Apple and Adobe have been trading public barbs over the exclusion of Flash support from the new iPad tablet PC, with Adobe calling the iPad restricted and Apple branding Adobe lazy.
The omission of Flash makes around 70% of games and 75% of video on the web inaccessible, Adobe group manager Adrian Ludwig said last week.
“It looks like Apple is continuing to impose restrictions on their devices that limit both content publishers and consumers,” he said.
Jobs fired back at an internal Apple meeting, an attendee told Wired. He said Adobe has the potential to do interesting things but does not, and it refuses to do anything with Apple's software initiatives.
Jobs added that Apple refuses to support Flash because it is buggy, and responsible for the majority of Mac crashes. In any event, he added, the online world is moving away from Flash and towards HTML5.
The lack of Flash has meanwhile forced Adobe to amend one of its first iPad advertising campaigns, after part of its ad on the New York Times showed the device displaying Flash-based content, SMH said.
As a result, one graphic designer filed a complaint with US trade regulator FTC, forcing Apple to correct the ad.