Adobe has responded to Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ lengthy rant about the decision not to include Flash in the iPad and iPhone OS 4.0 by saying it has already begun to distance itself from Apple’s products and revealing that Flash for Google’s Android devices is coming in June.
Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs this morning published his views on why Flash was no longer suitable for the Apple family of mobile products and in a stinging attack said Flash was to blame for Mac crashes and the iPhone’s notorious battery problems.
However, in a dignified response, Adobe’s CTO Kevin Lynch said that the primary issue at hand is that Apple is choosing to block Adobe’s widely used runtimes, as well as a variety of technologies from other providers.
“Clearly, a lot of people are passionate about both Apple and Adobe and our technologies. We feel confident that were Apple and Adobe to work together as we are with a number of other partners, we could provide a terrific experience with Flash on the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.
“However, as we posted last week, given the legal terms Apple has imposed on developers, we have already decided to shift our focus away from Apple’s iPhone and iPad devices for both Flash Player and AIR.
“We are working to bring Flash Player and AIR to all the other major participants in the mobile ecosystem, including Google, RIM, Palm (soon to be HP), Microsoft, Nokia and others.”
And then Lynch dropped the bombshell – the Flash product for mobile devices that Jobs had scoffed would be a long time coming is actually coming to Google Android devices in June!
“We look forward to delivering Flash Player 10.1 for Android smartphones as a public preview at Google I/O in May, and then a general release in June.
“From that point on, an ever increasing number and variety of powerful, Flash-enabled devices will be arriving, which we hope will provide a great landscape of choice,” Lynch wrote.
By John Kennedy
