“Adobe said Monday that it’s happy with the efforts of its engineers thus far to get a version of the company’s Flash multimedia technology up and running on Apple’s iPhone, but admitted there’s much work left to be done,” Katie Marsal reports for AppleInsider.
“‘With respect to the iPhone, we are working on it,’ said Adobe chief executive Shantanu Narayen, responding to a question on the matter from a Jeffries & Co analyst during a quarterly conference call. ‘We have a version that’s working on the emulation. This is still on the computer and you know, we have to continue to move it from a test environment onto the device and continue to make it work,'” Marsal reports. “Narayen added that he’s nevertheless ‘pleased with the internal progress’ that’s been made to date.”
Marsal reports, “The Adobe chief’s comments come one day after AppleInsider revealed that Apple at its developers conference last week was encouraging community members to adopt open source technologies like SproutCore — from which it built portions of its new MobileMe service — as a means of developing rich internet applications, rather than get hung up on proprietary browser plug-ins like Flash.”
More in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Note: At the Apple shareholder meeting in early March, Apple CEO Steve Jobs said that Adobe’s Flash Lite Player wasn’t sufficiently advanced for an iPhone. Proper Flash “performs too slow to be useful,” on the iPhone, Jobs said. ‘”There’s this missing product in the middle. It just doesn’t exist,” Jobs stated flatly. Back in January 2007, six months before iPhone’s release, The New York Times’ John Markoff interviewed Apple CEO Steve Jobs who said in reply to a Flash on iPhone question, “You don’t need to have Flash to show YouTube. All you need to do is deal with YouTube. And plus, we could get ‘em to up their video resolution at the same time, by using H.264 instead of the old codec.”
Apple has since prompted Adobe, either directly or indirectly, to support H.264 in Flash (see related articles below).
I wouldnt mind seeing flash on the iphone … provided they build a good plugin for it. If they half ass it it wont stand a chance. With that said I am a bigger proponent on open development platforms than I am for flash… but its somewhat annoying to not have access to flash on my iPhone…..but its a small tiny itsy bitsy complaint. If flash never comes to the iPhone I wont be heart broken.
There’s a helluva lot more Flash content on the web apart from YouTube…could Flash be more efficient? No question…but so many websites feature so much Flash content now that shutting iPhone/iPod Touch users from the sites they’re used to seeing on their regular computers is hardly prudent…especially if it comes down to an issue of licensing
Magic word “function”…as in we need full “function”ality on the iPhone!
You don’t have the full internet in your pocket without Flash. Period.
Sure you can’t use it like you could on a desktop, but at least I can see most of 75% of the sites I visit. Sans MDN, of course.
Honestly, as frustrating as it sometimes is that Flash isn’t on the iPhone, I certainly don’t miss the “punch the pigeon and win a free pink iPod” ads that take time to load and resources to display. I can’t wait until someone can make an iPhone ad blocker.
99% of the time Flash is useless and ends up making for crappy web development.
Today’s visit to jambajuice.com from my iPhone is the classic example:
While they were nice enough to let me see their homepage without flash, they could not be smart enough to let me access their store locator unless I had it. How dumb is that?
Thank goodness for my Maps application…the best store locator ever…
@ Jay-Z: you took the words out of my mouth.
I love not having Flash. I can use my iPhone with no daft advertising.
Most Flash is Crap. Period.
Be it rich-media adverts, or wanker designers who feel the need to overdesign and justify their exorbitant fees, flash should not be necessary to enjoy the web.
I guess it depends on what specific web content is your thing, but for me the role of Flash in making ads more obnoxious is far greater than anything useful it enables.
And thats on my computer.
If Adobe offers it for my iphone/ipod touch, I find it hard to imagine it being batter-worthy.
Flash is like any other tool used to create web pages. It allows developers to create interactivity that is far richer than standard HTML, or technologies like AJAX can currently provide. It isn’t “crap”, and it often allows designers to build pages with smaller kb sizes, when used correctly. It’s like saying CSS is crap, because you don’t like the way a designer created the page with obnoxious borders or backgrounds.
Chances are, you have visited Flash sites and you didn’t realize it. It all comes down to the designer’s sensibilities, and often to restraint (just because you can doesn’t mean you should). Remember animated GIF images everywhere?
Flash is an excellent tool to have in your pocket when developing web sites, but not a means in itself. I personally want to see Flash come to the iPhone. I will buy one next month regardless, but I will be looking forward to being able to view ALL content on the web. After all, Apple does insist that the iPhone has the only complete web browser in a handheld.
@ The Great Apple Fanboy Massacre:
Steve Jobs is absolutely CORRECT in restricting what software will run on the iPhone, much in the same way that I can’t install the latest version of Final Cut Pro on my PowerBook G4 – the hardware can’t run the software at acceptable speeds.
Flash is a resource hog. The iPhone, as powerful as it is, simply is NOT a desktop or laptop computer and doesn’t have the processing power for many technologies which were built for PCs.
I won’t be rendering any animation or movie transitions on my iPhone, either, no matter how much I may want to. It’s simply not designed for that.
Sure, it would be nice to have Flash (although the lack of it keeps my kids from playing on Webkinz.com on my iPhone), but it’s hardly necessary. Just more to download and more stupid ads of people dancing over mortgage rates.
Not all plug-ins work in all browsers. Not all websites work in all browsers. THAT IS the Entire Internet Experience. There is nothing business-wise on the Web that requires Flash, and no trick Flash can do that non-Flash enabled standard browser cannot. That leaves the subjective view of Flash, and let’s just say it’s a toss-up. Just as many people hate Flash as like it. By filtering out Flash Apple gave many of us a BETTER Internet experience. Flash belongs in the same garbage pile as CrackBerries and Windoze. If websites only knew how much businesses they are losing because of their crappy Flash interface… but then it’s not only Steve Jobs who is conceited but all the business owners and site designers who actually think their Flashy shit is all that.
Not all plug-ins work in all browsers. Not all websites work in all browsers. THAT IS the Entire Internet Experience.
The Flash plugin works on all modern browsers, and actually can eliminate many cross-browser and cross-platform incompatibilities.
There is nothing business-wise on the Web that requires Flash, and no trick Flash can do that non-Flash enabled standard browser cannot.
The web isn’t all about business. And there are things Flash can do that non-enabled browsers can’t.
If websites only knew how much businesses they are losing because of their crappy Flash interface…
Again, Flash can be used as an interactive element on a web page, with the actual technology behind it remaining invisible to the user. As long as the user has the plug-in.
Uhh, none of you mention the fact that very few (if any) other mobile devices out there offer Flash support… I can’t think of any…
Flash is nice when used with care and restraint. But it is an old bloated resource pig. And honestly, a PITA to program to IMO.
Let’s put it in a different context:
Flash is the JPEG or GIF of animation.
Can you imagine saying you have “the internet in your pocket,” but you can’t see JPEGs?
If 9 out of 10 damned sites didn’t use some amount of Flash on their sites, I’d completely agree with you…
Go to metacafé… oh wait.
Go to myspace and visit their content stuff… oh wait.
Go to Revision 3… oh wait.
Go to CNN.com… oh wait – it forces you to see the mobile version where you can’t see the flash Apple ad.
And on and on and on…
Go most places and see the damned blue lego haunting your mind and eventually driving you into the dark closet of madness.
But, that’s how *I* feel about it.
(P.S. Don’t get me started on MMS)
Just a thought, but maybe, just maybe, proper Flash “performs too slow to be useful,” on the iPhone, (Jobs said).
WebDesigner is right. Flash is just a tool, nothing more. It’s terribly unfortunate that so many sites use Flash to attempt to dazzle (or baffle with BS where’s there’s no content) and so many others think embedding X in Flash prevents users from copying. Flash itself isn’t evil, it’s just like a car: it’s the nut that holds the steering wheel. Mostly it’s the Flash programmers suffering from an ID-10T error.
Flash is crap. Adobe is crap. Together they make a crappy experience. Adobe is more and more Windows centric with every overpriced upgrade.
Flash is terrible for websites. Ask Google. If you don’t want your client’s site to be found – build it in Flash. Search engines will NEVER find it.
But, what are you going to do? Someone didn’t stop Adobe from buying Macromedia. Now they really have no competition and WE have no decent alternative Apps. Thanks whoever is responsible for that. And I think we know who is responsible.
and any “web designer” that thinks otherwise is living in the 90’s
As a designer that supports a major retail website, I have hated flash for decades now. The sooner there is a in-line solution (like sproutcore) with a wysiwyg editor the better. I now lump Adobe in with M$ and couldn’t give a fark if they were gone tomorrow.
Designers get to have the final say. I say to the dungeon with Adobe!
This must be Tuesday.
I could never get the hand of Tuesdays.
You CAN block flash on Firefox and Safari:
Firefox:
http://www.google.com/search?q=add+block+plus+firefox&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
And Safari:
http://safariadblock.sourceforge.net/
Hmmmm, are we missing the obvious here guys?????
If Adobe makes a flash version that runs on the iPhone, great. IF it sucks and you download it from Adobe, its not Apples fault if you hose up your iPhone, right.???
I think its just Steve letting the other guy take the risk with flash, vs mp4.
Just a thought.
If iPhone can help stem the Flash plague then I say “right on brother”. Using Flash for every damn little thing is just slowing down the advancement of the web just the same way too much Microsoft has slowed down the advancement of the PC. Free yourselves before you are completely dependent, as so many are! Just say no to Flash!
All apps for the iPhone will come via the App Store. The App Store is controlled by Apple.
It really doesn’t matter WHAT Adobe does because if Apple doesn’t want it on the iPhone, all they have to do is not allow it on the App Store.
ADOBE will have to completely rewrite Flash: it’s too heavy for the futur of internet. Just a too klunky one!