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Flash still not available for iPhone. Why? Because of Flash apps

Posted November 18, 2008 9:47 AM by Chris Seibold
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imageYou know you can’t run flash on the iPhone. This is both comforting and troubling. Comforting because flash dependent sites are usually very badly done but troubling because, dammit, if the iPhone is supposed to be a real web browser it better run flash!

Adobe wants flash on every computing device possible. There’s flash lite for mobile devices and a new, even better version. But you won’t see that version on the iPhone or the Blackberry.

Why not? Why can’t you have flash on your iPhone? Steve Jobs says it isn’t good enough.Sure , Adobe has updated the product but it probably still isn’t good enough. And it will probably be never good enough. Why won’t it be good enough? Flash apps. With enough talent you can design a a great app using flash. What, an all internet based app? Running in flash? Where is Apple’s cut? Where is Apple’s control? It isn’t there. With the necessary control and revenue cut out of the picture the reasons why Apple might let flash on the iPhone becomes purely consumer focused. Apple would let flash on the iPhone to make you a happier iPhoner but Apple is in it for Apple.

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Comments

  1. Perhaps, but since Flash is a dog on Mac desktops, I seem to view it as a technical/user experience issue. One has no reason to think the much less powerful iPhone, built on OS X, is going to run Flash any better, if even as good.

    It’s been a sore in the side of Mac users for years, prior to the Adobe acquisition of Macromedia; Flash is poor in performance, speed and compatibility on the Mac side. I can still visit sites today using the latest Flash build for Mac and get a message stating I need to install at least version 6 of Flash!

    While Flash would be nice on my iPhone, I’ll be damned if I want Safari crashing every time it comes to a Flash-based web site because of the poorly developed plugin software.

    /

    Posted by D9 on November 18, 2008 1:23 PM

  2. “Apple would let flash on the iPhone to make you a happier iPhoner but Apple is in it for Apple. “

    Apple and iPhone hating creeps.

    Posted by zato on November 18, 2008 1:25 PM

  3. Flash is incredibly CPU intensive. Even on a quad core, it uses almost all CPU resources. The reasons are many, legacy code, and Adobe wants to “own” the internet. The new Flash will default into h.264 video & AAC. Basically, an MPEG-4 file from the current century. It has great quality, at a price, it uses about 60% more CPU than h.263 did.
      When you then drop it in an FLV wrapper it redlines a quad core desktop computer.  No cell phone can play modern video in flash. The better question is why wrap an MP4 in a wrapper for FLV at such drastic performance losses?

    Apple clearly stated no Java or interpreted languages on iPhone. ( Apple wont support Sun Java + Adobe flash - poor performance makes iPhone frustrating and unstable )

    Adobe is trying to replace JAVA, as currently Java is the ONLY way to write software on all cell phone platforms, from Google Andriod, to Symbian. So cheap applications can be used on all devices - but how good are those cheap Java applications? Frankly they all suck!
    By simply using interpreted code, you lose any advantages the iPhone offers. Examples include a hardware h.264 acceleration, as well as 3D graphics, Wolfson MP3/4 Audio acceleration, all the wii like accelerometers - where steering through 3D worlds can be done by tilting left/ right.

    If the phone had a quad core 3GHZ Intel CPU, it would be simple to add flash & Java. (both of which are well supported in Mac OS X for notebooks & desktops)

    Yes you can make low quality 2D games like Nintendo, but Quake, 3D, high quality Audio/Video, cannot work on interpreted code. As emulation always takes a serious speed hit, it limits what is possible.

    Options are simple, be lazy, and try to sell a cheap JAVA, Flash, type poor performing app to every cell except iPhone… or use the SDK and put all these multimedia, graphics, motion/light/movement sensors to good use - Apple will sell it FOR you, only using 30% to distribute it, 70% goes to you. Making a LOT of millionaires of single person developers.

    I mean you do understand emulated code like Java & flash have to emulate a virtual machine taking a 90% speed hit…. iPhones ARM cpu has it’s hands full, and while MP4 w/ h.264 & AAC is a standard everyone can use, Flash is strictly an Adobe technology only THEY control. Who is strong arming who?
    Youtube is happy to offer the h.264/aac videos without a flash wrapper for iPhone. MS is trying to replace the prehistoric flash player and it’s slow legacy code mess… Media players from WMP, Quicktime, Real player, all stream media fine… If you want to download a video, usually it’s offered in iPod format MP4.

    If you can alter the reality that interpreted languages are too slow on a 400MHz arm to view youtube in realtime flash - you would surprise every expert on earth. If you realize Flash is only useable on a desktop by red lining the CPU - how can a tiny ARM cpu keep up?

    Posted by Armas on November 18, 2008 2:28 PM

  4. Flash runs TEN TIMES SLOWER on Mac OS X than Windows Vista on the SAME HARDWARE.

    Adobe does an incredibly POOR job in developing its own Flash interpreter.

    Adobe DISCRIMINATES AGAINST APPLE.  It makes Apple a SECOND CLASS CITIZEN when it comes to Flash.

    Flash also allows applications - WHICH VIOLATES the rules for iPhone Apps.

    If anything, Adobe should OPEN SOURCE FLASH VIDEOS and make it a FREE WEB STANDARD.  This way, at least, everyone can develope their own more efficient Flash Video player.

    I would vote against Flash on iPhone because of Adobe’s poor ability to write a Flash interpreter for Mac.

    TEN TIMES SLOWER. 

    TEN TIMES SLOWER.

    TEN TIMES SLOWER.

    That’s how fast Flash runs on Mac OS X vs. Vista using the SAME hardware.

    I’m glad Adobe is not on the iPhone.  They stink to high heaven.

    Posted by James Katt on November 18, 2008 3:00 PM

  5. I’m frankly perfectly fine with no Flash, or Silverlight for that matter, on my iPhone (or on the web!).  Sticking to standards like HTML5 and MP4 and you can do almost everything those proprietary ‘multimedia/web-application’ solutions enable.  This is clearly the better choice, and what Apple is trying to do.  Adobe and Microsoft and trying to exploit those ‘hooks’ to make the web proprietary, and give them control of the it’s direction.

    Even with Flash support in my browser, for many sites which offer an HTML version of Flash-enabled version of their site, I choose the HTML version.  (Less sizzle, more steak).

    For sites that want to force support for .flv formats for playing videos, I just do without.  There’s no reason that video can’t be formatted as Mpeg4 or Mpeg2 - per non-proprietary standards that browsers can support with either no plug-ins or with a choice of plug-in providers/solutions.  We should not fall victim to giving either Adobe or Microsoft a ‘dictating’ position re: website and web-content design.

    Posted by Tom on November 18, 2008 4:52 PM

  6. HTML 5 makes Flash pointless.

    Posted by Neurotic Nomad on November 18, 2008 5:35 PM

  7. I used to do QA for rosetta stone awhile back in college. FLASH was constantly a development issue due to programming constraints. I never liked dealing with them and they were always trying to say it was our issue. Quite honestly they are really obdurate when it comes to their code.

    I completely side with Apple and disagree with the post. Although, I’m sure apple is in it for apple, this is capitalism fellas.

    Posted by language learning tester on November 18, 2008 6:10 PM

  8. Flash is crapware and still is, do you have a hidden agenda for Adobe?

    Posted by AdamC on November 18, 2008 8:54 PM

  9. Unfortunately in this case flash is synonymous with trashy.

    Posted by Partners in Grime on November 18, 2008 10:25 PM

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