Toronto, Ontario, Canada – May 5, 2010 – Animated Media Inc. (AMI) has been closely following the recent “fight” taking place between Apple and Adobe about allowing Flash onto the Apple Touch devices (iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch). In response to Steve Jobs’ recent posting entitled “Thoughts on Flash” (www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/), AMI wanted to address some of the issues raised by Steve Jobs and the Apple folks as well as to explain how our VGK platform allows Flash to work on iPhone, while adhering to Apple’s licensing terms.

1. Steve says “Another Adobe claim is that Apple devices cannot play Flash games. This is true.” This will remain true because a Flash game is comprised of two main components, the Flash animations and the ActionScript that controls how the game play happens. The Flash animations are simply data rendered in a deterministic manner. ActionScript is a command and control interpreted, scripting language supported by a run-time virtual machine. In our opinion, this is where the issue lies. AMI has developed “command and control” modules called World Interface Modules (WIMs) which are written in Apple’s native Objective-C, C or C++ code and replace the ActionScript code. This allows developers to create native iPhone OS apps and games that incorporate Flash animations. The VGK platform provides the many thousands existing iPhone developers a larger range of options to incorporate Flash animations without reauthoring to give their apps “eye-popping” graphics.

2. Steve says “Second, there’s the “full web”.” Flash is not just about websites – that’s Adobe’s main focus. Flash can be used for building stunning visuals and there is a lot of Flash content already created. Giving content owners a chance to reutilize this content on many devices is critical and there are more than 1 million Flash developers worldwide. The VGK platform allows Flash animations to be integrated in to existing 2D and 3D applications.

3. Steve says “Third, there’s reliability, security and performance.”; “Flash is the number one reason Macs crash.” These issues rest squarely on the use of ActionScript. We agree with Steve on this point. That is why we architected the VGK platform to create the WIMs to be used in place of ActionScript. We also render the graphics, audio and video streams using Apple’s native OS APIs.

4. Steve says “Flash has not performed well on mobile devices.”; “We have routinely asked Adobe to show us Flash performing well on a mobile device.” Developers need to use the native resources on a device to achieve great performance. AMI took that approach when designing the VGK platform and we offer that expertise to our customers. We believe the VGK partially solves the performance problem by supporting Flash animations using the native iPhone OS APIs.

5. Steve says “Fourth, there’s battery life.” The VGK platform uses the native APIs and hardware acceleration for graphics, video and audio. No battery killing here.

6. Steve says “Fifth, there’s Touch.”; “Flash was designed for PCs using mice, not for touch screens using fingers.” We agree. However, AMI has developed a unique way to handle touch screen requirements by using one of our WIM modules that allows the developer to map touch action to what the Flash animation expects. In fact we can support touch screen input for multiple Flash animations running simultaneously. Think about how great that Flash-based checkers game will look and operate on the iPad!

7. Steve says “Sixth, the most important reason … third party layer of software come between the platform and the developer” Adobe’s Creative Suite 5 precompiles the Flash content for the iPhone which locks in the supported APIs at that time. The VGK platform is used by the iPhone developer to readily support Flash animations and the native OS APIs can be accessed anytime. As the iPhone OS changes, the VGK platform is ready to run on it as it is the iPhone developer who can write the updated WIMs.

8. Steve says “They can only take advantage of platform enhancements if and when the third party chooses to adopt the new features.”; “… even worse if the third party is supplying a cross platform development tool.” AMI’s VGK platform API does not include, or limit access to the iPhone OS APIs, so it does not need to be updated to add support for new iPhone OS APIs. The VGK platform is completely customizable to the target device and APIs. A critical differentiation between AMI and Adobe is that Adobe’s release schedule will always be slower and very different from the device manufacturers – like Apple, RIM and Android[]-based devices. But the VGK platform is always in sync because developers have the WIM module source code and can create WIMs as they see fit. The developers are in complete control of the iPhone OS APIs.

9. Steve says “Flash was created during the PC era – for PCs and mice.”; “…the mobile era is about low power devices, touch interfaces and open web standards.” We agree that Flash was created for the PC era and mobile devices have different requirements. On the flip side, there is a lot of Flash content already created and many Flash animations that are deterministic (meaning no ActionScript included). Giving content owners a chance to reutilize this content on many devices is a huge benefit. It’s easy to get Flash content developed.

10. AMI’s developers are system-level and graphics experts … after all they implemented the safety-certified graphics in cockpit display systems in planes like the Airbus A380. So they took the different approaches, mentioned in the article, to solve the problem of implementing Flash on the Apple Touch devices.

About Animated Media Inc.

Animated Media Inc. (AMI) is based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada and provides solutions to help customers build intuitive, stunning visuals for multimedia applications. Our family of multimedia software products provides support for 2D/3D graphics, video, and audio applications using popular media and graphics formats such as Adobe Flash, SVG, and the Khronos Group’s OpenGL, OpenGL ES and OpenVG APIs, and enable our customers to create dynamic graphical user interfaces and animations for feature-rich applications. Our flagship product is the VGK platform that extends Adobe’s Flash product functionality by allowing Flash content to operate in a wide variety of system configurations, from low-power embedded devices to high-end 3D desktop and game systems. AMI products support many vertical markets including consumer electronics, automotive control and infotainment displays, STB/DTV/IPTV, 3D virtual and enhanced reality, industrial automation, 3D user interface authoring, digital advertising, casino gaming, home automation, and medical instrumentation. See us at www.animatedmedia.ca.