Due to a reported change in Apple's license agreement restricting what tools programmers can use to develop for the iPhone, Adobe is abandoning their "Flash to iPhone" conversion tool that is a major part of their new Flash CS5 release.
According to Adobe's Mike Chambers, "we will still be shipping the ability to target the iPhone and iPad in Flash CS5. However, we are not currently planning any additional investments in that feature."
Adobe should put a Flash to HTML5 converter in CS6
Apple is well within its rights to control how applications for the iPhone are developed. If the App Store had a significant percentage of apps originally developed in Flash, they would become dependent on Adobe keeping its conversion tool up to speed with new versions of the iPhone OS or potentially suffer many crashing iPhone apps built with CS5.
Considering the colorful relationship between the two technology companies, Adobe should have anticipated Apple's move and spent their time developing Flash to HTML5 conversion functionality for CS5. Flash is slowly going away and Adobe leveraging their developer community by providing a path to the future is a smart move.
Does this affect other iPhone development tools?
There is still some question as to how Apple's new license agreement affects other intermediary development tools like Novell's MonoTouch. However, it's obvious that Adobe's CS5 was the primary target of Apple's decision.
Local Columbus firms developing iPhone apps also might see their development strategies change because of this decision.
While cross-platform mobile development could be a winner for business apps, games and apps that play music and video need to "get close to the metal" to perform at their best. Because of that, most high-quality iPhone development shops care little about Adobe's move.
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Comments
Nothing changes, reminds me of Microsoft 10+ years ago.
Certainly Apple is playing hard ball with their dominant position.
Adobe is not exactly open either though, let's not forget that.
Flash (the plugin) needs to die, fast, for Flash (the IDE) to survive in a HTML5 world.
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