If this were a gunfight scene in a western, just as Apple and Adobe Systems exchanged shots over whether Flash should be on the iPad, two big guys have come to Adobe’s aid. Back in the real world, Time Warner and NBC Universal have reportedly told Apple they have no intention of mass re-encoding their movie and TV libraries from Flash video into a format that supports HTML5.
Apple has been battling with Adobe, the maker of the Flash technology that is nearly ubiquitous on the web for video and animation. According to a report in Thursday’s New York Post, sources at the two big media companies said reformatting their libraries to accommodate Apple’s mobile devices is too expensive, and Flash is the dominant media technology.
Feeling ‘Emboldened’
Apple has refused to allow Flash on its popular iPad, iPhone or iPod touch, insisting that standards-based technology supporting HTML5 is preferable over proprietary technology like Flash, even if Flash has such a large installed base. Apple cofounder and CEO Steve Jobs has also publicly criticized Flash’s performance on mobile devices and wrote a lengthy open letter about his decision.
In response, Adobe cofounders John Warnock and Chuck Geschke published an open letter on Adobe’s web site, accusing Apple of undermining “the next chapter of the web.” Adobe has also taken out ads in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, technology blogs, and other publications about Apple’s refusal to allow Flash.
The Post story indicated that the big media companies are feeling “emboldened” by the launch or impending release of several iPad competitors from major manufacturers, including Dell and Hewlett-Packard, as well as the potential for distribution of high-resolution, online video on the recently announced Google TV platform.
Dell’s tablets run Google’s open-source Android operating system, which, in its next update, will support…