It isn’t often that a technology company breathes out the anger and breathes in the love, but that’s exactly what Adobe did – at least on the surface – with Apple the other week. The firm ran an ad on the popular online blog Engadget, along with a statement [PDF] in the Wall Street Journal, telling the world just how much it ‘hearts’ those piloting the Cupertino Death Star. What on earth inspired it to do that?

 The underlying text gives us some insights.

What we don’t love is anybody taking away your freedom to choose what you create, how you create it and what you experience on the web.

Oh dear.

In case you haven’t been following, Adobe is upset at Apple for not supporting its Flash multimedia technology on its latest device, the iPad.

 The iPad is the most sought-after tablet since Moses came down the mountain with a present from the Big Guy.

Actually, we could run for quite a while with this analogy. Steve Jobs is something of a god-like figure at Apple. Back in 1985, Jobs resigned in what amounted to a corporate crucifixion, after the board ousted him from the company. 

Then, in 1997, in a kind of second coming, Apple bought him back to revitalise the company, and he did it in style. He resurrected Apple from a firm with a confusing plethora of mediocre products to one with a pure, piercing design vision. He took the firm from losses of roughly $1bn in 1997 to profits of over $8bn on revenues of $43bn last year. No wonder the world listens to him, especially when he makes the odd infrequent posting on the Apple web site, such us his Thoughts on Flash (aka the Book of Jobs, chapter 1, verse 1).

Jobs explains in that post why Apple won’t allow Flash on the iPad or the iPhone. In short, he says that it isn’t open, that HTML 5 (the alternative, as-yet unratified standard that Apple has adopted) supports the majority of web-based video, that Flash is woefully insecure, that it drains battery life, and that it doesn’t support the touch-based interface of which Apple has become so proud. All of this is true. In particular, the reliability and security issues of the Flash player are well documented, and there have been several zero-day security flaws within Adobe’s Flash player in the past year.

The problem for Adobe is that the iPad is a very significant product. We were sceptical when it first appeared. It didn’t support Flash, which still litters large numbers of web sites. It didn’t have a camera. There was no multi-tasking. It seemed, in short, like an iPod Touch on steroids. Then, we got to play with one. 

It’s a more significant product than we thought. The large format screen, combined with the instant-on functionality, and the ability to point and swipe using the multi-touch interface, creates a new computing experience. It separates the productive mode of computing – the mode where you write, as I am now, or create a spreadsheet, or design a graphic – from the consumptive mode. The latter is the mode where you absorb information from the web and interact with applications and web sites without trying to crank out work.

 The iPad recasts this consumptive model of interacting with the web and with local applications as a ‘sit back’ experience, rather than a ‘sit forward’ one.

The difference between the two shouldn’t be underestimated. Until now, we have consumed content online in a ‘sit forward’ model that puts us at odds with the device we’re using. Perching ourselves on a chair, or balancing a notebook on our lap on the sofa and fumbling with a mouse or trackpad isn’t the ideal way to surf the web and watch video. But holding something like an electronic notepad in the crook of your arm while lounging in an armchair and pointing directly at the screen with your finger is very conducive.

 Marry that experience with the native Cocoa software framework in OS X, and you get some stunning results, particularly when creating applications to present magazines and newspapers.

Publications such as Time, Vanity Fair, the Financial Times and Wired are already offering their publications as Cocoa-based applications for the iPad, and they change the reading experience dramatically enough to make the hardware platform an important development.

The iPad isn’t perfect, but it’s a stunning start, especially considering the largely ineffectual attempt that Microsoft made with tablet computing in 2002. And it’s the start of a new model for consuming content that could represent a ray of hope for the ailing print publishing sector. For publishers, the chance to redefine interfaces for the consumption of information from the ground up is a liberating experience. It could represent the beginning a swing back toward quality in content that the online world has needed for a while. Citizen journalism and crowdsourcing most definitely have their place, but since Web 2.0 first appeared, we have largely ignored the curatorial element that used to define quality in information. The iPad and other products that will undoubtedly follow might just kindle its resurgence.

That’s why Adobe should be worried. Flash was supposed to be the presentation technology that allowed content publishers to communicate with audiences in new and exciting ways. The problem is that the hardware and operating system platform is an intimate part of that communication. Unluckily for Adobe, the hardware and operating system company that finally got it right is an old partner that grew away from it over the years, to the point where it doesn’t respect Adobe’s key web multimedia product and doesn’t want the code in its back yard.

For all these reasons, Adobe stands at a crucial juncture in its history. Fanboy adulation aside, the iPad is hugely significant. And with Apple not on its side, Adobe will need all the friends that it can get.

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