7 ms·

Adobe, You Brought An Advertisement To A Gun Fight

87 points by ashish_0x90 16y ago

FreeRadical 16y ago
I thinnk it's meant to say 'We heart Apple', not love.
jbrun 16y ago
I must say that this is pretty damn accurate. Not much else to add.
- bballant 16y ago
  It is probably out of scope for the article, or maybe too much on the opinion side, but the Flash developer experience is pretty horrendous. There are too many ways to mix UI created code, time-line/movie clip stuff, and actual ActionScript code. It can make for some nightmare projects. At least this was the case a couple of years ago when I unconditionally stopped working in Flash. XCode is not perfect by any means, but way better than flash. It finds the right balance between interface building in a GUI and straight-up coding. Objective-C can be weird, but less weird than ActionScript. Oh, and XCode is free. So, regardless of the business side, or even the end user experience side, I (and I think most developers) would choose XCode and Objective-C over Flash and ActionScript.
  - JBiserkov 16y ago
    XCode is free just like IE is free: a free add-on on overpriced product.
raganwald 16y ago
The crux argument is surprisingly cogent: Adobe needs to make a killer product, not try to pressure Apple using the popular opinion, the one mechanism that has never been shown to work in the past. I think there's a huge amount of opportunity for Adobe here. Application development for mobile devices is a developing market. There's room for something new. A new programming language, a new framework, new things I can't even imagine involving location, clouds, whatever. Pushing Flash because it's a dominant player in a legacy market is a little like going back to 1995 and arguing that people ought to be able to make web servers in PowerBuilder because that's the language everyone is using for business applications. Adobe doesn't call me up and tell me how to write software, so I'm loathe to tell them what to do. I'll just say that it would be incredibly cool if they went out and bought some tiny startup or lab with a really revolutionary product and pimped it out as the successor to Flash for mobile devices.
- josefresco 16y ago
  "Adobe doesn't call me up and tell me how to write software" Apple might though.
  - raganwald 16y ago
    They told me to write web applications using open and free standards, and I listened. Some other people called them up and begged to be chained to the oars of a proprietary slave galley, and they told them that if they wanted to be slaves they had to be Apple's slaves and not Adobe's slaves. Many of these people are happy and well-fed, so I have no quarrel with their choice. But I point out that it's their choice and Apple have offered each and every one of us the right to write free applications for iPhone and iPad.
    - tomlin 16y ago
      > They told me to write web applications using open and free standards, and I listened. Too bad you can't write any apps (preferred method for accessing information on the iPhone) using an open and free standard. It's not just Adobe this effects, it effects any framework. Including the one built on free and open standards: http://www.phonegap.com/ http://www.phonegap.com/
      - raganwald 16y ago
        What can I say, the servant's quarters are pretty sweet, whereas if you homestead you have to cut down your own trees and live in a rough log cabin. But it's YOUR log cabin!
      - davidedicillo 16y ago
        You might want to double check your facts. PhoneGap won't be affected by 3.3.1
        tomlin 16y ago
        It's hardly a fact. A few months ago it was a "fact" that you could publish using CS5. http://blogs.nitobi.com/jesse/2010/04/14/phonegap-and-the-apple-developer-license-agreement/ http://blogs.nitobi.com/jesse/2010/04/14/phonegap-and-the-ap... Tomorrow it could also be a "fact" that PhoneGap violates the same 3.3.1 clause. Truth is, the "facts" are flexible for Apple, and not so for the developers who dedicate several hours learning a specific approach/workflow.
baconsaltRocks 16y ago
Wasnt the campaign supposed to mean Adobe loves apple but not Apple® ?
Alex63 16y ago
Can't help pointing out that shortly after Sean Connery's character derides Capone's men for "bringing a knife to a gunfight", they shoot him down in an alleyway into which he has chased them. Not that I expect anything similar in this particular case.
ergo98 16y ago
This latest ad campaign was poorly conceived. Adobe's prior response -- which was essentially "Ah well...fuck you Jobs. We'll be over there on Android and Blackberry and WebOS" was brilliant. It left it on the perfect note. Now they've again gone back to pandering for sympathy. It's lame. Nonetheless, this article is stupid. The author is hopping on the dogpile and saying all of the classic "talking points", hoping to pander to the audience with the right amount of fluffing.
acg 16y ago
With all this talk of flash you would be lead to believe that Adobe are the worst company in the world. I just isn't, they have some really good products that nobody in the industry has managed to copy yet. Let's face it, the reason for Apple's attitude is Adobe is a serious player with the resources that could change the nature of Apple's mobile computing platform and reduce mac sales (developers really have to buy a Mac to write apps). I'm not for flash, but some of the authoring tools available from Adobe are difficult to copy. I'm thinking how would I do some of that key frame animation that's been in flash for years in html5? Tweening? Is this another case where the competition is fended off for just enough time to build the software in-house or buy it in?
rmason 16y ago
This guy from the headline forward doesn't get it. Adobe may not have had a hand in starting the DOJ or FTC investigations of Apple's new developer contract but they are determined to get in front of the parade to see them prosecuted. This campaign is all about shaping public opinion and if they succeed Apple will pull down their artifical wall. IMHO that's what this whole campaign is all about. Back fifteen years ago when Microsoft was playing a variation of this game by not giving equal access for outsiders to all their api you guys sided against Microsoft. Now that it's Apple doing it why are you using Microsoft's old argument that the complainer needs to just go back and innovate? In case you haven't noticed Adobe is doing plenty of amazing things.
- maukdaddy 16y ago
  sigh Outside of HN and the tech community, the general public doesn't give a SHIT about this kind of argument. Adobe can try to shape public opinion all day long, and it won't matter in the end. The only way they can survive is creating innovative products. Lately, they seem completely incapable of doing that.
- nostromo 16y ago
  > you guys sided against Microsoft. The key difference is the monopoly issue. People have a choice today about what operating system they want on their computer and smart phone, and developers have a choice about which platform they want to develop on. This wasn't the case back in the bad old days.

87 points by ashish_0x90 16y ago

FreeRadical 16y ago

I thinnk it's meant to say 'We heart Apple', not love.

jbrun 16y ago

I must say that this is pretty damn accurate. Not much else to add.

bballant 16y ago
It is probably out of scope for the article, or maybe too much on the opinion side, but the Flash developer experience is pretty horrendous. There are too many ways to mix UI created code, time-line/movie clip stuff, and actual ActionScript code. It can make for some nightmare projects. At least this was the case a couple of years ago when I unconditionally stopped working in Flash. XCode is not perfect by any means, but way better than flash. It finds the right balance between interface building in a GUI and straight-up coding. Objective-C can be weird, but less weird than ActionScript. Oh, and XCode is free. So, regardless of the business side, or even the end user experience side, I (and I think most developers) would choose XCode and Objective-C over Flash and ActionScript.
- JBiserkov 16y ago
  XCode is free just like IE is free: a free add-on on overpriced product.

raganwald 16y ago

The crux argument is surprisingly cogent: Adobe needs to make a killer product, not try to pressure Apple using the popular opinion, the one mechanism that has never been shown to work in the past. I think there's a huge amount of opportunity for Adobe here. Application development for mobile devices is a developing market. There's room for something new. A new programming language, a new framework, new things I can't even imagine involving location, clouds, whatever. Pushing Flash because it's a dominant player in a legacy market is a little like going back to 1995 and arguing that people ought to be able to make web servers in PowerBuilder because that's the language everyone is using for business applications. Adobe doesn't call me up and tell me how to write software, so I'm loathe to tell them what to do. I'll just say that it would be incredibly cool if they went out and bought some tiny startup or lab with a really revolutionary product and pimped it out as the successor to Flash for mobile devices.

josefresco 16y ago
"Adobe doesn't call me up and tell me how to write software" Apple might though.
- raganwald 16y ago
  They told me to write web applications using open and free standards, and I listened. Some other people called them up and begged to be chained to the oars of a proprietary slave galley, and they told them that if they wanted to be slaves they had to be Apple's slaves and not Adobe's slaves. Many of these people are happy and well-fed, so I have no quarrel with their choice. But I point out that it's their choice and Apple have offered each and every one of us the right to write free applications for iPhone and iPad.
  - tomlin 16y ago
    > They told me to write web applications using open and free standards, and I listened. Too bad you can't write any apps (preferred method for accessing information on the iPhone) using an open and free standard. It's not just Adobe this effects, it effects any framework. Including the one built on free and open standards: http://www.phonegap.com/ http://www.phonegap.com/
    - raganwald 16y ago
      What can I say, the servant's quarters are pretty sweet, whereas if you homestead you have to cut down your own trees and live in a rough log cabin. But it's YOUR log cabin!
    - davidedicillo 16y ago
      You might want to double check your facts. PhoneGap won't be affected by 3.3.1
      - tomlin 16y ago
        It's hardly a fact. A few months ago it was a "fact" that you could publish using CS5. http://blogs.nitobi.com/jesse/2010/04/14/phonegap-and-the-apple-developer-license-agreement/ http://blogs.nitobi.com/jesse/2010/04/14/phonegap-and-the-ap... Tomorrow it could also be a "fact" that PhoneGap violates the same 3.3.1 clause. Truth is, the "facts" are flexible for Apple, and not so for the developers who dedicate several hours learning a specific approach/workflow.

baconsaltRocks 16y ago

Wasnt the campaign supposed to mean Adobe loves apple but not Apple® ?

Alex63 16y ago

Can't help pointing out that shortly after Sean Connery's character derides Capone's men for "bringing a knife to a gunfight", they shoot him down in an alleyway into which he has chased them. Not that I expect anything similar in this particular case.

ergo98 16y ago

This latest ad campaign was poorly conceived. Adobe's prior response -- which was essentially "Ah well...fuck you Jobs. We'll be over there on Android and Blackberry and WebOS" was brilliant. It left it on the perfect note. Now they've again gone back to pandering for sympathy. It's lame. Nonetheless, this article is stupid. The author is hopping on the dogpile and saying all of the classic "talking points", hoping to pander to the audience with the right amount of fluffing.

acg 16y ago

With all this talk of flash you would be lead to believe that Adobe are the worst company in the world. I just isn't, they have some really good products that nobody in the industry has managed to copy yet. Let's face it, the reason for Apple's attitude is Adobe is a serious player with the resources that could change the nature of Apple's mobile computing platform and reduce mac sales (developers really have to buy a Mac to write apps). I'm not for flash, but some of the authoring tools available from Adobe are difficult to copy. I'm thinking how would I do some of that key frame animation that's been in flash for years in html5? Tweening? Is this another case where the competition is fended off for just enough time to build the software in-house or buy it in?

rmason 16y ago

This guy from the headline forward doesn't get it. Adobe may not have had a hand in starting the DOJ or FTC investigations of Apple's new developer contract but they are determined to get in front of the parade to see them prosecuted. This campaign is all about shaping public opinion and if they succeed Apple will pull down their artifical wall. IMHO that's what this whole campaign is all about. Back fifteen years ago when Microsoft was playing a variation of this game by not giving equal access for outsiders to all their api you guys sided against Microsoft. Now that it's Apple doing it why are you using Microsoft's old argument that the complainer needs to just go back and innovate? In case you haven't noticed Adobe is doing plenty of amazing things.

maukdaddy 16y ago
sigh Outside of HN and the tech community, the general public doesn't give a SHIT about this kind of argument. Adobe can try to shape public opinion all day long, and it won't matter in the end. The only way they can survive is creating innovative products. Lately, they seem completely incapable of doing that.
nostromo 16y ago
> you guys sided against Microsoft. The key difference is the monopoly issue. People have a choice today about what operating system they want on their computer and smart phone, and developers have a choice about which platform they want to develop on. This wasn't the case back in the bad old days.