Quick Links on the Apple-Adobe Battle :: The Future of the Internet

Quick Links on the Apple-Adobe Battle

April 15th, 2010 | by elisabeth | Published in Future of the Internet, Generativity, iphone, news | 4 Comments

On April 3, an Adobe technical project manager demonstrated that Adobe’s new Air software could be used to develop across platforms—he created a Reversi game app that runs on Android, iPhone, iPad, Windows 7, Ubuntu, and OS X (see potential caveats in comments here). Cool! As JZ said, via email, “if this is really possible, I feel better about the iPad, because developers don’t have to choose among platforms to which to devote energy.”

Whoops: Five days later, Steve Jobs announced modified Apple developer rules banning use of “intermediary” tools such as Air—in other words, there will be no more cross-platform development. Adobe employees: not happy.

This is starting to sound pretty antitrust-y. It’s hard to think of any logical reason Apple cares where an app’s code originates—unless, of course, it just wants to hurt Adobe at every turn. Unfortunately, it’s been hard to find knowledgeable people analyzing actual antitrust law—anyone know of a good blog? (For what it’s worth, this old post from the Antitrust Law Blog indicates that the tech sector, including Apple, is under heavier scrutiny from the DOJ and FTC.)

Not surprisingly, there are rumors a lawsuit is brewing.

As usual, there’s another chapter in this saga: Flash translation. In a related but not identical story, Apple has long been hostile to Adobe’s Flash multimedia platform, citing stability and security concerns for refusing to offer Flash support for the iPhone and iPad. This puts websites that use Flash in a tough spot and limits iUsers’ access to content—75% of web video according to Adobe. Enter RipCode, which has developed a server-side translator solution. If an iPhone user attempts to access a Flash video, the “transcoder” detects the platform and translates the video into a compatible format. Since the transcoder is run off the website’s server, it doesn’t require Apple’s approval. Assuming it’s reliable, this is a nice example of a how the generative web allows enterprising developers to solve problems (or, depending on your point of view, do end-runs around the rules).

—By Jennifer Halbleib and Elisabeth Oppenheimer

Responses

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Brad Templeton says:

April 15th, 2010 at 7:51 pm (#)

Well, it is indeed an anti-competitive practice, but Apple surely has reasons to do this for its own business purpose, it is not merely to spite Adobe.

By insisting that all apps for the iPhone be coded in C/C++/Objective C, as the terms do, Apple makes it very unlikely you will be able to port an iPhone app to Android or Blackberry, which are Java based platforms. C code can run on Symbian and Windows Mobile.

So if a developer is choosing how to write their app, if they decide to go for the iPhone they know they will have to rewrite, almost from scratch if they want it on Android. Only a company with market dominance would try that of course, but Apple’s dominance is in high end smartphones, and such phones are still just a minor part of the mobile phone market. Indeed, of the platforms, I don’t know if Apple yet even has the largest share in the smartphone market.

A 2009 study showed Apple at 15%, Symbian at 47% and RIM at 21%. Clearly you would have a tough time doing an antitrust on the company that is in 3rd place in a small sector of the mobile market!

But of course there is one area they are not at all in 3rd place, and that is in attracting app developers. If you want to get distribution for your app and make money from it, it is very hard to ignore the iTunes App Store. Thus you would agree to this ridiculous clause. In spite of all the Symbian phones out there, it just isn’t as attractive an app market.
Andrew says:

April 16th, 2010 at 4:38 am (#)

“any logical reason Apple cares where an app’s code originates”

The argument is the same as not allowing flash. Apps that use a translation layer are usually rather poor and do not follow normal iphone conventions. For example, 99% of flash apps can’t seem to even get simple scroll bars right. Steve likes his apps to all be consistent in look and feel. People buy Apple products for the look and feel.

Antitrust is irrelevant. Apple only has a 25% market share in smart phones. There are plenty of other phones out there for people who prefer a different development situation. Unfortunately open development often results in poor user experience.
Charlie says:

April 16th, 2010 at 7:46 am (#)

Apple hates Adobe for whatever reason and they also hate that many iPhone/iPad developers are writing their apps to run anywhere, particularly on Android. This new iPhone 4 SDK restriction lets them solve two of their ‘problems’ at one time.

Apple wants to stop these “run anywhere” apps to keep Android from having a lot of good apps right away. If they make it so that developers have alot more work to port their apps, then they hope the developers won’t do the port and stay right in fan-boy land.

Lastly, the thought that most apps using a translation layer are poor apps is goofy – have you looked at most of the iPhone apps? Most are poor! Using translation layer or not is no substitute for good app design. They are not related.

Apple just wants it’s usual monopolistic market – but this time it’s called ‘restraint of trade’.
Todd says:

April 20th, 2010 at 7:03 pm (#)

Apple’s tight control of it’s platform has inspired a ton of innovation by people trying to get around it’s strict rules.

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