The dynamic relationship ^[1] between Apple and Adobe just got a lot more interesting. Earlier this week, Adobe went out of its way to convince the world that it is one of the good guys. Adobe plastered several high profile websites, including TechCrunch and the Wall Street Journal, with “I ♥ Apple” ads.

Interestingly enough, these ads also triggered popups for Mac users. It is unclear as to how a popup ad managed to sneak into Google AdSense, but Jimminy Fuller ^[2] has done some preliminary investigation on the incredibly sophisticated advertisement.

What’s really interesting is that Adobe was also targeting Opera users. It’s hard to imagine why Adobe would target Opera users for an ad that is aimed at Apple. Adobe and Opera have worked together in the past on numerous occasions. In fact, Adobe has used ^[3] Opera’s rendering engine in several versions of their Creativity Suite (more specifically for the Adobe Bridge component).

Overall, this was a silly ploy by Adobe. It’s hard to like a company that relies on popup ads to get their message across. Moreover, it’s easy for any aware user to see right through Adobe’s doublespeak ^[4]. Back in 1997, Adobe was the one who was taking away consumer’s freedom to choose.

Apple is yet to respond directly to the latest maneuver by Adobe. But, it did dispatch the following email to its subscribers. Coincidence? You decide.

images via Engadget ^[5] and TechCrunch ^[6]