Apple takes a bite out of Adobe

---

Apple and Adobe; for nearly two decades these companies have played a major part in the development of the web. Together, both companies have forged a strong alliance in creating products and software to enhance online user experience, with Adobe’s software range and Apple’s Mac systems working hand-in-hand.

Over the past couple of years however, some cracks have started to form in this long standing relationship - with Apple showing reluctance to include Adobe’s Flash product on their breakthrough iPhone and iPad product releases.

What Steve Said

---

Momentum has recently been added to the debate when Apple CEO Steve Jobs publicly released a statement about their decision – citing performance, stability and security issues as some of the main reasons behind not supporting flash on their iTouch systems.

This decision comes much to the dismay to Adobe, as Flash forms a major piece of the company’s flagship “Creative Suite” software and is one of their most popular and profitable products.

Adobe have hit back with a statement on their website debunking some of the concerns that Apple has raised about Flash as well as promoting choice with Flash as an alternative to Apple’s Development Kit.

What is Flash, and why is it so popular?

---

For those who are unfamiliar - Adobe Flash is a development platform, which gives web designers/developers the ability to add interactive elements to websites and offline applications.  Best chances are that you have seen what Flash can do many times without even realising it - in fact Flash is used throughout this website - take a look at the top of the news/blog page and you will notice our interactive notice board or the feature banners on our homepage, both of these elements are created in Flash and powered by Flash Player.

Flash has now been part of web architecture for quite a long time now – first emerging back in the early to mid 1990s. Back then the ability of Flash was fairly limited allowing only basic animation and simple interactivity. Despite its humble beginnings, Flash has since revolutionised how websites are made based on how it has wowed internet users worldwide. In more recent editions it has evolved on and off the web, now in common use in the development of complex applications with flexibility to be used for almost any imaginable purpose as well as its continued success as a graphics, animation and interactivity medium for the web.

One emerging use and a large part of Flash’s success over the past few years is in the online delivery of high quality video. The popularity of Flash with video has been so great that recent figures have exploded showing that 75% of video on the web is now delivered via Flash Player. A large part of this success is from the result of online juggernaut Youtube using Flash technology to power their stock standard player to deliver their videos to millions of online users. Despite its success, Flash now has a rather large cloud hanging over its head – this comes with the emergence of HTML5 and CSS3 allowing animation and video to be added natively onto web pages without the need for additional software or plugins.

So, is this the end for Flash?

---

There is a lot of debate currently underway questioning the future success of Flash on the web with the continuing development of HTML5 marching forward.

With the rising debate on HTML5, CSS3 and the Apple versus Adobe battle, there is a lot of talk in the industry that HTML5 could even replace flash as the web’s favourite interactive and animation tool. However taking both sides of the debate into account our opinion is to disagree with the HTML5 hype and believe that Flash will probably remain at the forefront of web interactivity for a long time to come.

Why do we believe that? When it all comes down to it there are a lot of things that Flash can do that HTML5 and CSS3 simply can’t match – not at this time anyway, for instance:

• In the examples of HTML5 animation that we have seen so far – Flash still vastly outperforms HTML5 when it comes to frame rate and overall performance of animation
• Flash still allows a higher level of interactivity and customisation in comparison to what HTML5 and CSS3 currently offers
• While Flash requires its own software/plugin to run, it is currently more available than HTML5 across today’s major web browsers such as Internet Explorer, as Flash player is installed across 98% of internet connected computers and results appear more consistently across the most popular web browsers

• Flash has the ability to extend applications beyond the web in comparison to HTML5 which is exclusive to the web. Recent examples of Flash’s extendibility include the effective expansion into online/offline training tools and applications using Adobe Flex – based on the Flash Engine
• HTML5 & CSS3 are still very much in the draft phases, meaning there is a lot of uncertainty as to where it will go. In comparison Flash is well established and has the backing of an expansive development community
• Despite Apple being reluctant about adding Flash support in the mobile space – Google and Blackberry in contrast seem to have no concerns about allowing flash on their mobile platforms.
  In fact, Google’s and Blackberry’s contrast of willingness to support flash adds weight to suspicions that Apple’s main reasoning behind disallowing Flash on their platform is to stop flash from competing with applications purchased from Apple's very own App Store.
  

In Conclusion

---

Flash is here to stay...at least for the time being. The only thing we may see changing in the future is the way it will be used to deliver animation and interactivity on the web.

Whilst Flash currently faces some opposition against Apple and the mobile space, the fact is that it has made leaps and bounds in improving its engine for mobile in recent years, with more improvements yet to come which will ensure it will continue to be represented in this space in some form. Flash’s history of strength and overall effect on the web cannot be underestimated.