Homeschool Spanish Lessons - Online Learning

Anybody reading the tech news lately has read all about the feud between Apple and Adobe; or Apple’s recent decision to make any software made for their iPhone or iPad via 3rd party software development tools like Adobe’s Flash – a violation of their terms of service.

Whatever lame arguments Apple has offered – that Flash is too “buggy” to work on the iPhone or iPad, that Adobe is “lazy” and refuses to correct obvious bugs in their software, etc – are all pretty bogus compared to their main objective, which is to crush Adobe.

Who benefits from this strategy? I guess Apple thinks they will benefit financially from reducing Adobe’s impact on the web.  But what about the impact on developers, especially mom and pop type developers like myself?  I noticed that many of the Adobe haters online have chimed in that Adobe doesn’t do anything for small developers anyway, as their products are way too expensive for the average developer. I guess nobody wants to mention the real truth about that; which is that Adobe makes their trial downloads beyond easy to, um.. well let’s say EXTEND… There is no doubt that they make their vast array of tools available for developers, and price has never been an issue for any developer I’ve ever talked to; many residing in places like India and Bangladesh.

Also when it comes to e-learning, nobody has done more for bringing e-learning alive online than Adobe. Where is Apple’s e-learning format that rivals Flash? Where is their technology that surpasses the trusty old SWF?  Betting on HTML5? That’s a joke. A quick look at the e-learning content creation tools available today will show you that flash is everywhere, and with good reason. It allows producers like myself to create engaging, lightweight multimedia lessons that are easy to produce and fun for students. They opened up Flex and the As3 compiler it provides to the public completely, so that anybody who is willing to learn some actionscript and read a few tutorials can easily create multimedia content. They’ve got blogs like that of RJ Jacquez, the lead e-learning technical “evangelist” at Adobe – dedicated to helping developers with constant video tutorials, updates, ideas, and even moral support. Where is Apple’s RJ Jacquez? Where is their Lee Brimelow, who has provided tons of great free video tutorials for developers over the years?

This week Apple gave the bird to Adobe, without a doubt. But they also gave that same bird to developers, educators, and students. Their message is clear: buy our trendy machines to be cool and most of all, to make us richer. You should really be spending your time watching YouTube for iPad and listening to iTunes, not engaging in e-learning. Apple could clearly care less about e-learning, or e-learning developers.

Well this small time developer, teacher, and mom stands with Adobe. And so should you.