Adobe clarifies CEO's iPhone Flash comments

Adobe on Wednesday clarified comments from CEO Shantanu Narayen about the company's plan to bring Flash to the iPhone.

In a statement, Adobe said:

"Adobe has evaluated the iPhone SDK and can now start to develop a way to bring Flash Player to the iPhone.  However, to bring the full capabilities of Flash to the iPhone web-browsing experience we do need to work with Apple beyond and above what is available through the SDK and the current license around it.  We think Flash availability on the iPhone benefits Apple and Adobe's millions of joint customers, so we want to work with Apple to bring these capabilities to the device."

In other words, Apple needs to approve Flash and Adobe can't just plop Flash on the AppStore. That'll settle some Talkback questions and clarify my previous post. The key words are "we want to work" with Apple. It's unclear whether Apple will be receptive to Adobe's overture. For the record here's what Narayen had to say (see SeekingAlpha transcript) for compare and contrast purposes:

Well, you really believe that Flash is synonymous with the internet and frankly, anybody who wants to browse the web and experience the web’s glory really needs Flash support. We were very excited about the announcement from Windows Mobile, adoption of Flash on their devices and the fact that we’ve shipped 0.5 billion devices now, non-PC devices. So we are also committed to bringing the Flash experience to the iPhone and we will work with Apple. We’ve evaluated the SDK, we can now start to develop the Flash player ourselves and we think it benefits our joint customers. So we want to work with Apple to bring that capability to the device.