It seems that tensions are mounting between Apple and Adobe. Lee Brimelow, a staunch supporter of Adobe, made the claim this week that the iPad ban on Flash was directly aimed at damaging Adobe.  He has claimed that this ban is evidence of a ‘tyrannical’ attitude by Apple that will end up hurting many other developers as well – strong words indeed.

In the past Adobe has been quick to play down any rift that may exist between them and Apple. Things seem to be changing though as the dominance of the iPhone and new iPad becomes more obvious. This ban on flash based applications is going to have a huge effect as more and more people become part of the iPad phenomena. Not being able to get your products onto the device is going to mean a huge loss in potential earnings so it is no wonder that tempers are rising. In fact this could mean the death knell for many things flash-related.

Lee Brimelow has tried to make it clear that these are his own personal opinions and he does want to be seen as being representative of Adobe – still you have to think. One of the final quips in his blog post was the advice to Apple to, “go screw yourself”.

This war between HTML 5 and flash may also involve some personality clashes that go way beyond computer language.  It almost certainly is causing a lot of passionate debate from supporters on both sides of the argument. It is understandable that developers, who have put so much effort into creating using flash, should feel angry that their work will not be available on the most popular platform around; it really must feel like a kick in the teeth. With so much at stake we are almost certain to see the war of words heat up. Although the comments made by Lee Brimelow may not be fully supported by the Adobe team it has almost certainly drawn them further into the conflict.

It will be interesting to see what this increasing hostility between Adobe and Apple leads to. The success of the iPad though is almost certain to give Apple the ability to call the shots. If they don’t want to use flash then there does not seem to be much anyone can do to make them change their minds. What all this means ultimately for Adobe and Flash is probably not going to be good.