For the past decade of Steve Jobs’ second go-around as CEO at Apple, the company has secured a strong following of loyal customers by playing the role of the David in a world of tech Goliaths. You can see it in the famous Mac vs. PC ads: Apple is the everyman, and its competitor (Microsoft) is the stuffy, out-of-touch "Man."

But recently, Apple has either lost touch with its customer base or just has a bug lodged up its data port.

In late February, Apple purged 6,000 apps it deemed "too sexy." Late last month, Jobs posted a scathing 1,700-word essay on Apple’s Web site about why he hates Adobe Flash.

More recently, the company made Ellen Degeneres apologize on national TV for airing a spoof commercial that suggested the iPhone was difficult to use. And Apple threw an epic hissy fit when a Gizmodo blogger leaked photos of a new iPhone prototype.

The Gizmodo fallout prompted "Daily Show" host and admitted Apple lover Jon Stewart to label the company’s execs "Appholes."

"Apple, you were the rebels, man, the underdogs, people believed in you," said Stewart. "But now, are you becoming the Man?

In reality, Apple hasn’t been an underdog for years. Its iPod and iTunes’ success helped the company grow out of its "niche" status. And Apple really took off after the iPhone became an instant hit in 2007.

Apple’s market value is now about $245 billion — just shy of Microsoft’s  $270 billion. And Apple’s revenue this year is expected to be on par with Microsoft, at around $61 billion.

Consumers still love Apple

It’s highly unlikely that Apple’s newfound status as "tech giant" and the associated attitude-copping will be a turn off for consumers.

"It’s going to take a lot more that a few controversies with Gizmodo, Ellen, or Adobe to halt the Apple momentum," said Jason Schwartz, author of Apple Revolution: The Religious Tech Wave of Decade 2010. "If anything, all the media attention adds to the appeal."

Apple did not respond to requests for comment, but most analysts agree that Apple’s products speak for themselves.

"People don’t care that Apple has been defiant — they’re used to Apple getting on its high horse," said Laura DiDio, principal analyst at ITIC. "As long as it keeps producing good products, consumers’ love fest with the company will continue."

This isn’t the first time that Apple has demonstrated a bit of arrogance. The company has stared down the music industry, created a notoriously tough admissions process for its App Store and maintained high prices on its Macintosh computers despite every other computer company slashing prices.

There are some skeptics out there who think Apple may have gone too far this time.

"We’re clearly seeing a backlash brewing against Apple, analogous to the backlash against Facebook," said Adam Hanft, CEO of marketing firm Hanft Projects. "Think back to the famous 1984 commercial — in a way the tables have turned. Apple is now in control much more than IBM ever was."

The comparisons to "Big Brother" IBM are perhaps apt, but there is a big difference. IBM and Microsoft made computers and software that were built to support business customers, and eventually those products trickled down to consumers. Apple, on the other hand, has always put consumers first, which has bought it a whole lot of good will with its customers.

"Apple’s close attention to consumers gives it more latitude to play some of these dominant games than Microsoft or IBM ever had," said Christopher Collins, consumer research analyst at Yankee Group. "But that doesn’t mean if you rub people the wrong way, it won’t affect customer behavior in the long run."

Collins said Apple’s strong stance against Adobe Flash could lead people to other products, namely Google’s Android platform, which will support Flash in its next release. Flash support is needed to view a significant amount of content on the Web, including a large share of online videos.

ITIC’s DiDio, who recently conducted a survey of 500 Apple users, found that customers are clamoring for Flash support, but said they would continue to buy Apple products even without it.

IPad sales quickly topped 1 million in a matter of weeks, and the iPhone shows no signs of fading.

"People will vote with their feet," said Hanft. "Will they punish Apple? It’s doubtful. Do you know anyone who moved their accounts when there was all that populist outrage against the banks?"

(CNNMoney.com)

For those who live their life on the Web, Apple’s seemingly resolute refusal to put Flash on its mobile devices (it works just fine on Apple’s notebook and desktop computers) is a bit of mystery. Flash has become ubiquitous on the Internet, providing the software environment for tens of thousands of online games, and millions of video streams, as well as those annoying animations that ask if you would like to “skip intro.”

Rumors crop up every time the iPhone gets a refresh that Flash is coming, and then, like some awkward kid passed up at the school dance by the most sparkling student on the planet, Adobe’s Flash gets left out. As with all things Apple (AAPL), no real explanation has been made by Jobs or his team as to why they prefer to give Flash the brushoff. “We have regular conversations with Apple,” says Adrian Ludwig, Adobe’s group product marketing manager Flash platform. “That specific question has never been answered.”

But of course, this being an Apple-obsessed world, there are numerous theories as to why Apple keeps snubbing Adobe’s Flash platform. The common theme in all of them: control. By letting Flash onto its devices, Apple cedes some aspect of control, and in the company that Jobs has built magnificently as control freak in chief, that apparently, does not fly.

For Adobe (ADBE), here are the hurdles the company faces in getting its all-important technology onto the most talked about devices:

Flash hasn’t kept up with the times

The technology was developed originally as a so-called “runtime environment” in the PC world, and that means it grew up running on Intel’s X86 chip architecture. Why that is important in today’s mobile world is that most mobile gadgets, including the iPhone and presumably the iPad, use a different chip architecture: ARM. And current versions of Flash have problems running on ARM. “It’s a question of balancing power management, performance and memory allocation,” says a mobile developer very familiar with the issue.

Flash is a drain

Flash looks pretty, but, largely because it’s not native to ARM, the technology demands an outsize chunk of the semiconductor’s cycles. That means that running Flash on a mobile device can affect how long the battery lasts, whether the video is more like a slide show than a movie, and whether anything else can be happening in the background while you play a game. Jobs isn’t about to let some other company’s technology take the iPad’s claimed 10-hour battery life down to five. And if the device sputters every time it shows a moving image, Apple’s user experience — for which Apple can charge more than its competitors — gets put at risk. Adobe’s Ludwig denies these are insurmountable technical problems, and he may have something there.

Flash challenges Apple’s business model

Apple makes devices that consumers drool over — but they also have figured out how to get into people’s pocketbooks in a way that businesses drool over. Apple’s iPhone App store, and the iTunes store have been incredible successes (and Apple is counting on the same riches to come with the planned iBook store). If Flash were allowed on the iPhone or the iPad, software developers would have free rein to sell apps directly to consumers, bypassing Apple’s shops and Apple’s cut of the sale. If Flash were on the iPhone, you could watch Hulu and play games on Mini-Clip rather than buying movies from iTunes or buying games from the App store. (Adobe is also getting ready to launch a workaround that lets the 2 million or so Flash developers out there easily convert their applications for the iPhone, iPod and now iPad — but they will still be approved by and sold through Apple.) Flash breaks down the control Apple has over what gets on its devices and who gets paid for it. Which brings us to the porn theory.

Flash opens up a market that Apple and its wireless partners don’t want to enter

The vast majority of porn is streamed using — you guessed it — Flash. Apple is keeping Flash out, this segment of theorists contend, because it doesn’t want its devices to be the best porn products on the planet. Not to mention the network problems it might cause. It’s bad enough with simple web-surfing to get your iPhone to work in San Francisco and New York, if everyone were watching streaming skin flicks in HD, you can imagine that AT&T (T) would simply be unusable.

Apple is developing its own competitor to Flash

This one hasn’t progressed past pure conjecture. But considering how much control it would give Apple in content, across the devices and across the Web, it seems possible. And control, to Apple, is always a good thing.

Adobe is set to release Flash 10.1 some time this year, and pretty much every mobile device or mobile operating system maker, including Research in Motion (RIMM), Samsung, Palm (PALM), and Google (GOOG), is prepping their devices for the upgraded Flash. Very soon, practically every new smartphone on the planet, and all those iPad wannabes coming out, will run Flash. So technically, it seems, it’s possible.

The truth about why Apple seems to hate Adobe is probably a bit of the technical with a lot of the business model reason thrown in. Flash is not good for Apple’s business, it pokes holes in the perfect ecosystem that Jobs and his team have built. When every other mobile device has Flash built in, will Apple be forced to make nice with Flash? Perhaps, but until then, you can expect Apple to keep ignoring Adobe.