Adobe Strikes Back With 'We Heart Apple' Ad
"We love you, we just don't want our friends to get the wrong idea about you."
The war between Adobe and Apple was starting to calm down. Though it's unlikely either side was ready to make up, it had been a few days since we'd heard anything from either side. However, that was probably more because Adobe was busy loading the canons with a new ad campaign and not because it was tired of the extremely public feud.
Yesterday, Adobe launched a new, passive aggressive ad campaign that takes a shot at Apple while remaining nice as pie. "Who us? We're just concerned about the users here, ma'am."
Along with these, Adobe's co-founders, Chuck Geschke and John Warnock, published an open letter detailing the company's thoughts on open markets. It's all pretty predictable stuff about not blocking innovation by fragmenting the Web into closed systems.
"Freedom of choice on the web has unleashed an explosion of content and transformed how we work, learn, communicate, and, ultimately, express ourselves," the letter reads. "We believe that consumers should be able to freely access their favorite content and applications, regardless of what computer they have, what browser they like, or what device suits their needs. No company — no matter how big or how creative — should dictate what you can create, how you create it, or what you can experience on the web."
Towards the end of the letter, Geschke and Warnock mention Apple specifically:
"We believe that Apple, by taking the opposite approach, has taken a step that could undermine this next chapter of the web — the chapter in which mobile devices outnumber computers, any individualcan be a publisher, and content is accessed anywhere and at any time."
Full letter is pasted below for those interested in reading the full, unabridged version.
The genius of the Internet is its almost infinite openness to innovation. New hardware. New software. New applications. New ideas. They all get their chance.
As the founders of Adobe, we believe open markets are in the best interest of developers, content owners, and consumers. Freedom of choice on the web has unleashed an explosion of content and transformed how we work, learn, communicate, and, ultimately, express ourselves.
If the web fragments into closed systems, if companies put content and applications behind walls, some indeed may thrive — but their success will come at the expense of the very creativity and innovation that has made the Internet a revolutionary force.
We believe that consumers should be able to freely access their favorite content and applications, regardless of what computer they have, what browser they like, or what device suits their needs. No company — no matter how big or how creative — should dictate what you can create, how you create it, or what you can experience on the web.
When markets are open, anyone with a great idea has a chance to drive innovation and find new customers. Adobe's business philosophy is based on a premise that, in an open market, the best products will win in the end — and the best way to compete is to create the best technology and innovate faster than your competitors.
That, certainly, was what we learned as we launched PostScript® and PDF, two early and powerful software solutions that work across platforms. We openly published the specifications for both, thus inviting both use and competition. In the early days, PostScript attracted 72 clone makers, but we held onto our market leadership by out-innovating the pack. More recently, we've done the same thing with Adobe® Flash® technology. We publish the specifications for Flash — meaning anyone can make their own Flash player. Yet, Adobe Flash technology remains the market leader because of the constant creativity and technical innovation of our employees.
We believe that Apple, by taking the opposite approach, has taken a step that could undermine this next chapter of the web — the chapter in which mobile devices outnumber computers, any individual can be a publisher, and content is accessed anywhere and at any time.
In the end, we believe the question is really this: Who controls the World Wide Web? And we believe the answer is: nobody — and everybody, but certainly not a single company.
Chuck Geschke, John Warnock
Cofounders
Chairmen, Adobe Board of Directors
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Adobe is just acting childish. I hate not having flash on my iPhone, but I think thats not the way they are going to get to apple. Apple also has a point by saying that they want the user to have the best experience out of their products. If an iPhone app or safari running flash crash, Adobe is not going to be the one blamed, Apple is. I think more than half of the people out there don't know what objective C language is, and how their apps are written.
They need to improve themselves and not just go where the money is at. If the android market was bigger than the app store, I bet they wouldn't be so concerned about their products running on the iPhone.
Agree with the second part of the ad but "we *heart* apple is (G) - (A) - (Y)
Feel like Adobe doesn't want to be see as the bad guy in that problem.
But this disappoint me a bit... Someone should really oppose to Apple business "way". Adobe could change his rule like Apple do with lastest OS. He could completely stop support on Mac OS and trade of PC cd-key and do a trade-up program for trade Mac to PC (or give them Windows 7 key). If you have 40% business in Apple OS, this should be easy change it for 100% PC business. At the end, Apple doesn't have create anything... they think they're gods but Mac hardware is a PC, iPod/iPad is someone else technology (HTC perhaps). If you use their SDK, you give them your source code.
No freedom on Apple SDK so they should stop right there.
Adobe is not thinking of us...
Of course not. If Adobe was they wouldn't be abusing the users by removing Photoshop and all other suites from the Mac...oh wait. They already said they weren't as bad Apple and won't mix their users in all of this.
I don't get why people don't understand that Flash and HTML5 are not mutually exclusive. Some people like one more than the other. Just because you like one of them doesn't make anything about the others who don't. Some people talk about Flash being dead now. You often hear after some type of news "last nail in the coffin for Flash!". First of all, how unrealistic is that statement. Secondly, if Flash somehow were to die (don't ask how) right now...how would close to 40% of the web users view video?
Browsers aren't even agreeing on the encoding! So you'd have 2/3rds of movies in H.264 and Firefox users cannot even play it. The so called war isn't "HTML5 vs Flash", it's "HTML5 people vs people who like choice" or "HTML5 vs HTML5+Flash".
Don't forget that I didn't get started on the DRM on Flash that HTML5 doesn't do yet. DRM at the end of a product, eg. what we saw on A.Creed 2, but it is need for online services as Hulu stated.
And calling Adobe childish for using love and/or humor against hate? Please. If anything, Apple is being the stubborn, inconsistent and lying child. The only time Apple embraces innovation is when it benefits them. Note: "them", not you. That can be perfectly seen today when the Wireless Sync app for the iPhone was rejected for no reason.
Badly programmed Flash is bad but it doesn't mean Flash itself is buggy. Is the Flash plugin on Mac perfect? Far from it. Do you have it installed? Yes? I thought you were against Flash. Would Flash on mobile be perfect? Nope, especially not if you prevent itself from developing and improving. Adobe is not a saint but it doesn't ....... over users and the only thing it tells you is to have options.
So, all this war has nothing to do with us, the users, freedom, expression, etc, etc, etc. It has to do with sales.
If you were a business and other business (whom you are not a direct competitor with even) did something that has the possibility of hurting your bottom line, wouldn't you be upset?
The real point is making sure the consumer decides what they want, not one person/company. Remember we want industries to adapt to markets, not forcing markets to adapt to them.
I'm kind of surprised that no one mentioned the "canon" instead of "cannon" typo.
The real point is making sure the consumer decides what they want, not one person/company. Remember we want industries to adapt to markets, not forcing markets to adapt to them.
I agree. However, no one is responsible for making sure that people decide. It will still be the big companies trying to persuade the people to believe what they want them to believe. And now Apple is denying Flash and trying to convince people to move on to HTML5 and abandon Flash altogether.
Having worked with ( programmed in ) Flex and used the Flash Player for so long I have to say that Steve Jobs is right about Flash.
I'm not fan of Stevie and Apple but this time he is right. Apple have done a lot for open source and open standards even though they have proprietary products.
One thing I can mention in Webkit used in so many browsers and mobiles today. Another is CUPS , the Unix printing system used by all Linux distros. Also they make contributions to the gcc and other things probably.
Meanwhile Adobe has done pretty much nothing to open up and clean up their act. The Flash player should have been made open source a long time ago , Sun did it with the JVM . Also the porting to X64 should have been made sooner , the bugs that exist especially on the OS X and Linux versions of the Flash Player are pretty serious.
I'm not expecting open source Photoshop ( would be nice though ) but I'd rather have something open like HTML 5 than something that's probably going to stay proprietary forever like Flash.
Pitting flash against HTML5 is like pitting DivX against Xvid. In the end, it doesn't matter. As long as I have both codecs installed I can view videos in both format and I still win!
The poor saps who own an iPad/Phone/etc however won't be viewing flash ever cause Big Brother Steve says "No! No flash! Bad dog!". So while you apple zealots are mocking flash cause 'Steve said so', I'll be enjoying both flash and HTML5 on my unrestricted browser.
Adobe's products are way too expensive anyways. They'll be long gone soon enough.
if i want to use flash, that's my choice. if i think flash sucks and i want to turn it off, also my choice. i just don't like when some ............. make the choice for me.
I got an idea... How about releasing flash for mobile phones and adding gpu acceleration? How can you complain that apple isn't supporting something that you're not supporting yet?
Steve has only been against closed systems since the original Mac came out in 1984 (how fitting). You couldn't even open the thing without a Torx screwdriver. Apple didn't allow expansion cards until after he left (Mac II); his first system when he came back was the iMac. Steve controls your hardware - now he wants to control your software, what you do online, and even what applications you use.
John Warnock has a PhD - he is really smart (I met him at Comdex many years ago). Anyway - someone wrote about HTML5 - how much do you wanna bet that Safari will leave some function out of HTML5 for this reason?
High five to Adobe. Someone needs to start a Boycott Apple site much like the late "Official Microsoft Boycott" site (used to be vcnet.com/bms). Apple is out of control and my estimation is that it'll be a good 5 or more years before the DOJ finally reigns them in properly.
"Adobe was busy loading the canons"
Unfortunately it looks like this article loaded the wrong "cannon"
I still think Adobe should have withheld every Adobe CS5 product for at least 6 months, maybe even a year, from Apple just to get at Jobs. I find it humorous how Adobe is trying to take the high road further making Steve Jobs look like an ............ Jobs can't afford to loose anymore hair, seriously, you live in California. Smoke some .............Steve and climb back into that hippie environment you spawned out of.
^^^^ LOL
Don't just throw "passive-aggressive" comments without knowing what that means. Just cause something resembles that, doesn't make it so.
just as some defense for flash... as developers we could have 'chose' java or came up with our own 3rd party plugins... but, the masses chose flash, and to be honest there are a lot of perks to it... but i think the key point is we 'chose'... we weren't 'forced' by any means to use flash... the choice was on web developers, and that's one of the paths they took...
now is flash the 'best' option... no... but that does 'not' mean some .............should feel they have the right to axe what is a credible and well used option just... well... because their product does not support it and you have to come up with an excuse to save face... it's like the idiot who buys a boat and forgets to grab the free life jackets who justifies it later by saying 'well i didn't want them anyway... they sucked...' ... typically that comment is followed by someone saying 'douchebag' under a cough...
that and... why does everyone focus on flash for video..? i mean... every single freaking banner ad on the web uses flash... and i believe there's a lot more of them than videos O_o... i do agree it would be nice not to 'have' to use flash as a video container... but i believe flash/flex's most attractive points are it's ease of development, integration with other adobe products, cross platform/browser compatibility and it's ungodly market saturation...
I don't understand why Adobe thinks that they are the only ones allowed to have a very closed system.
Anyways, I'm anti flash - like the rest of the world.
flash is awesome, the script is easy and if you want to code with 5 thats cool but I just don't feel you can pull off the same artsy feel
the effects sure but it won't have what do you call it...zazz
This entire Flash vs HTML5 thing is just getting annoying. Seriously it doesn't matter if Flash sucks. It doesn't matter if it's the worst thing in the history of the world! The point is that we get to chose whether we want to use it or not. If you hate it then thats fine, just don't use Flash. But if you want Flash and don't have the choice then thats when the problem arises. It's a simple thing really. People like Steve Jobs can't go around dictating what we can and can't do based on personal opinion. It's not his choice whether we want Flash or not.
As for the ad, I think it's quite funny. =P
+1^
solve the problem, dont buy a new mac!
the new macs suck and are basically just pcs in a different shinier case.
the older macs (g4, etc, were greeat machinery. the new ones are crap, and ive given up on apple and use windwos pcs now (but i still have an old mac (g4 733mhz) that i useamybe once a month for like 5mins...
Saw a different full page ad in the Wall Street Journal. It got my attention so I read the text. After reading the text I was briefly confused about the issue.
I dont know, Im no Apple fan and I hate how they make you use only overpriced Apple stuff, but I have a hard time being lectured by somebody that charges $500 for a picture editing program.
Adobe should try to develop a little better for Linux IMO... All new Google OS-products are some-what Linux based, so there's a nice market right there for portable and PC market. Wich, I'd say, is going to grow a lot in the couple of years.
Cheers!
this is all a moot discussion since microsoft rules ALL
flash is good for many more media related uses than html 5 (though html 5 may use less CPU usage when it comes to video)
The argument about flash crashing browsers is due to bad flash content and not the plugin. I can create flash content that will crash a web browser quickly.
the same can be done using javascript
and I am sure that bad HTML5 code can also crash a browser.
If Adobe wants to do something smart and make a GOOD point.
Make Linux version of their Creative Suites.
Hey, MS and Apple has give you (Adobe) the finger... so you might as well look at expanding into a market that would GROW even more so, with Adobe products.
NATIVE... not emulation or with WINE, whatever.
Bad move Adobe - you don't like apples nuts and then bite em.
How about releasing a 64-bit flash for a change?