Adobe Flash U-turn on Apple iPhone

Flash in its pan?

It’s not exactly surprising, but Adobe has done a rather speedy about face following CEO Shantanu Narayen’s comment that it is pushing on with Flash for iPhone. The company has admitted that it would really prefer a bit of help from Apple in this area.

Narayen seemed to suggest that Adobe’s Flash team was working with the recently released Software Development Kit (SDK) to bring its product to Apple’s iPhone.

As we said...

However, as MacFormat's Christopher Phin told TechRadar after Narayen made his comments: "It's not clear at this stage exactly how Adobe will deliver; the current implementation of the iPhone SDK doesn't seem to have the programming hooks that would allow browser plug-ins and such low-level stuff to be done, and Apple's yet-to-be-launched App Store is slated to be the only distribution mechanism."

Indeed, Adobe’s developers agree, admitting: “To bring the full capabilities of Flash to the iPhone web-browsing experience we do need to work with Apple beyond and above what is available through the SDK and the current license around it".

Race

Of course, Adobe is desperate to launch its product on what is probably the hottest gadget around. But it appears that it has yet to convince Apple that its product is good enough to make the cut – especially with Steve Jobs’ now well-versed Flash comments.

With Sun developing Java for Apple’s handset, and Microsoft confirming to TechRadar that it would like to see Silverlight running on the iPhone, Adobe is not the only company that may need more than the SDK to implement its technology on the handset.

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