03/05/2008, 9:20am, EST
Wednesday, March 5th
Jobs, Adobe: Future of iPhone flash a mystery
Flash support for the iPhone should not be expected anytime soon, Apple CEO Steve Jobs has indicated. Addressing people at yesterday's shareholders meeting, Jobs insisted that Adobe's current Flash player for cellphones, Flash Lite, is insufficient for his goals. The iPhone needs something comparable to what can be run on notebooks and desktops, but this runs too slowly on Apple's cellphone processor, according to Jobs. "There's this missing product in the middle," he says. "It just doesn't exist. We enjoy a good relationship with Adobe."
Jobs adds that he is impressed with just the current state of cellphone technology, noting, "the fact that mobile devices can play video at all is astounding."
Adobe has yet to mention plans for Flash tailored to the iPhone, which may be necessary to satisfy Jobs, as both Flash 9 and Flash Lite 3 already support video. The company's spokesman for Internet applications, Ryan Stewart, admits that even he is in the dark regarding future iPhone plans. "No one aside from Steve Jobs has any idea if or when it's coming," he said in February. "Everyone I talk to doesn't know anything."
The Wall Street Journal observes that while Apple is not Adobe's biggest client, the addition of Flash support to the iPhone could be financially beneficial, particularly as Adobe's stock has slid 19 percent for the year. Apple and Adobe have however been experiencing strained relations in past years; Adobe at one point delayed some Mac support, and also began introducing Windows-only products. Apple, in turn, made changes to its lines that disrupted the distribution of Adobe products. The companies have since attempted to reconcile most differences.
Filed under: iPhone, Apple, Graphics/Web Design
Other story tags: Adobe, Flash, Steve Jobs, Flash Lite
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...many of the 'fancy' sites seem to be so focussed on slick tech use that the info I am searching for is obfuscated or even impossible to find - and flash sites seem to load painfully slowly on dsl for me...
Outside of video, I just don't see any use for Flash. There's very little it can do that can't be accomplished with Ajax/Javascript/DHTML (and easily now with libraries like Scriptaculous), and anyone who creates a Flash-only site nowadays is an idiot - and why would you want to enter into a conversation with an idiot or a corporation run by idiots?
Certainly, right now it's friendly competition, trying to out-innovate one another, but the two companies probably won't be walking hand-in-hand for some time.
Uhm... have you ever heard of QuickTime?
I do see there being a large need for general Flash support on the device. As much as I hate sites (including some of my own) that require the use of Flash, it is an integral part of the web and a device/browser that let's you use the "real" web must support it. I understand the processing/battery constraints though. I think they should include it anyway but make some sort of user approval/notice about running down the battery. I mean I was using flash (not video) on my Pocket PC like 5 years ago so it shouldn't be too much to ask for the iPhone to do it 5 years later.
Right, because we know how much money Adobe gets for all those flash plug-ins being installed.
And maybe someone should point out to the WSJ that Apple's stock has fallen 33% since the beginning of the year, so maybe Apple should hope for an Adobe bump.
And since Jobs is the one who has apparently nixed Flash Lite for the iPhone ('not meeting his goals'?), one wonders whether he'll be the one reviewing each and every app sold through the iTMS and make sure it meets his goals too.
Besides, one other thing about the iPhone supporting Flash is that most of it wouldn't work anyway. The developers usually use a lot of mouse-over events and the mouse-over function has been all but removed in mobile Safari.
Flash isn't a deal breaker and Apple wouldn't have a stock boost if Flash got bundled.
Flash has a larger browser-install base than Quicktime does. Flash is mid-to-high 90% install base. Quicktime is in the high-70% / low-80%.
of all the various web plug-ins... Flash is by far the most ubiquitous.