The Adobe Systems-Apple battle over Flash is heating up. An open letter to Apple from Adobe cofounders John Warnock and Chuck Geschke accuses the company behind the iPhone, iPod and iPad of undermining the next chapter of the web.
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Adobe published the letter on its web site and began an advertising campaign. The Freedom of Choice ads say that, while Adobe loves Apple, the iPhone maker is taking away your freedom. The ads are being placed in The New York Times, Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, and The Wall Street Journal, as well as technology blogs and news sites including a href=http://www.TopTechNews.comTopTechNews.com/a.
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‘Freely Access’ Content and Apps
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The Adobe cofounders wrote that consumers should be able to freely access their favorite content and applications, regardless of what computer they have, what browser they like, or what device suits their needs. They added that no company, no matter how big or how creative, should dictate the user experience.
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If the web fragments into closed systems, they wrote, some companies may thrive with content and applications behind walls, but the success will come at the expense of the very creativity and innovation that has made the Internet a revolutionary force.
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They added that, since they publish Flash specifications, anyone can make a player. The cofounders also pointed to Postscript and PDF, two Adobe cross-platform software solutions with openly published specifications. The letter and ads may not be Adobe’s only attempts at pressuring Apple, as there are reports of a possible federal antitrust investigation in response to a complaint from Adobe.
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The escalation follows a recent, lengthy open letter from Apple cofounder and CEO Steve Jobs, in which he attempted to explain why Adobe’s nearly ubiquitous Flash technology is not allowed on Apple’s mobile devices. Flash, he said, is a proprietary, closed system, and Apple is interested in…