When Steve Jobs decided that he didn’t like flash, he went further than just not supporting it in iOS, he introduced a blanket ban on apps that were developed in any programming languages apart from Objective C, C, or C++.

That was a blow for many developers who built apps in Adobe Flash or other languages and then used converters to make them work on the iPhone.

Apple said that this was all in users interests etc etc, but few were in doubt that this was just a pop at Adobe. Now it seams that this has been confirmed further, the appstore is allowing games built with a cross platform tool called unity, which clearly breaks the terms.

Why? You may ask, what’s Apple’s Problem with Adobe?

I don’t think the problem is with Adobe, or even Flash, I think the problem is with what flash enables you to do – watch video on your phone that you didn’t necessarily buy from iTunes.

You tube and similar flash based video sites allow you to watch music videos and clips from TV shows for free,  Steve jobs would rather you paid him for it. Apple have kept an iron grip on what you can and can’t do with your iPhone/Pod/Pad, the official line is that they want to make sure you get the best user experience by only allowing the best apps and content, and to a point I can see why, the windows PC gaming market suffered from a deluge of truly awful games in the nineties which soured people against PC games and was a contributing factor in the decline of PC gaming.

But how much control do you want apple to have over your device? after all it is yours, you paid for it. The argument of maintaining user experience is a good one, but it’s also a pretty good cover-all way of excluding content from a device for other, less altruistic reasons.