Blogging at its best

13 May, 2010

With the whole Flash-iPhone-Adobe-Apple thing banging around the tech-news echo chamber, much of the context of the situation has been lost. There have been far too many posts and tweets that assume that the scenario is simple; that the reading of the scenario that will benefit the writer is the correct, and that their scenario is the only possible way for things to end up. In all probability they are probably wrong. And many of them just come off - using the scientific term - dickish.

With this in mind it was great to see two of the best posts on the subject come from heavyweights on both sides of the debate. John Nack, of Adobe and John Gruber, King of Apple-Nerds.

Today Nack wrote an honest summary of his thoughts on the issue. After outlining his credentials as someone who wants to see the best for both companies and the holes he sees in Apple’s treatment of developers he concludes:

To borrow from the Think Different campaign, “You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify, or vilify them.” That’s what I ask for Adobe technologies: let them succeed or fail based on their own merits, as determined by customers.

As someone with a soft spot¹ for the Think Different stuff I found this a strong conclusion. He made very valid points and did a great job of showing how the policies and trends that are affecting Adobe right now could, and do, just as easily apply to other developers.

Later in the day John Gruber replied in a similarly well-written post. His points revolve around the simple fact that Apple isn’t working towards Adobe’s interests simply because they don’t coincide with their own. He sees the choice as it is (and many others refuse to admit), that Apple is creating an all-or-nothing platform, where everything works with everything and problems are kept out of the equation. It comes down to econ 101:

That’s exactly what’s going on. Apple is testing whether a tightly controlled and managed app console platform will succeed or fail based on its own merits, as determined by customers.

And that is, at the moment, the truth. It’s not a choice right now - and since Flash still hasn’t run on ANY shipping moblie OS it literally isn’t a choice. The question is when and how will those choices come about.

But perhaps the greatest part of the exchange came after Gruber published his piece, when Nack replied on Twitter:

Solid post. I do hope we can align our interests with Apple’s; the potential is incredible.

I find this to be the greatest because it is the essence of the matter. Everyone who uses an iPhone OS device, Mac, or Adobe software would greatly benefit from these two monsters of the industry working together to make amazing products that work with each other’s amazingly well.

#1: The most prominent decorations in my apartment are several of these posters, they’re wonderful, and visitors have no pretenses about the status of my nerdery.