Flash Player (Still) in the Works for Apple’s iPhone
According to appleinsider.com, “Adobe has started development of a Flash player suitable for use on Apple Inc.’s iPhone.” The reason for the delay, according to CEO Steve Jobs, was technological limitations. Jobs said the Flash player is “too slow to be useful” on the iPhone and that Adobe’s Flash Lite is “not capable of being used with the Web.” While Flash Lite is very limited compared to the power of the desktop Flash Player, Jobs’ statement can be interpreted as something other than underhanded. Should we just accept it at face value, though? I’m not so sure.
Microsoft announced recently that it has licensed Flash Lite so that Flash applications can run on Windows mobile devices along side Microsoft’s own Silverlight player. Verizon is working with Adobe to create a developer center for developing Flash applications on Verizon mobile devices. In fact, according to adobe.com, 500 million mobile devices have shipped with Adobe Flash Lite software to-date. The efforts and progress seem to shed a slightly different light.
There has been much speculation since the release of the iPhone in June 2007 as to whether there was going to be a Flash player at all. YouTube videos, normally streamed with the Flash player, are streamed on the iPhone through a special player that forced YouTube to convert most of its library to the Quicktime player’s standard h.264 format. Recently, many developers have become frustrated by the limitation of the Apple SDK. While developing the player, Adobe ran into many dead ends with the already tightly limited developer SDK. According to Adobe, the only way they will be able to get the player working is to collaborate with Apple directly.
Why is there so much buzz over whether the iPhone, with its roughly 6 percent market share, will adopt the Flash Player? Perhaps it is because the iPhone, with its sleek look and brilliant UI, promises little to no technical limitations. We need to remember, however, that the iPhone is still a phone, and, as such, requires different thinking and approaches. We also need to remember, emotions aside, the outcome of this could produce a better piece of technology that will ultimately improve the Flash player, iPhone, and web experience as a whole.
I really felt this was a limitation of the iPhone and iPod Touch, because of the loss in Flash video support.
there are lots of websites online now that use Flash technology to display their videos. Most of those sites are not properly viewable (or viewable at all) with an iPhone or Touch.
It’s good to see they’ve acknowledged this and are working on it. Well, Adobe is I suppose.
Recently, many developers have become frustrated by the limitation of the Apple SDK.
Really? Can I get a source on this? The people that I know (such as Craig Hockenberry, John Gruber, etc seem pretty impressed with the iPhone SDK so far. (Here and here)
Overall, I would agree that the SDK offers a lot. The largest frustration is over the inability of third party applications to run in the background. This has its limitations in numerous ways. As was said here, this limits innovation on mobile phones. He makes good points by saying a mobile user wants to 1) “tell the world about their status in some ongoing way” and 2) “receive notification of important events”. Engadgetmobile.com also seems to differ.
I think the limitation is not whether or not Apple is withholding anything from iPhone users, but rather a limitation of the mobile web itself. There are just certain things the technology cannot yet do well. Take, for example, what Hockenberry said, “both the EDGE and Wi-Fi transceivers have significant power requirements.” Until the technology is balanced on both sides, there are going to be limitations.
The people that I know (such as Craig Hockenberry, John Gruber, etc seem pretty impressed with the iPhone SDK so far.
Agreed. I don’t know of too many developers who, having downloaded and toyed around with the SDK, have bad things to say. The “no background application” will be a limitation in the short-term, to be sure, but that’s a temporary hardware limitation and will force developers to be clever and efficient.
As for Flash coming to iPhone at all: I don’t buy it. It’s certainly not a technical limitation—come on, look at the device itself—but a political one. Gruber nailed it here. What incentive does Apple have to support it? That’s a net liability: better to force vendors like Adobe to support open media standards like H.264 rather than closed, proprietary technologies like Flash. YouTube videos play just fine on iPhone.
(Incidentally, your title should be “Apple’s iPhone”, not “Mac’s”: the former is a company, the latter an operating system.)
Sorry, one more comment:
Perhaps it is because the iPhone, with its sleek look and brilliant UI, promises little to no technical limitations.
Can you clarify where you got this from? I’ve never been under the impression that there are no technical limitations, never heard anyone from the company promising that.
What I am talking about when I say the iPhone “promises little to no technical limitations...” in particular is Apple’s promise from their commercials to bring you the “real” internet, not as they say, “a watered down version of the internet”, which leaves you with the impression that the browser on the device will work just as well as a desktop browser. Since it’s doesn’t support Java, Flash or plug-ins it certainly is not your desktop browser.
Good catch on the title Nathan. I need to get out of the habit of referring to everything Apple with the term Mac. It’s sort of like my mom who still refers to the internet as “AOL” .
Apple’s promise from their commercials to bring you the “real” internet
Got it, that makes more sense. Perhaps more clearly stated as:
“Perhaps it is because the iPhone, with its claim to bring the ‘real internet’ to its browser, promises little to no technical limitations.”
I didn’t see immediately the connection between sleek look/UI and technical limitations.
Cheers!
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