Companies and individuals as diverse as mobile chip-licenser ARM, browser-maker Opera, and former US Secretary of Labor Robert Reich are offering opinions on Adobe, Flash, Apple’s restriction on cross-compilers, and rumors of an Adobe-prompted DOJ/FTC inquiry into Apple — and they won’t be making Adobe very happy.

ARM flat out says Adobe’s Flash has held back the delivery of smartbooks (think netbooks running on smartphone-scale ARM-processors). Adobe and ARM signed a partnership in 2008 and ARM hoped Flash would be up and running by 2009, but say it’s “slipped”. They think we’ll see it in late 2010 (though there was outcry the iPhone didn’t have it in 2007, right?)

Opera, makers of Opera Mini for iPhone, believe Flash still serves a purpose but that that purpose is no longer online video:

“But flash as a video container makes very little sense for CPU, WiFi battery usage etcetera – you can cook an egg on [devices] once you start running Flash on them and there’s a reason for that.”

Robert Reich, former US Secretary of Labor meanwhile wonders why Apple’s ban on the use of cross-compilers is even on the DOJ/FTC radar:

Apple’s supposed sin was to tell software developers that if they want to make apps for iPhones and iPads they have to use Apple programming tools. No more outside tools (like Adobe’s Flash format) that can run on rival devices like Google’s Android phones and RIM’s BlackBerrys.

What’s wrong with that? Apple says it’s necessary to maintain quality. If consumers disagree they can buy platforms elsewhere. Apple was the world’s #3 smartphone supplier in 2009, with 16.2 percent of worldwide market share. RIM was #2, with 18.8 percent. Google isn’t exactly a wallflower. These and other firms are innovating like mad, as are tens of thousands of independent developers. If Apple’s decision reduces the number of future apps that can run on its products, Apple will suffer and presumably change its mind.

Sounds familiar.

Steve Jobs’ open letter on Flash should be a huge wakeup call for Adobe. While they’re tried to play the victim for developers and complained to the government, increased adoption of H.264 and comments like these show they’re beginning to lose the mindshare battle. Fortunately it looks like Adobe is also going get into making HTML5 development tools.

I’d upgrade to CS6 in a minute for that.

[ZDNet, TechRadar via 9to5Mac, Robert Reich via TUAW, TechCrunch]

ARM, Opera, former US Secretary of Labor weigh in on Apple, Adobe, and Flash is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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Apple has bought chip designer Intrisity for $121 million. Given the rapidity and speed of the Apple A4 chipset debuted alongside the iPad, rumors have persisted that Intrisity was behind the new system-on-chip (SoC), but confirmation took a while to arrive.

Intrisity was able to take the standard ARM Cortex A8 found in 650MHz flavor in the iPhone 3GS and competing smartphones and speed it up to 1GHz.

That’s an advantage Apple reportedly wants to keep to itself.

It follows on the heels of Apple’s previous acquisition of low-power fabless chip maker PA Semi, though a number of employees from that talent pool have reportedly left. (Some to be snapped up again by rival Google).

Where this leaves the upcoming iPhone HD/iPhone 4G is uncertain, those ARM itself has announced a successor, the multicore Cortex A9, and we’d certainly love to see what Intrisity’s talent pool could do with that. (Also uncertain is what part, if any, this played in recent rumors concerning a potential Apple buyout of ARM itself).

Either way, Apple is continuing to expand their ability to integrate and differentiate down to the chipset level, something non-integrated competitors like Google and Microsoft might have trouble matching.

[New York Times]

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ARM chips, including the current Cortex A8, power the iPhone 3GS, iPod touch G3, and form part of the A4 system-on-chip for the iPad — add that to some whispers and we get the full on rumor that Apple is in talks to buy them out.

Here’s where it gets really interesting — ARM chips power a slew of other devices as well, including those running Android and Palm.

Rumors of Apple buying desktop chipmaker AMD were floated earlier in the week, so who knows what if anything is really going on here, but tying up a major mobile CPU maker and locker out your competition must hold a certain appeal for Apple (whose already a major licensor of ARM). With $41 billion in the bank, even the likely $8 billion price tag isn’t out of the question.

We’re doubting it at the moment, but what do you think? They’ve already bought PA Semi and may have bought ARM design company Intrisity, and Google just bought Agnilux. Should Apple buy ARM outright?

[London Evening Standard via MacRumors]

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