My name is Brett and I am the Director of Technology Integration here at Mulberry Marketing. Generally speaking the tool we use the most to create rich online content for our customers is Flash. I’m sure you’re familiar with Flash so I won’t bore you with a bunch of stats. By using Flash we’re able to build Product Configurators, Corporate Videos, Interactive Games and many other types of online engaging content for your company that is browser and platform independant. Since you’re posting this on the web you aren’t paying any type of fees to distribute your content or requiring your customers to have expensive hardware to viewing. The internet is an open environment which is good, especially for your brand and your marketing initiatives.

Now you may have some sort of SmartPhone, if you do odds are it’s an iPhone. More and more people are using their iPhones for browsing the web. I have an iPhone and use it constantly. The one sticking point though is it doesn’t support the Flash Player. That limits the online content you can see on your phone. Steve Jobs recently wrote a letter on the Apple web site entitled “Thoughts on Flash” where he details some reasons why Flash will not be on the iPhone/iPad. A couple highlights include the Flash Player being a proprietary product, causing excessive drain on the battery, and that current web sites done with Flash aren’t built for Multitouch. Honestly, I can understand that. The iPhone has limitations and Flash is not the best answer for everything. Why build a web site with Flash if you could easily do the same thing with HTML, CSS, and Javascript. As a developer I have a choice to look at the objectives for every project we do and decide what is the best way to achieve our objectives. If our client is looking for a custom interactive product configurator that can be run on any OS and any browser we’re going to do it with Flash. That makes sense. Where I have a serious problem with Apple follows…

I’m guessing Adobe realized getting the Flash Player on the iPhone was not going anywhere quickly and instead decided to focus on giving Flash programmers the ability to export native applications for iPhone. These applications could be delivered to iPhone users through the Apple App Store. This doesn’t have anything to do with the Flash Player or the iPhone’s browser at all. For me as a developer this means I can create an application using ActionScript 3 which is a coding language I’m very familiar with while at the same time be able to use the base code for other non iPhone applications.

When I saw this announcement from Adobe I immediately requested to become part of the Adobe Flash CS5 Beta program to begin experimenting with the iPhone and was approved. This required that I become a registered iPhone Developer with Apple. I was approved for this as well. I felt like a kid in a candy store and couldn’t stop imagining the possibilities of creating product configurators that would take advantage of the iPhone’s built-in GPS, camera, accelerometer, and other abilities of the mobile device. Since I would be creating it in Flash this same base set of code could be used for other devices such as phones using the Google Android OS. Develop once and deliver everywhere! That’s a great business model because it allows you to create applications which will stretch your marketing budget and meet your objectives while at the same time reaching a much larger target audience.

Then came an announcement in April saying that Apple was updating their terms of service to prohibit any application created in Flash from being permitted on the App Store. Apple now requires that you use the Apple SDK for programming applications. Their reasons were rather vague citing performance issues. This is where in my opinion, things start to get very, very odd. There are currently applications available on the App store built using Flash during the Flash CS5 beta that are for sale. On my iPhone right now I have a great South Park Avatar Creator which allows me to build custom themed Avatars for the contacts listed on my phone. I don’t experience any performance problems when using it. To me there does not appear to be any difference between how this application runs compared to one of the Apple SDK authored programs. Something else is going on here.

Apple is attempting to strictly control the content on their devices under the guise of “looking out for the end user experience” when in reality this is fueled by a business decision. Think about it this way, what if we had created a product configurator for a client that could run on the iPhone and the Google Android platform. At that point it isn’t an exclusive application to Apple. They could potentially lose revenue because the users aren’t required to have Apple hardware or any type of iTunes account. Apple is attempting to change how people view and pay for content on the internet. With the launch of the iPad this becomes much more serious. In many cases the iPad is intended to replace your current computer for casual internet browsing. By Apple locking out any type of Flash content they’re forcing users to pay via the App store which of course Apple takes a cut out of.

You’re probably saying “What does this mean to me” if you’ve made it this far into my rant! It means in the future you’re going to have to really take a look at your marketing budgets and decide where to invest your money. It’s either going to have to be on the “Apple Internet” or another more open mobile platform(s) that utilize the flash player. Google Android is set to support the Flash Player 10.1 later this year. It also means that if things continue as they currently are with the iPad, and people replace their computers with these non-Flash devices, you’re going to be forced to play by Apple’s rules. Is that really better for your customers?

Welcome to the Apple Internet. Pretty soon we’ll all be wearing Apple branded shoes called “iSneaks” and be forced to walk on Apple approved roads which there would be a toll for. Of course as I sit here, writing this article I’m using a Apple MacBook Pro and have my iPhone 3GS sitting next to me. I really like these devices and view Apple as a premium brand which I have long advocated to anyone who would listen. Having gone through this experience with the Flash CS5 beta my opinion of Apple has changed almost completely. They aren’t the underdog computer company creating superior products. They’re just a massive corporation that wants to tell me as a developer what tool to use for coding and as a consumer they want to dictate how I interact with this new “Apple Internet”. I sincerely hope Apple changes their business practices and I can go back to being proud to program on a Mac. Until then I look forward to learning more about the Google Android platform.

Video Demonstration of Adobe AIR apps on the iPhone and Motorolla Droid