Adobe: We won't spend any more time on Flash to iPhone features
Mike Chambers, Principal Product Manager for developer relations for the Flash Platform at Adobe, has informed Flash developers that Adobe is unlikely to make any further investment in Flash CS5's export to iPhone app functionality.
Chambers says that while Flash CS5 will still export to the current iPhone OS 3, developers should be aware that Apple will most likely pull any apps built in CS5 and ported to an iPhone app from the App Store in the near future. He also believes that Apple's enforcement of the infamous clause 3.3.1 of the developer agreement will be capricious/selective enough to permit some other alternative development environments through the gates.
Apple and Adobe's cat and mouse game has been going on almost as long at the iPhone has existed. Today's statements from Adobe effectively ring down the curtain on future development of the Flash CS5 iPhone features, barring any change of heart from Apple. But after previously admitting that Apple's no-Flash policy could hurt business, where will Adobe go with mobile Flash from here on out?
To Android phones and tablets, apparently. Chambers says that Adobe is taking what they've learned in trying to develop Flash for iPhone and using that experience in applying Flash Player 10.1 and Adobe AIR 2.0 to other mobile operating systems.
Despite the assertions from both the technical and executive branches of Adobe that Flash's relevance to the mobile space is certain and sure, there does not seem to be a significant hitch in Apple's device sales that can be attributed to a lack of Flash player. As GigaOM points out, even while CEO Shantanu Narayen was suggesting to Fox Business News that Flash-free devices were going to miss out on video content like the interview he was giving, it was no trouble at all to watch that clip via HTML5 streaming on an iPad.
Update: CNET's Steven Shankland got a comment from Apple (!) responding to Chambers' proposition that Adobe's products are about the openness of build-once, run anywhere: spokeswoman Trudy Miller says "Someone has it backwards--it is HTML5, CSS, JavaScript, and H.264 (all supported by the iPhone and iPad) that are open and standard, while Adobe's Flash is closed and proprietary."
