It’s fair to say that there is no loss of love between Apple and Adobe at the moment. The escalating row over Flash is creating a rift so huge that even the big man

himself, Steve Jobs, has commented on the issue. So what is the argument all about? Currently Apple does not support Flash on any of its mobile devices, including the iPad. Issues of “reliability, security, and performance” have been sighted for the absence and both sides are currently locked in a war of words with exchanges coming thick and fast. Apple claims Flash is "buggy" and prone to crashing, and favour the rival HTML5 format, while Adobe says that Apple's stance threatens the future development of the web and constitutes a 'walled garden' approach.

I have to admit to being a fan of both Apple and Adobe, both have delivered amazing products to the market and both are leaders in their respective fields. So the real question is, who is right, Apple or Adobe? Mashable, the online social media blog, is currently running an online poll and at the moment Adobe is currently ahead of the game with 53% of the vote. HTML5, Apple’s favoured language has just 31% of the vote. The fact that Apple is losing could be a sign that they are not the all powerful company that they might, behind closed doors, like to be. So who will back down first, it seems unlikely that it will be Apple and even more unlikely that this will be resolved anytime soon.

The company who may ultimately play a pivotal role in this dispute is Google. Their Android mobile operating system is currently running trials to get Flash running on it. This could be a real coup for them if they accomplish it. A recent survey conducted by Changewave found that the lack of Flash support on the iPad was one of the most annoying they disliked most about the Apple flagship device.

Apple has been almost untouchable in the last few years but could this attack on such a well respected mainstay of the web be one act of arrogance too far, or, in a mobile market dominated by their products, could they now be the company who even companies the size of Adobe have to comply with?