Throughout Mac's history, Adobe-based creatives have formed a considerable bunch of Apple's clientele. Most of them can also be referred to as macheads who have been loyal customers and brought along new crowd. Now, in the light of recent news in regard to iDevice and the new Developer Agreement, Adobe community has been locked out of these devices. Action is required.

Apple does not only block Flash Platform, but Flash developers and artists that have used Adobe platform to deliver interactive content for more than a decade and were planning to do so with the upcoming iPhone Packager of Creative Suite 5.

The most feasible argument protecting Apple's move has been in regard to cross platform compatibility layers and that the developers should not appear in the constraints of  a development environment that is delivered by a 3rd party, in the circumstances Adobe Flash CS5. Apple claims to protect the quality of App Store so that only the native set of developer tools by Apple itself should be used for iDevice publishing. While this strategy should guarantee the best UX, one may still argue its openness and innovation perspectives.

As Adobe's Platform Evangelist Lee Brimelow most emotionally put it, it's like slapping developers in the face. In the sense of taking away the freedom of choice, it most certainly is. Lee was surely developer-minded while expressing his disappointment, but Apple has gone offensive not only towards developers, but the whole Adobe Community. "You're not good enough for this platform" is what can be derived from this strategy. Creatives work across Adobe Platform and it makes the ultimate professional workflow for many. Publishing for all platforms from within your workflow is ideally what is required.

Creative types don't care about technical lingo, cross-compiling or the compatibility layers. Adobe offers them a splendid platform to work across and Apple has great hardware. Collaboration between the two should be essential. Current state of things is irrational as the process of blocking something could never be rational. Since Adobe claims, they're willing to collaborate and we've seen Flash Player 10.1 running flawlessly on Android phones, Apple should be reminded of the creatives who have trusted them for years. So:

UPDATE 10.09.2010: Apple has lifted restrictions on its third-party developer guidelines. As a result Adobe has announced continuing iPhone Packager development, a feature in Flash Professional CS5 authoring tool.

References: