Apple Smacks Down Adobe Over Flash on the iPhone

This is certainly disappointing news, but something tells me the story is just starting to get told. Steve Jobs, in a major slap at Adobe, has said that Adobe’s Flash Player just isn’t good enough for the iPhone.

Here’s the disappointing part. Apple has said since the hype days that the iPhone delivers the real Internet in its (and now iPod Touch) browser, staking out turf that sets it apart from other mobile operating systems. Because of all of the excitement about the iPhone, most folks kinda, sorta looked the other way, and I believe the assumption was that Flash would show up eventually (you know, unessential things like cut and paste). Well, unless Steve Jobs has something up his sleeve, I think we can say bye-bye to the “real Internet” thing for awhile now. It is a shame too. Using my iPod Touch, I’ve become quite attached to mobile web surfing on that device, and being able to view in Flash would only make it a better experience.

But in the high stakes game that Jobs is obviously playing with Adobe there could be other things in the works on the cusp of the eagerly anticipated release of the iPhone SDK. Could this be an opening for Microsoft and its Silverlight platform? Does, as Loren Heiny speculates, Steve Jobs have something else up his sleeve?

Who really knows, but I think a lot of users are feeling pretty bummed about this. I’m sure Adobe is as well.