Adobe man to Apple: 'Go screw yourself' Adobe platform evangelist Lee Brimelow has told Apple to "go screw yourself," upbraiding the Cupertino cult for banning iPhone and iPad applications translated from code Steve Jobs doesn't like. Such code includes - most famously - Adobe Flash. Yesterday, Apple released an updated SDK for the upcoming iPhone 4.0 OS, and unlike …
It's nice to know that at Adobe only has the best interests of its customers at heart.
Oh, no, wait, they're a bunch of money grubbing little shits who annually screw over most of the creative world by charging obscene amounts for their software.
Glad we got that one sorted.
Adobe has never accepted any sort of criticism, constructive or otherwise. They insist their buggy crap is the best stuff on the planet, and refuse to make any bugfixes or improvements.
For example, flash stopped working in Firefox on Debian until I set GDK_NATIVE_WINDOWS=TRUE. Why? WTF? Nobody really knows. It's just a magic word you have to say. And it took many hours of googling and hair-pulling so I could use some work-related sites that the assholes insisted on coding in flex.
That's why I'm forced to agree with Jobs for a change. I doubt he can bash them hard enough to get any customer service out of them, but at least he's raised the issue and gotten some movement on it.
I have always bitched about flash and refused to use it, but people just looked at me funny and treated me like some sort of net-luddite. Now they say "oh you're just jumping on the Apple bandwagon..."
Quit ranting at Adobe. Eclipse also doesn't work either unless you set GDK_NATIVE_WINDOWS=1.
GDK changed from using X11 Windows to client side windows. Some existing programs are going to have an issue with this since they might be calling X11 functions and these could easily break if GDK windows don't actually correspond to X11 windows.
I have Adobe CS2. It was very expensive. It must be installed _exactly_ the way that _Adobe_ wants, and if I make any changes, it breaks, as in it decides that I've got an unlicensed install, and there's all kinds of problems until I delete the install (_all_ of the install, and it dumps stuff over half the damn system) and do a _complete_ reinstall. Microsoft, by comparison, is sensible. MS Office can be installed where I want it and how I want it, and if I modify the install after the fact the only drawback is that the MS patcher won't patch stuff that's not where it expects it to be. And, as the MS patcher has (many) other problems, I tend to avoid using it unless I absolutely have no choice, so this is not a big deal.
I still use CS2 on my personal Mac for several reasons, one being the cost of replacement, and another being the simple fact that the only upgrade I'm interested in is 64-bit capability, and _Adobe does not have 64-bit versions of any of its CS software for Macs, though it does for Windows_. Frankly, they're not getting one penny more from me until there's feature parity for Macs. Period. Not at the price they demand. I've got an older G5 running an older version of Mac OS X upon which CS2 will run without problems (so long as it's installed the Official Adobe Way, no 'jailbreaks' allowed) and that will remain my CS platform unless and until a future version delivers the feature parity I want. Note that CS5 is not going to be that version, based on currently available info.
We still use CS2 at the office, and it does run on Snow Leopard (though it doesn't like it) but I expect that it's gonna break with the next version of the OS. The Unofficial Word is that Apple is preparing to unleash a suite which will be in direct competition with CS, only a lot cheaper, Real Soon Now. If that happens, and if said suite is as least as good as CS2, we'll be moving to that one, and not buying Adobe stuff ever again.
I've been a Photoshop user since version 1. it looks as though I'll stop being a Photoshop user in the near future. And it will be because of the way that Adobe has ramped up the price will failing to deliver features available on the Windows side. I suspect that I am not alone in my sentiments. I further suspect that Adobe could fix this, if they wanted. And I further suspect that they have no (current) desire to do this. This may change when Apple releases its CS killer and Adobe's marketshare falls off the roof, but then it'll be a tad late.
CS2 was written/coded for OS X 10.4 on the G5 platform. It will NOT work properly on the Intel Macs because by that time CS3 had been released for over 6 months.
What do you want? Should Adobe go back and re-write CS2 applications after they had a newer native release already shipping? That' insane.
I wasn't aware that there was exactly one way to create an image, or a poster, or a web site, or a PDF, or even a flash animation for that matter. Silly me. Clearly Adobe have you over a barrel because there is absolutely no other way to do these things without their expensive tools. Oh wait there are countless ways, many of which are completely free.
This is just Apple again demonstrating why a closed platform is a horrible idea for everybody. They don't want Adobe selling a tool which spits out a valid executable so they've banned the concept outright. A reasonable company would have shared appropriate technical knowledge that would allow 3rd party tools to generate compliant code. Then again Apple aren't a reasonable company.
My guess is DrXym is a hobbyist and his livelihood is not dependent on what he produces with his graphics software. I've tried every product out there including the infamous Gimp and can say without a doubt nothing can do what Adobe Photoshop does (as well as it does it) and so yes anyone who needs the power of Photoshop is locked in. I don't approve of Adobe's (and for that matter Apple's or Microsoft's) business practices but I buy the right tool for the job which means I will continue to give Adobe and Apple and Microsoft my money when they are making the best tool for my needs but I also reserve the right to complain about their business practices and products.
Come on.. I'm a Linux user, so perhaps more aware of "lock in" than most. This is not it.
Adobe produce the number one image manipulation application. And truth be told, they justify a lot of pro users buying a Mac.
But how exactly do they lock anybody in. By making super complicated integrated applications that need a whole Adobe stack? No.. Sorry. Photoshop + Win/OSX and you are good to go.
By only outputting images that Adobe products and nothing else support? Nope.. Again, no lockin.
By providing functionality that nothing else does.. Ahhhh..
This is called functionality. It's what you are paying for you twit.
Lockin is a forced use because the application or platform deliberately makes it as difficult as possible to move to an alternative product for artificial reasons.. Closed unique file formats, closed superficially patented protocols etc.. Not features that nobody else has.
Strangely enough, I haven't heard many cases of Adobe suing other image editing companies for providing similar tools, or vice versa.. And I'm sure they have patents on more than slidy unlock controls and window decorations.
Something for the fanboys to chew on.. Apple is a tiny niche. Holding on for dear life to the little market it has carved out in graphic design agencies and as poser gear for trendy gits. . Not some incredibly valuable corporate market.
If Adobe decided to abandon Photoshop on Apple OSs, which do you think would survive in graphic design agencies.. Apple or Adobe?
So skip the whole Adobe whine. Not fooling anybody. If your iProduct can't use flash, get over it. They are low power devices that are not designed for heavy processor tasks. Nobody expects them to. And stop parroting everything that his Steveness tells you. He is a salesman. Not the messiah.
You acknowledge that Photoshop is superior and then complain it commands a premium...
At the end of the day Photoshop just spits out images, i.e. a bunch of bytes in a well defined format. If you don't like how much Adobe charges to manipulate some graphics, use another tool. There are plenty out there. Not every one needs the Photoshop feature set, and even if you do, it's not the only tool high end professional tool if you do. If you don't like their monopoly, just use aa competitor. Better yet, put a bug bounty on the GIMP to implement whatever features it's missing and then benefit from free licensing for ever after.
That's why they won't be seeing a penny more from me unless and until they deliver the features I want.
As for the various free/cheap alternatives... I use several, such as Graphic Converter, to do _some_ of what Photoshop does. The problem is that _nothing_ out there does _everything_ that Photoshop does, and that Photoshop does things that _nothing else_ does. If there was a viable alternative I would be using it.
And, yes, I've tried using the Gimp. No, it won't do what I need.
Let's see... For Just a PhotoShop 7 license a few years back, I was able to by the entire Pro Creative Suite 1 for $499 US. That include Indesign 3/CS, Illustrator 10/CS. Upgrading the three would have been over $700 (I had legal licenses to all of them). I do professional graphic design & marketing.
Adobe has an 18 month release cycle. I skipped CS2 and used CS for 36 months and then gave Adobe $799 for the CS3 version. 36 months later I'll be giving Adobe another $799 for CS5.
So what do I get for paying Adobe their "money grubbing" software prices?
I charge my client MONEY for the time I spend using Adobe's software! I keep time sheets for the various things I do like layout time, photo-editing,vector-artwork and web pages. I get PAID nicely for the ability to use my design talents and get projects out the door using Adobe's software. So My $800 per 36 months nets me over $80,000 in the same time frame.
Glad we got that one sorted out.
well that helps for decision making
I was meant to replace a mac mini ... that will become a shuttle pc, and as for my iphone contract renewal ... I am going to look at nexus .
Can't stand Apple's attitude at the moment. Consumers should react !
Jobs stance toward flash is ridiculous, at his level he probably knows very little about it and is simply repeating what his technologists are saying. Typical in IT morons:
don't know something =negative judgement,
rather than seeing technologies for their merits.
and then iAd ... need I say more. I for one find apple products very good, but I must join the boycott ! viva la revolution !
They do, in ever increasing numbers ... just look at Apple's quarterly figures.
Consumers don't care about the technology, they care about the experience it gives them.
Jobs may not be an engineer but he is no IT moron. He may not be the nicest person in the world but that does not make him a devil either.
Nexus is nice, Desire is better.
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2010/04/06/review_phone_htc_desire/
The only downside is that HTC Sense is a bit of a sod to code for as bits of it diverge from the Android standard.
If you're a code monkey go for the N1, if you're an average user, Desire.
HTH
Jobs understands Flash perfectly. In particular he understands that if it is allowed to run on his mobile platforms then there is no need for an App Market controlled by Apple - everyone can just run Flash "apps".
Jobs hates other people - whether users or developers - having any level of control over "his" platforms and will do anything, and spew out any nonsense about technical issues, to prevent it.
The man is, and I mean this quite literally, insane. His control-freakery has long since past the bounds of what any rational person might exhibit and he needs serious treatment. But, ironically, as a control-freak he's not likely to allow a therapist anywhere near him.
This isn't about Steve Jobs, this is about Apple. You probably are correct about Apple not wanting another developer to make apps for their platform, and bypass their App Store.
Because at the end of the day, these are Apple's devices that they've created, on an Apple platform, with an Apple backend store.
And Adobe want access to all that for nothing? Or just bypass it all together?
So yes, Apple are right in wanting to protect what is theirs, not only because it supplies a better overall experience for the user, but because at the end of the day, they are protecting Apple's own profits. And what company doesn't look out for itself in the first place?
Adobe have created a leech product.
"Because at the end of the day, these are Apple's devices that they've created, on an Apple platform, with an Apple backend store.
And Adobe want access to all that for nothing? Or just bypass it all together?"
Sure. I know I want them to, as a user. Why shouldn't they?
"Adobe have created a leech product."
Well, if they did, they did it over a decade ago. How clever to go to all that bother in case one day Steve Jobs was to release a mobile phone that had a CPU in it.
Seriously, if you're so much of a fanboy that you believe the crap you posted, I'd recommend you just post your wages to Apple every month and cut out the delay in between.
Lock-in is bad for everyone except the paranoid fool in charge of the lock - and in the long run it would probably be bad for him too if he wasn't living on borrowed time anyway. The last hundred+ years of consumer rights legislation has been as a reaction to exactly this sort of shit from manufacturers who think that after we buy their product they still retain some sort of ownership of it. They don't, and as long as Jobs believes that they do he can stick his shiny plastic tat up his arse.
IF you knew what you were talking about, you'd acknowledge that Adobe *can* produce apps for the platform that bypass the App Store totally. In fact, it was the way that Apple originally intended apps to be delivered. It's all here: http://www.apple.com/webapps/whatarewebapps.html
As for "growing up", take some of your own advice and understand that Adobe, or for that matter anyone else, don't have a pre-ordained "right" to anything. Where does this over-inflated sense of entitlement come from? Apple, Microsoft et al. don't exist at Adobe's convenience. Apple, like it or not, are entirely entitled to decide how apps are written and deployed on THEIR platform. Don't like it? Don't develop for them. Simple!
When i hand over my hard earned whiskey vouchers in exchange for a piece of plastic crap, shiny or otherwise, I still cling to the quaint, somewhat outmoded idea that it's MINE, and that I have some (significant) input into deciding it's future.
clearly i wanderd in here by mistake, looking for www.theantiquesroadshow.com.
I don't know just how technically competent he is, but I get the feeling he's probably been screwed by some flash-based site that crashes all the time, and had to throw his macbook across the room and "now it's personal". I know I've been in the same situation myself (except for not owning any Macs). At least he's got the power to do something about it.
Maybe the same reason they can't fix any bugs - they don't know how half their code works anymore?
Ok, that's a joke. More seriously though, Reading the huge Risk assessment section of their SEC filing (link below), they seem quite aware that the landscape has evolved around them while they've been sitting on their laurels. They've got to do something if they want to save Flash... they need to prepare it for tomorrow's web.
http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/796343/000079634310000007/form_10q.htm#riskfactors
If Adobe "deep links" into Apple's proprietary platform as it has done, then flashers are still tied to Adobe tools, and Adobe extends the reach of the Flash platform; the very thing that Microsoft crushed Netscape for doing. Flash also gets the enormous lift of a direct developer to punter marketplace that actually works. Flash developers pile in.
But if Adobe generates source code, they are providing a free tool for flashers to escape the control of Adobe, and move across to an ecosystem that works. Adobe shrinks by opening the exits.
If Adobe wakes up before it dies, their only option to grow Flash is to become a platform owner. Microsoft has just realised this, and it's currently called Windows Phone 7.
Maybe it's not HTC, but Adobe that's thinking of buying Palm.
Yep - if you look at what Apple are saying it looks to me more like they don't want you to create an App that actually exposes the API to the user - as a shim that runs, for example, some form of BASIC. That is, lets people write interpreted code themselves that directly affects the API. You know - so the phone part won't get stuffed and stop working.
but with one caveat, the multitasking in iPhoneOS 4.0 is not easy to handle. Actionscript translated to Objective-C, C or C++ might not handle the necessary functioncalls effectvely or not at all.
A converted flash application might behave like some unconverted ones do on Macs, i.E they take a whole core and run down the battery in no time.
If notebook makers started benchmarking battery lifetime with farmville instead of Office, we won't have notebooks rated at >4h :)
It's a licensing barrier that, per El Reg's other story, stipulates that "Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine, and only code written in C, C++, and Objective-C may compile and directly link against the Documented APIs". So if you originally write an application in ActionScript then submit it to Apple, they can reject it for not being originally written in Objective-C, no doubt by looking for other traces of the Flash runtime support stuff rather than at the quality of the application itself.
Without actually knowing US law, I wonder how enforceable it would be if it ever came to trial given the sort of things that tend to matter in legal systems about the proportionality of a measure compared to the relative bargaining power of the parties involved. In practice I wouldn't be surprised if it is actually legal and, in any case, whether anyone will ever even bother to take it to court. I guess there's an anti-competition angle since Apple could in practice be distorting competition in the wider market by using its iPhone platform to limit software support for other platforms (in that Objective-C is Apple specific in practice and in any case has no ANSI or even K&R-style definitive spec), but it's probably a bit vague for a government body to actually step in, given that you can just write 90% of your cross-platform app in C++ and use Objective-C just for the front end.
Well Unity iPhone does similar -- it creates a complete Objective-C package which is then compiled -- but Apple's new odious T&C / TOC could read like this is banned too.
There are many worried Unity developers right now, including me, and other middleware platforms too (such as Appcelerator Titanium).
Here's what Unity's CEO has to say about it:
http://blogs.unity3d.com/2010/04/10/unity-and-the-iphone-os-4-0/
Honestly, could the guy have shot himself in the foot any more? First version: "Apple are the evil empire, censoring their employees and preventing them from expressing their view, whereas Adobe are wonderful champions of free speech, freeing the creative community from the shackles of oppression". Second Version: "[Redacted at Adobe's request] Adobe are wonderful (my own opinion) [Redacted at Adobe's request], freeing the creative community..." If one of the central pillars of your argument is that Adobe will allow you to go off-message if you want as opposed to Apple, you'd better be damn sure they will...
And I find it hard to be sympathetic to Adobe- I run a small tech company and I've wanted to get Creative Suite for a while now to build a company website and have a play with Flash, but £1,500 for the suite is a barrier to 'casual' entry and seems to exist only so that Adobe can regularly fleece the creative community (that they're apparently an enabler for) every 18 months by adding 4 or 5 features to each component of the suite, and mandating that you spend several hundred pounds to upgrade- even Microsoft don't have such a bare-facedly greedy approach these days.
It's also quite ironic for Adobe to position Apple as the bad guys who are trying to lock the internet down and control everything when their defence of Flash amounts to "Ha ha, you HAVE to use us 'cause we've got the internet video market sown up"- they're hardly an Open Source, Open Standards champion...
£1500 for an entire suite of professional grade tools is a positive bargain. And it doesn't require you perform mandatory upgrades. If you want to see a scam, go look at how much Rational tools cost for example.
If you run a small tech company you should know all this. If money is so tight, you could easily build a website with cheaper tools, even tools costing nothing.
Photoshop - Sure
Acrobat - Definitely!
Flash - I hate Flash-only sites. I'd only use 'em for games, but anything beefier will be done using JSF or Struts. HTML good! Flash bad!
Erm ... I think I just passed through all the stuff I would use from 'em. There was another one (PageMaker) which they acquired from Aldus, but it seems they wanted everyone to use its expensive sibling InDesign so they killed the app in which my CV and most of my serious documents were made in. Ironically, PageMaker was one of the Mac's "killer apps", looks like Jobs doesn't care about the companies that gave them the killer apps...
"Oh, no, wait, they're a bunch of money grubbing little shits who annually screw over most of the creative world by charging obscene amounts for their software."
If we swap "software" for "hardware" and then discuss their overly territorial and near psychotic attitude to banning applications, gee, we could almost be talking about Apple.
I could easily turn this into a diatribe about Apple's "we like creativity, providing people create what we say they can, how we say they can. Non Apple Approved Creativity is baaaaddd" rant, but let's face it folks, all companies are as bad as each other. Every organisation is guilty in part or in full of the great crime of "trying to control the market place". Admittedly I feel that Apple is one of the most unpleasent because of it's two facedness, but everyone is guilty, from Car firms, to computer firms to med tech firms.
My advice... get over it.
'copters - 'cos I love 'em.....
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I was waiting for it." ...... Destroy All Monsters Posted Saturday 10th April 2010 17:48 GMT
And the postmodern attack vector, for the next phase, Destroy All Monsters, is ......... Everyone Rocks.
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Welcome to the Cinderella RockerFeller Project for Civil CyberSpace Pioneers and Earthed Base Fellow Followers/Leading Support Troupers.
I'm sure I read somewhere that more than 50% of CS sales are to OS X users. I'm sure Jobs calculated that Adobe can't afford to walk away from OS X before embarking on his anti-Flash crusade. Say what you want about his methods, but his history with Microsoft suggests that he's willing to swallow his corporate pride — when he returned to Apple they took a huge wedge of money from Microsoft in return for an IP cross-licensing deal and a five year commitment by Microsoft to provide Mac versions of Office and Internet Explorer. Safari appeared only after Microsoft announced the winding down of IE for Mac development and Apple quietly put Appleworks out to pasture, implicitly accepting that Microsoft own the office market.
That said, Adobe have done a lot to lock out the competition, especially since buying Macromedia and killing Freehand. About ten years ago Corel tried to reposition CorelDraw as a Photoshop/Illustrator rival, rolling in a photo editor and rebranding as "CorelDraw Graphics Suite".
I think the calculation ends up being that if Adobe walk away from OS X they lose more than 50% of their customers in the short to medium term and in so doing they at least open the door to rivals. Even if it made Apple lose 100% of their desktop customers that's less than 50% of their income stream. So if Adobe walks away there's a real risk it'll hurt Adobe more than Apple.
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I've had an ipod touch for a while now after buying it off a friend who upgraded to an iPhone proper.
I was trying to make my mind up whether to go iPhone, which despite its locked down system isn't too bad, or an Android. Well given that the locked down on the Apple is only getting worse I am 100% convinced to go with Android.
Thanks Mr Jobs, you saved me any more thoughts on the matter, decision made :]
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