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Flash on the iphone
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This has been the $64,000 question ever since the iphone was released. It’s just a matter of time and this article provides a little inside hope that we might be getting very close to a reality when it comes to the iphone supporting Flash. My question is, why has it taken this long?
Just a guess but they might have been waiting till after they annouced the iPhone SDK. Since developers can develop apps for the iPhone you could potentially make flash based apps. Other than Safari being the only way to view Flash on the iPhone prior to Apple releasing the SDK, there has been no real reason for Apple to support flash.
Another reason could be that Apple’s relationship with Adobe isn’t that strong. Since Adobe owns the flash software, it would be hard for Apple to put it on their phone.
Just one mans opinion
Alex W at Mar 19, 08 at 10:21 pm
Nice insight Alex. That makes sense. I didn’t know you could see Flash content in the browser already. The lack of flash entertainment at any level was my main concern about buying an iPhone. Then again, if Chris or anyone develops something, and I cannot see or use it on my expensive phone, I’d be disappointed. Thank you.
TM at Mar 20, 08 at 10:45 am
You can’t see flash via Safari on an Iphone, there is no Flash entertainment at any level — Alex was giving Safari as a reason to have it.
The Iphone does have youtube capability, but only for movies that have been encoded with H.264 (a comparitively small subset of all youtube movies) — it won’t play FLVs because it is not a Flash based player.
There’s been some qualification by Adobe regarding the Iphone Flash player statement. Adobe (and Sun’s Java) need special permission and assistance getting their products on the Iphone because of restrictions on development put in place by Apple.
Given that Apple gets $$ for every app developed for the Iphone, they might not be interested in giving that assistance since you can make some very powerful apps and bypass Cocoa development completely.
I don’t think Apple will go for it — they will come up with an excuse to keep it off unless they can somehow have control over it.
Glenn at Mar 24, 08 at 7:52 pm
We are looking at the SDK this summer… however, we’re more eager to get our hands on Unity3D for the iPhone. (http://unity3d.com/company/news/iphone-press) Here’s hoping that wasn’t a pre-April fools joke.
If they can integrate the Flash (although limited) for the PocketPC/mobile it shouldn’t be too far off for an into to Apple’s iPhone/iTouch productline. I second Glenn’s notion… I think revenue taken away from the developer’s program as well as a cost basis for the license fees to Adobe could be a double hit on moving forward with Flash on the iPhone/iTouch platform.
What would really be annoying is for Apple to come out with something like Quicksilver/Silverlight on the PC side for the Mac (which is what Narayen’s hinting at) and introduce a yet another Flash/svg development platform into the mix…
LC at Apr 10, 08 at 2:01 pm