Apple and Adobe square off over iPad’s lack of Flash support

The launch of the iPad has sparked a war of words between Apple’s Steve Jobs and software maker Adobe over the gadget’s lack of support for the Flash plugin.

The launch of the iPad has sparked a war of words between Apple chief executive Steve Jobs and software maker Adobe over the gadget’s lack of support for the popular Flash plugin.

The stoush comes as analysts and bloggers are still debating whether the gadget is actually worth the cost, and if it actually lives up to the months of rumours and speculation that came before the release.

In last week’s release many analysts were disappointed, but not surprised, by Apple’s decision to exclude support for the Adobe Flash plugin, which allows web browsers to run certain graphics and videos.

While Apple has not included Flash support on the iPhone or iPod Touch, analysts were hopeful the company may have changed its mind.

However, any hope of such a development has been thrown out the window after Jobs reportedly said the software company is lazy for not developing new versions, and said the software itself is unstable.

“They are lazy,” tech site Wired has reported Jobs as saying at a company “town meeting”. “They have the potential to do interesting things but they refuse to do it… Apple does not support Flash because it is so buggy.”

Apple drew criticism from reviewers attending the San Francisco launch of the iPad after a live demonstration of the device showed some graphics missing on the New York Times website.

However, others have pointed out that such a blatant “mistake” could actually have been emphasised by Apple in order to send a message to Adobe.

But Adobe has hit back at Jobs’ comments and actions, with marketing manager Adrian Ludwig writing in a blog post that the lack of Flash support means the iPad will not be able to view millions of websites properly.

“There’s something important missing from Apple’s approach to connecting consumers to content,” he wrote. “It looks like Apple is continuing to impose restrictions on their devices that limit both content publishers and customers,” said Ludwig.

“If I want to connect to Disney, Hulu, Miniclip, Farmville, ESPN, Kongregate or JibJab – not to mention millions of other sites on the web, I’ll be out of luck.”

However, Adobe is apparently now working on a type of software build for developers that will allow them to use Flash software in iPhone and iPad apps.