The Tech Futurologist

Adobe Dropping iPhone App Development Technology After CS5

Thanks to a change in Apple's iPhone Developer Program License Agreement, Adobe has decided to abandon theiPhone app building technology included in Flash CS5.

Adobe says it's not planning on "any additional investments in that feature" after CS5 because of section 3.3.1 of Apple's iPhone Developer Program License Agreement:

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).

This section indicates that tools such as that in Flash CS5 are forbidden when developing apps for the iPhone and it appears to make it pointless for Adobe to provide the feature according to Adobe's Mike Chambers:

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.

The feature will still ship with Flash CS5, but is there much of a point in using it?