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The Apple-Adobe (NSDQ: ADBE) tussle is heating up to bizarre proportions, with Steve Jobs yesterday issuing a public defense for Apple’s anti-Flash stance. Call it a blog-heard-round-the-world, due to how quickly Jobs’ comments spread. Appropriately, much of the focus has been placed on Jobs’ technical arguments.

But there’s another big story behind this Flash fiasco that has successfully remained off the radar. It’s the answer to this question: How do the media companies—you know, those people who use Flash to put their premium content online everywhere from Wired.com to hulu.com—feel about having their primary delivery tool cut off at the knees?

Answer: Media companies hope to complain all the way to the bank.

First, a bit of disclosure. I’m the one who went on record explaining that the lack of Flash is one of the reasons I am not buying an iPad. So I’m clearly not a fan of the anti-Flash rhetoric for selfish reasons: I want my Flash content wherever I am. But I’ve spent the last few weeks discussing the Apple-Adobe problem with major magazine publishers, newspaper publishers and TV networks. Their responses are at first obvious, and then surprisingly shrewd.

• They’re miffed that Apple is dictating their development decisions. After some very tough years dealing with decreasing ad revenues and a painfully fragmented audience, media companies don’t really have the money to suddenly become HTML5 developers. Even if HTML5 were ready for primetime—and they all agree it’s not—they have spent the last three years standardizing on Flash because it works. There is an ample supply of Flash developers, and Flash, like Visa, is everywhere they want to be.

• But they’re going to do it anyway. As one major magazine publisher who has spent the last month realigning development priorities told me with a shrug, “we have no choice.” Contained in that response is the insidious genius of Apple (NSDQ: AAPL). By creating its own proprietary world, it can get away with unfairly calling Adobe a purveyor or proprietary solutions. Because Apple has a very attractive customer that no media company wants to live without.

• And once they get over the anger, they see a silver lining. Yes, it’s a pain, yes it will cost some money and cause some headaches because it won’t work very well for a while, but the consolation prize they all come around to is this: Apple is handing them a way to justify charging for content. And they like this very, very much. In fact, one publisher came dangerously close to scrapping Flash development altogether (before his internal tech experts talked him out of it) because he realized that in the end, Apple is handing them something the Web never has: a controlled, curated content environment where people pay for content, albeit in the form of software calls apps.

Ever since the Web—now personified in the minds of media companies as Google (NSDQ: GOOG)—reduced all content to a free search result, newspaper publishers, magazine publishers and TV programmers have watched consumer willingness to pay shrink and have stood by as advertisers who used to pay top dollar for handsome placement shrink back from the gritty, isolated online context that Web properties provide. Even when the controlled environment of the Kindle debuted, its lack of color and interactivity meant that there was no hope of wooing many paid customers or interested advertisers. But the iPhone app environment—and certainly its sexier younger sibling the iPad—promises to give publishers and programmers a way to both charge for content and satisfy advertisers.

But not if consumers can get the same content for free on the same device. In other words, if we can all watch hulu.com or read an exciting version of Wired.com on our iPad browser using Flash, then we won’t buy the apps and advertisers won’t fall in love with reaching us again.
So despite their grumbles and temporary hysteria, media companies are criticizing Jobs and Apple less and less these days, hoping that this will buy them time to woo customers with splashy paid experiences that will then reset the expectation that good content is worth paying for. Even on an Android device.

James McQuivey is an analyst at Forrester Research, where he serves Consumer Product Strategy professionals. James blogs here.

Related

• Adobe Defends Itself Against Steve Jobs’ Attack On Flash
• Steve Jobs Defends Flash Ban, Calls Out Former BFF Adobe
• Apple’s Jobs Responds To Developer Complaints About Third-Party iPhone Ban
• 10-Q Watch: Adobe Admits Apple’s Anti-Flash Strategy Could Be Damaging

Source: James McQuivey

Thanks to a glitch, some Avatar Blu-ray owners can still not play their purchased discs, leading to understandable irritation.

Says one angry customer: “When 3 out of 3 players in my house (Denon, Samsung and PC) won’t play it, then 20th Century Fox should be slapped with losses on this one.”

The customer’s anger is aimed at the wrong place, however. Fox is not the issue but instead it is the Blu-ray players and their respective firmwares. Avatar, requires, in most cases, the latest firmware, but owners of older players without active Internet connections are usually not the most up to date.

For some people, the glitches get weirder. Users have reported chapter pop-up boxes showing up throughout the movie, sometimes without leaving.

It is unclear how Fox will try to help users who cannot play the discs or are receiving the glitches, but likely the number of users is still small, yet vocal.

The world’s highest grossing movie of all-time, the blockbuster Avatar, is also the fastest-selling Blu-ray disc of all-time, selling 2.7 million units in its first four days.

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Source: Abhilash

NASA is teaming up with blockbuster director James Cameron to help build a new 3D camera that will be mounted on the new Mars rover, Curiosity.

Curiosity will launch next year.

NASA had originally scrapped plans for a 3D camera in 2007 saying the “upcoming flagship mission to Mars was consistently over budget and behind schedule.” Comically, most of James Cameron’s movies over the past decade have also been “consistently over budget and behind schedule.”

The director lobbied to NASA administrator Charles Bolden, who agreed that the rover would need a cinema quality camera to help the public connect to the mission.

The 3D camera is now being built by Malin Space Science Systems.

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Source: Abhilash

Just 5 months after purchasing the music streaming service, Apple has decided to shut down Lala, likely signalling that it will be integrated into iTunes.com.

All current members have until May 31st to continue using the service, but as of today the site is not accepting any new members.

Lala is a download and streaming music service that gives members a “digital locker” to store their music. What made the company different from iTunes, Amazon MP3, etc, is that Lala would also sell streaming rights to tracks for pennies, allowing for unlimited streaming online of the track, but no download.

Current members will be given a credit for songs they have purchased to use at iTunes.

Apple is now expected to open a Web-based iTunes that will be based on the Lala framework and will do much of the same things, such as a digital locker for “Web-only” versions of the tracks.

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Source: Abhilash

Valve has finally confirmed the official release date for Steam on the Mac platform, with the streaming service confirmed for a May 12th launch.

The service has been in beta since mid-March.

Doug Lombardi, Valve’s VP of developer marketing says the first two games to be ported will be Portal and Team Fortress 2.

Among the features available at launch will be Steam Play, which allows gamers to play a game on the PC, then continue to play on a Mac, right where they left off, as long as the game is available for both platforms.

Additionally, Mac users will play in the same multiplayer “universe” says GI, meaning all platforms can play on the same servers.

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Source: Abhilash