Oh Adobe you wonderful bastards you. There’s some aspects I really like about Adobe - I kinda do have a place in my heart for Adobe Air (with HTML/AJAX) if it’s done right. Photoshop is sweet despite numerous UI inconsistencies. But boy, they just can’t seem to deliver for mobile devices. Adobe, you can’t make a big fuss about the iPhone when you can’t even deliver for Android devices. Because here’s the thing: I don’t care how early/how late in development you are with getting Flash to work on Android - if you can’t present something that works, then don’t bitch.

So after a sip of coffee and quick chuckle at John Gruber’s recent linkage, I can’t see something solid happening this year. Sorry Adobe, but whatever faith people had left will probably be lost, and the media is going to chew on this for quite a while. If you’re going to be so arrogant and brazen about your statements with Flash, you gotta show us something that works and works well. Beta apps aren’t alpha after all. I could consider a beta “70% complete with bugs,” but what Adobe showed didn’t seem to be anywhere near complete at all.

From John Croft:

Here’s what happened: On his Mac, Ryan pulled up a site called Eco Zoo. It is, seemingly, a pretty intense example of Flash development — full of 3D rendering, rich interactions, and cute little characters. Then, he pulled up the same thing on his Nexus One. The site’s progress bar filled in and the 3D world appeared for a few seconds before the browser crashed. Ryan said (paraphrasing), “Whoops! Well, it’s beta, and this is an intense example — let’s try it again.” He tried it again and got the same result. So he said to the audience, “Well, this one isn’t going to work, but does anyone have a Flash site they’d like to see running?” Someone shouted out “Hulu.” Ryan said, “Hulu doesn’t work,” and then wrapped up his demo, telling people if they wanted to try more sites they could find him later and he’d let them play with his Nexus One.

Well, at least it worked on a Mac. Croft continues to say exactly what I thought:

What may be an issue for Adobe, though, is the public perception that demoing an unfinished product could result in.

You can finish the rest of Croft’s article here. Come on Adobe - go big!