Adobe To Sue Apple for Flash?

Adobe has been trying too hard to get Flash to be supported on iPhone. Not only Apple has not been satisfied  with the progress that Adobe has made so far, it has made life difficult for developers who may want to use Adobe’s latest tool to port their flash games into iPhone native. Section 3.3.1 has already been the talk of town in the iPhone world as is effectively puts another huge restriction on Adobe and its efforts to make Flash available Apple’s top mobile devices:

3.3.1 — Applications may only use Documented APIs in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any private APIs. Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine, and only code written in C, C++, and Objective-C may compile and directly link against the Documented APIs (e.g., Applications that link to Documented APIs through an intermediary translation or compatibility layer or tool are prohibited).

Adobe has clearly failed to satisfy Apple’s management team that it belongs on iPhone. We all know what happens when Apple becomes determined to pick a fight with a company. Adobe seemed resigned to its fate at first:

The fact that Apple would make such a hostile and despicable move like this clearly shows the difference between our two companies. All we want is to provide creative professionals an avenue to deploy their work to as many devices as possible.

But there are now rumors around the Internet that Adobe may be in the process of preparing a lawsuit against Apple to see if it can force its iPhone tools onto iPhone. Apple has indicated that Adobe’s progress with Flash is not good enough. It’s not clear at this point whether Adobe has a case. Unless Adobe has some secret dirt on Apple, it clearly does not have enough on its side to force Apple to accept Flash. Apple iPhone may be a great platform, but it’s not as if Adobe does not have other options.

The whole fiasco is not good for any side. One has to feel for developers who want to rely on Adobe to develop their applications. At the same time, there is a good reason why “iPhone experience” is quite unique. Apple may have been hard on Adobe, but that is not something new. Both companies seem to be up for a fight. At this point, we will have to wait to see which company blinks first.

Which side are you on?