> So when exactly can you expect for Flash to hit your Android phone? Brimelow says no specific dates are being disclosed just yet. Adobe’s CEO, however, divulged some general details during [a recent interview](http://video.foxbusiness.com/v/4148785/adobe-ceo-on-creative-suite-5-and-apple) with the Fox Business Network. > > “Google and RIM and Palm are going to be releasing versions of Flash on smartphones and tablets in the second half of the year,” CEO Shantanu Narayen said. > > This is a change from Adobe’s previous target launch date for Flash on Android; the company had originally said the technology would become available [in the first half of 2010](http://www.pcworld.com/article/189338/adobe_shows_flash_and_air_apps_for_google_android.html). In all the kerfuffle about the Adobe/Apple Flash wars, the press and Adobe like to overlook the fact that Flash isn’t even a working product that Apple COULD put on the iPhone if it wanted to. Here is Adobe, announcing that Flash 10.1 mobile is about to start its beta phase, and won’t be released on the Android platform until the SECOND HALF OF THIS YEAR.

That’s a year behind schedule, for those keeping score.

Adobe loves playing victim, and the press loves making Apple the big, bad, evil monopoly. Never mind that none of this resembles reality.

> Remember the old Avis car-rental slogan? “We’re Number 2. We try harder.” > > That slogan came to mind when a reader, an iPhone app developer, wrote to let me know how hard Google, maker of Android, the No. 2 app phone software, is trying to woo iPhone programmers to write their apps for Android phones instead. > > > “I’m the developer of the Texts From Last Night app for the iPhone. Anyway, I received an e-mail yesterday from someone at Google claiming to be in their Android Advocacy Group. He basically said that he wanted to open a line of communication with me in case I chose to port the app to Android, and he offered to ship me a free Nexus One to play around with. > > > > “It shows that Google is actively recruiting developers to their platform, using the enticements of free hardware and open communication. > > > > “Contrast with Apple’s approach: it took us about three months of resubmitting our app to Apple before they stopped rejecting it for inappropriate content. And even now (after we peaked at the No. 7 paid app), we still have no relationship with anyone there. Huge difference in approaches between the two companies.” > > Apple’s iPhone app store certainly isn’t understocked; it’s got 185,000 programs to choose from. But without a doubt, Google’s Android software catalog is growing much faster—from 6,000 to 25,000 apps since the beginning of the year. Free phones, and aggressive courting of talented app makers, surely has something to do with it. I think this developer and Pogue both reached the same wrong conclusion. The way I look at it, Google has to beg people to develop for Android by bribing them with free phones and emails, while Apple can’t handle the shear volume of apps pouring in on a daily basis. They try harder because they are losing.

It’s easy to offer free phones to developers when there aren’t that many developers out there on your platform. It’s easy to court people with emails and promises of great support when you have such a small fan base. It’s like indie band members signing autographs after the show. Smart business move. But Madonna could never do that. She’d be signing for a week.

Android is growing, to be sure, but as many people try to point out as a talking point against Apple, it’s not about the number of apps; it’s about the quality of those apps. And it’s about who is making those apps. Android apps in general are still hobbyist apps. The equivalent of shareware on a Mac. There are some gems out there, but they are few and far between. And there is little pop-culture Android love in the air.

When Nike and Geico and Samuel L. Jackson make Android apps, that’s when you’ll know Google has had success with the platform. Not that those apps are top-quality apps, mind you. But they are a sign that the average joe-shmoe marketer has recognized the iPhone platform as the 2010 equivalent of having a web site in 2001.

That may happen eventually for Android, but so far Google hasn’t given enough concrete financial motivation to its developers. The potential for profit would speak much louder than a free phone and a personal email.

> The current threat from this malware is actually quite low at the moment, as the backdoor would need to be installed by someone with physical access to your machine. Intego notes that it could be deployed as a trojan, using social engineering to convince an unsuspecting user that the installer is actually something else. I continue to believe that common sense will do you a lot better as a Mac user than any anti-virus software. The only people who are concerned about viruses on the Mac are the people who write anti-virus programs.

To date, there has never been an actual outbreak of an actual OS X virus in the wild. (Virus meaning a program that can be installed automatically without the user’s knowledge and spread to other machines in a similar automated fashion.) Mac Malware has for many years lived in the realms of labs and hacker contests only.

Trojan Horses are bad, to be sure, but no anti-virus program can protect you if you’re dumb enough to give your admin password to an untrusted installer.

Think twice before typing that password, people. And, please, make your password something other than your cat’s name.

> Like thousands of other developers, Joe Rheaume was excited to get his software – an educational game – onto Apple’s iPhone. > > He originally created the game using Flash, a popular multimedia technology from Adobe Systems. But Apple prohibits Flash on the iPhone, so Rheaume was set to use a new conversion tool from Adobe that would make his game compatible with the smart phone. > > Then about a week ago, Apple changed the rules: No conversion tools. Developers must use Apple’s tools. > > “It just feels insulting,” said Rheaume, a programmer from Madison, Wis. “There’s no point in developing for the iPhone. They’re changing the rules in the middle of the game.” Explain to me how the title of this article is accurate? This guy built a game using Flash. He’s not an iPhone developer.

In order for Apple to anger iPhone developers, it would have to actually anger, you know, iPhone developers. People who actually write iPhone apps. Not Flash developers who are angry they don’t get to port their Flash apps over to the iPhone for free.

The article even admits later on that it’s mostly Flash developers who are doing all the complaining about this issue. As I said before, all of the iPhone developers I know are happy about this Flash restriction.

So let’s get the headline right, shall we? “Apple’s ban of Flash angers lazy Flash developers who wanted a free ride into the App Store ecosystem.”

And as far as Apple losing developers over this goes, what they are losing is the lowest common denominator of lazy developers who want to write once and deploy everywhere. That’s a demographic Apple can certainly afford to lose.

> The “section 3.3.1” issue is just another in a long line of events that have the same basic shape: actions taken by Apple in what it believes to be the best interest of its platform (and, by extension, itself) that run afoul of the interests and opinions of developers. Any Apple follower can surely list others: the [lack of Flash](http://daringfireball.net/2010/01/apple_adobe_flash) on the iPhone, the App Store as the [sole gateway](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cydia_(application)) for iPhone applications, [deprecating Carbon](http://arstechnica.com/staff/fatbits/2008/04/rhapsody-and-blues.ars), and on and on. > > Apple’s decisions regarding its mobile platform in particular have been extremely protective from the very start. Cumulatively, these actions represent a huge bet placed by Apple. The proposition is this: Apple is betting it can grow its platform fast enough, using any means necessary, that developers will [stick around](http://arstechnica.com/staff/fatbits/2008/03/cant-help-falling-in-love.ars) despite all the hardships and shoddy treatment. Each time it chooses to do what it thinks is best for the future of the iPhone OS platform instead of what will please developers, Apple is pushing more chips into the pot. Siracusa misses the mark here by saying that Apple’s actions “run afoul of the interests and opinions of developers.” What he should say is that Apple’s actions “sometimes run afoul of some of the interests and some of the opinions of some developers.”

I personally know iPhone/iPad developers who are thrilled that Apple is blocking Flash apps compiled with CS5. That just saved them from competing with a boatload of crappy apps written by hack script programmers. I’m willing to bet that more Objective-C programmers than not like the new restrictions in section 3.3.1. The only reason not to like it is if you are too lazy to learn how to write Cocoa apps, or you wanted to pull the wool over the eyes of your users by developing apps that can be easily ported to other platforms. Neither of those scenarios help Apple, and they sure wouldn’t help true Cocoa developers, either.

What Apple is doing here, then, is PROTECTING its current developers from an influx of competition from less worthy programmers. It is also protecting users from confusion, while increasing the likelihood that new apps will take full advantage of new features in the iPhone OS in the years to come.

Again, the only losers here are the ones who wanted a quick and easy shortcut into the Gold Rush. There’s nothing stopping any of these Flash developers from simply learning how to use Apple’s tools instead of Flash.

The only question remaining is who Apple decides to apply this rule to, other than Flash developers. My guess is that game companies that have been using various tools to assist with development will be allowed to continue to do so. This is mainly a shot at Flash and .NET.

So I don’t see this as a game of chicken at all. What I see is Apple holding a Royal Straight Flush, while Adobe has a pair of twos. You’re supposed to bet big when you know the other guy is bluffing.