Adobe To Ditch iPhone App Development Technology After CS5

This seems to be another development from Apple’s current dispute with Adobe. As you might already know, a recent change in Apple’s iPhone Developer Program License Agreement doesn’t support cross-compilers, which would mean tools such as Adobe’s Flash-to-iPhone compiler and MonoTouch wouldn’t be able to churn out apps for the iPhone. With that in mind, Adobe has decided against making any additional investments in its iPhone app building technology. A quote from Mike Chambers, Principal Product Manager for developer relations for the Flash Platform at Adobe, states:

While it appears that Apple may selectively enforce the terms, it is our belief that Apple will enforce those terms as they apply to content created with Flash CS5. Developers should be prepared for Apple to remove existing content and applications (100+ on the store today) created with Flash CS5 from the iTunes store.

In case you were wondering, the section in the iPhone Developer Program License Agreement that is under scrutiny states:

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).

Matthew Chung
Categories: Apple, Cellphones
Tags: adobe, iPhone