Open letter | experience it all.

Adobe, makers of Flash video, have decided to take the high road in their retaliation against Apple’s harsh words against their platform. As you know, Apple CEO Steve Jobs recently released an open letter regarding his position on Adobe’s Flash standard for video. He believes it is not an open platform, it’s proprietary, and it’s a dated standard that does not belong in the mobile space. In direct response to Jobs’ open letter, Adobe has rolled out a new ad campaign with the slogan “We [Love] Apple”, with a heart in the place of “love”. In addition to web ads, Adobe coughed up some cash to place a large ad in yesterday’s Washington Post. Things just got more serious, and Team Adobe wants you to know they are in this for the long haul. Besides the new ad campaign, Adobe co-founders Chuck Geschke and John Warnock penned their own open letter titled “Our thoughts on open markets.” These choice words are obviously directed at Apple:

We believe 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. No company — no matter how big or how creative — should dictate what you can create, how you create it, or what you can experience on the web.

In the end, we believe the question is really this: Who controls the World Wide Web? And we believe the answer is: nobody — and everybody, but certainly not a single company.

Flash to Apple: Oh, it’s on. Look after the break for the open letter in its entirety, as well as one of the new advertisements.

[Via Engadget; Adobe] Continue reading Adobe makes love, not war, with Apple in new ad campaign →

Apple CEO Steve Jobs released an open letter today regarding his position on Adobe’s Flash standard for video. He breaks down his argument against Flash with the following categories: there’s “open”; the full web; reliability, security and performance; battery life; touch; and “the most important reason.” That is, “If developers grow dependent on third party development libraries and tools, they can only take advantage of platform enhancements if and when the third party chooses to adopt the new features.” Quick summation: Jobs calls Flash proprietary and closed; he shares his excitement on the rise of H.264 and the coming of HTML5; Flash makes Macs crash; since Flash decodes in software it eats away battery life; and Flash was not designed for a touch environment. His concludes:

Flash was created during the PC era – for PCs and mice. Flash is a successful business for Adobe, and we can understand why they want to push it beyond PCs. But the mobile era is about low power devices, touch interfaces and open web standards – all areas where Flash falls short.

But you should really read it for yourself, just look after the break. Pretty compelling argument, eh? Sure, H.264 and HTML5 are the future of video for mobile devices. But Flash is in the here and now. Ah, Jobs you’ve got me arguing for both sides now. Form your own opinions in the comments below!

Update: Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch formally responded to Jobs’ open letter. His short blog post is called “Moving Forward” but after reading it what he really means to say is moving past Apple. Look after the break to see the rebuttal. Continue reading Steve Jobs shares his “thoughts on Flash” [Update: Adobe responds, Microsoft jumps in] →