And another thing . . . Adobe and Apple iPad HTML5 spat heats up

So the Adobe / Apple spat is heating up, now that one of Adobe's tech evangelists has responded to Apple's inclusion of "anti-Flash" language in its iPhone software version 4.0 licensing agreement.

Lee Bigelow posted what is best described as a rant against the license restrictions, which say, in part:

"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. (e.g., Applications that link to Documented APIs through an intermediary translation or compatibility layer or tool are prohibited)."

One paragraph sums up Bigelow's feelings, as he goes for the jugular in questioning why any programmer would support the iPad / iPhone ecosystem with its HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript-only implementations, requiring content to be coded only in C language derivations:

I am positive that there are a large number of Apple employees that strongly disagree with this latest move. Any real developer would not in good conscience be able to support this. The trouble is that we will never hear their discontent because Apple employees are forbidden from blogging, posting to social networks, or other things that we at companies with an open culture take for granted.

Except, after posting the blog, Brimelow was forced to redact a line. And not in the typical way that bloggers do it, with a strikethrough, but fully remove the line.

The original post read:

What is clear is that Apple has timed this purposely to hurt sales of CS5. . . . 

The new post reads:

[Sentence regarding Apple's intentions redacted at request from Adobe]. This has nothing to do whatsoever with bringing the Flash player to Apple’s devices. That is a separate discussion entirely. What they are saying is that they won’t allow applications onto their marketplace solely because of what language was originally used to create them. 


Later, Bigelow does use a strike-through to redact the line that says he's speaking in his official Adobe capacity.

Now let me put aside my role as an official representative of Adobe for a moment as Speaking purely for myself, I would look to make it clear what is going through my mind at the moment. Go screw yourself Apple.


Open culture proponents meet crisis management public relations and investor relations practitioners. Ugh.