, browsers, developers, etc implementing different parts and variations of the specification until a final version can be agreed upon. Talk about internet fragmentation! Anyone remember the Browser Wars of the late 90′s and early 00′s? UGH!

  • kelvin8048

    Thanks for the reminder, Adobe. BTW, can you tell me why the heck I must install Flash to watch video in the web? Give me back my freedom of choice!

  • http://(null) justfinethanku

    put up or shut up adobe. seriously.

    Adobe: “we don’t have a fully operational version of flash that runs efficiantly on a mobile OS yet but we DEMAND that Apple puts it onto their phone!”

    Adobe “we believe in freedom, so we are going to do our best to force Apple to use our propriatary product on their phones, in fact, we are going to file a complaint IN FEDERAL COURT in an attempt to force their hand!!”

    Apple has every right to controll what goes on the device that they designed, built, distributed and sold, Adobe has no right to force them into putting their buggy garbage onto it.

    Posted from BGR Mobile (iPhone).

  • http://(null) justfinethanku

    on a side note, is this Adobes way of saying they are now making flash an open-source project!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

    doubt it.

    Posted from BGR Mobile (iPhone).

    • MikeD

      That would be great if they did.

  • Perspective

    So much for moving on. I still haven’t seen a single crash-free demo on a mobile device. THAT would be a great ad, buy since they can’t do that, we get these ads instead. Why not just post the note on your site like Apple did? Easy: no one, except its own developers, cares about Adobe or it’s products, an even Adobe employees only care on pay day.

  • Drew

    People do have choice. They either take the iPhone as it is or buy something else. Adobe sounds like little crybabies because apple doesn’t want anything to do with flash. Well isn’t that their choice? On one hand you want to promote people having choice but on the other hand you’re mad because apple is exercising their choice. Quiet simple, apple doesn’t want anything on their devices that will mess up user experience. Slow, crashing flash will do that. Get over it adobe and focus on android.

  • Cold Dead Fingers

    I’m sick of Adobe.

  • jeff

    But flash is proprietary. You can make it on any client, sure, but you still have to use Adobe’s PROPRIETARY flash player to actually use it on the web. This can’t be fixed by Apple if it has a fatal flaw and has to wait for Adobe to update it, which puts them completely in Adobe’s mercy. This is something they probably won’t want to do again after almost getting bankrupt back in the late 1990′s

  • Cynder70

    I wish that Adobe would just get the damn product out and onto Android so that everyone could see how wonderful or awful it is.

    The mere fact that Adobe is advocating a write once run anywhere mentality underscores Apple’s argument that it will cater to the lowest common denominator. It’ll work great for all the Android phones with various screen sizes, button configurations, etc… I figure the first mobile device with Flash will be the benchmark minimum platform… Flash will development will always need to be able to operate on that one device for the next five years.

  • Indian Dude

    So, where’s Narayen?

    I’m all about user experience. I support Apple’s decision given their track record of delivering that. I’ve been an avid Adobe user for many years but have been feeling cheated lately with the cost of the upgrades for the bloatware I’m forced to buy every year or so. Not so much love for Adobe here…

    Hey, do you think if they moved all those jobs back from Bangalore they’d be more Mac friendly? Just sayin’…

  • stevejobsisn’tGOD

    I couldn’t care less about adobe getting shunned by Apple. To me, someone who runs BlackBerry phones and Apple computers, it’s deff not an issue. But c’mon, Steve Jobs is trying to be one man changing the world. Loosen the F**k up apple! if the companies actually cared about their products and end user experiences, then they should collaborate to come up with the best user experience they can offer NOW and worry about whats going to happen in 10-15 years when the time comes. We are the one’s lining their pockets and yet all they can give us is a debate about who’s best, who’s right or wrong and what does that do for us? nothing but limits our experience. Apple need to stop being so dam greedy and big headed, and adobe should make a solid effort to fix what is wrong with their product. Otherwise we aren’t going to get anywhere very fast.

    • gareth edwards

      “But c’mon, Steve Jobs is trying to be one man changing the world.”

      and your point? Sometimes it takes one man, sometimes it takes a small handful, sometimes a room full and sometimes an entire nation to get changes made in this world.

      Just because you don’t like Jobs’ stance doesn’t mean that by letting everything possible happen on a platform would create the perfect solution to what you see as the problem.

      Without controls systems F-UP, fact. Whether it it the face of a company making the decision or a group of people or a cross industry body, the fact is rules help define the future as much as the lack of them. You need to have both.

      Too much choice isn’t always a good thing, we forget this.

      And finally, on the matter of GREED. Apple in this case isn’t being greedy, they are saying that you need to create stuff for their system (of which you can become rich doing so) by following their rules to ensure that the end experience is within the expectations of both the system owner and the consumer. Somebody has to be responsible to ensure that it doesn’t start stinking and in this case it’s Apple saying that they want stuff done a certain way. This is a fair stance to take. They don’t have a monopoly on smartphones or the web. Adobe have a monopoly on Flash.

      The GREED aspect is only visible from Adobe’s side. They want Apple to adopt their mobile vapourware, their great panacea for the web but it has A. Never arrived and B. the versions running are not good.

      I like both companies but Adobe has always had it’s eyes on gaining more control. They killed Macromedia dead (the only real competitor to their business), they got a fright when M$ launched Silverlight and didn’t like the competition and see fit to charge professionals (like me) through the nose for products which have serious issues with them. Their upgrades are costly (over the years I have spent more on Adobe software than I have on Hardware) and they are starting to act

      Adobe have been show up in this spat for being the frightened, greedy buggers we have always known them to be and now instead of just manning-up they’re telling the teacher that the kid they’ve picked on for years has had enough and kicked them in the knackers and won’t share his sweets anymore.

      I think most people on this string feel the same way. First, Adobe, sort your house out and get the product out that works properly. 2, when you’ve done that then bring it up and prove it properly not just whining. 3, if Apple still don’t want to play ball (and they won’t – see your failure to implement points 1 & 2) then go suck up to Google, but be warned, they hate you as much as Apple, they just haven’t got round to telling you yet.

  • Kirk

    Guess I’ll neve see them since I use flash blockers in all my browsers.

  • Dan

    Adobe is a bunch of cry babies.

    They were trying to open source the web with SVG. Until they bought Macromedia (and Flash) and now they want to keep it closed.

    Now they’re just being greedy.

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