Adobe issues Creative Suite 5 despite Apple's iPhone block

Software provider Adobe Systems announced the release of the Adobe Creative Suite 5 product family, promising developers and designers full-version upgrades of tools like Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver and InDesign. According to Adobe, Creative Suite 5 features integration with online content and digital marketing measurement and optimization capabilities as well as access to Omniture technologies enabling users to capture, store and analyze data generated by websites and other sources--in addition, Flash Professional CS5 enables the creation of content and applications for Flash Player 10.1 and Adobe AIR 2, which are optimized for smartphones, tablets, netbooks and other portable devices. Adobe notes that device support is planned for Android, BlackBerry and Palm webOS.

Adobe Creative Suite 5 also includes the Packager for iPhone tool preview, enabling development of content for Apple's iPhone and iPad--but it appears Apple will refuse to approve App Store submissions originating via CS5-based solutions. Coinciding with last week's release of the iPhone OS 4.0 software development kit, Apple quietly but significantly updated the terms of its iPhone developer agreement to mandate that all applications must be written to directly on the iPhone platform, effectively banning cross-compiler translation tools like CS5. Section 3.3.1 of the iPhone Developer Program License Agreement, which previously read "Applications may only use Documented APIs in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any private APIs," now reads "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 CTO Kevin Lynch responded to Apple's decision in a blog post Friday. "First of all, the ability to package an application for the iPhone or iPad is one feature in one product in Creative Suite," Lynch writes. "CS5 consists of 15 industry-leading applications, which contain hundreds of new capabilities and a ton of innovation. We intend to still deliver this capability in CS5 and it is up to Apple whether they choose to allow or disallow applications as their rules shift over time."

The iPhone developer license update is the latest chapter in the ongoing skirmish between Apple and Adobe, which dates back at least as far as March 2008, when Apple CEO Steve Jobs contended the iPhone requires a media player more robust than the existing Flash mobile solution. That's almost complimentary compared to what Jobs reportedly had to say about Flash during a town hall meeting with Apple employees soon after the announcement of the iPad tablet device, which also does not support Flash--citing a source in attendance, Wired reported that Jobs dismissed Adobe as "lazy" and added that Apple doesn't support Flash because it's so buggy. Jobs went on to blame Flash as the culprit behind most Mac crashes, and said the platform is facing extinction as the world moves to HTML5. Asked during Thursday's media event whether Flash will come to the iPhone anytime soon, Jobs succinctly replied "Uh, no."

For more on Creative Suite 5:
- read this release

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