Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Adobe should learn from Apple

So there's a huge flap about Section 3.3.1 of the new iPhone 4.0 SDK agreement. The summary is that Apple doesn't want Flash on the iPhone and set out in legal language to prevent it from getting onto the platform, and a lot of other 3rd party tools are receiving collateral "splash" damage.

The takeaway from this is that Adobe really should've learned one of the operating principles at Apple: secrecy. Do not pre-announce products. It could've developed the iPhone-target feature furtively and sprung it as a surprise announcement on CS5 launch day. Of course Apple still wields veto power over app approval in the App Store, but by then it would have to be on the defensive and contend with irate Flash developers. Adobe would've made money from sales of CS5 and rightfully lay the blame on Apple.

Of course, if Adobe pursued this strategy, the losers would be developers, so it pays to do one's homework. Not everyone who insists on freely-available (as in: free of any entity's control, freedom to tinker, gratis etc), development platforms or languages is entirely insane.

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