macnn/electronista

03/17/2008, 8:45am, EDT

Monday, March 17th

Win Mobile beats iPhone to Adobe Flash

Adobe on Monday revealed that Microsoft has licensed Flash Lite 3 and Reader LE. The move gives Windows Mobile devices support for web-based animation and video through Internet Explorer Mobile and allows viewing PDF documents both in the browser as well as through Outlook e-mail. The addition will help make Windows Mobile smartphones more "vibrant" with media, Microsoft says. No timetable has been given for when an update will appear to install Flash Lite and Reader LE, though Microsoft's own Silverlight is believed to be ready for Windows Mobile by mid-year.

The upgrade follows last year's addition of Flash Lite to some Symbian phones, including some Nokia Nseries devices. It also follows just days after Apple chief Steve Jobs panned existing Flash versions as potential candidates for the iPhone, arguing that Flash Lite was too limited while the desktop version would be too demanding. The iPhone currently supports PDF viewing.


Filed under: iPhone, industry, software
Other story tags: Microsoft, Windows Mobile, Adobe

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chas_m
Flashlight?
0
03/17, 8:58am, EDT
Heh ...

Anyway, I think Steve is correct. Flash Lite (heh heh) is only good for basically one thing: ads. This has never bothered MS or Symbian so they go right ahead, but this time I think Apple is right to wait.
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Sondjata
Nokia N8x0 Series
0
03/17, 9:03am, EDT
Has had Flash for some time now..
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wings_rfs
Misleading Headline
0
03/17, 9:14am, EDT
Why would you say that MS beat Apple to the Flash & PDF party when MS hasn't even said WHEN they would have it? When they DO have it, that's when you can say that one company beat the other. All they did was "beat" Apple to the announcement that some day it may be coming, for whatever that's worth considering it's MS. Anyway, like chas said, Flash Lite is for the ads mostly, something that MS is well known for wanting. And PDFs can be viewed in iPhone email today, with browser support coming soon I would expect.
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jimothy
Congratulations, MS!
0
03/17, 9:19am, EDT
Microsoft beat Apple in a race in which Apple isn't even running. Apple has repeated stated they have no intention of bring Flash to the iPhone, unless customers demand it. So far, they don't.
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mrturtle
RE: misleading headline
0
03/17, 9:21am, EDT
I agree. How can Win Mobile beat Apple in a race they aren't running right now? MS plans on incorporating a technology that was passed over for the iPhone. That's like saying Win Mobile beats Apple to half-featured, semi-compliant browser (with IE Mobile). It's true, but it's no great feat either.
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wowok1234
safari supports pdf
0
03/17, 9:22am, EDT
Err? Unless i've been hallucinating since last June Safari on the iPhone already supports the viewing of PDFs. I know because I've been using it to access bus schedules in PDF format.
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lololexter
inaccurate
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03/17, 9:22am, EDT
Just wanted to clarify - you can already view PDFs on iPhone outside of mail.app. It's native OS X functionality. Go to any web page offering PDF links and click on them. They will open in a new Safari page. There is no plug-in necessary.
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mrturtle
re jimothy
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03/17, 9:22am, EDT
We were thinking the same thing. I hope customers don't demand it either...
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danviento
wake up people
0
03/17, 10:01am, EDT
If you haven't figured it out yet, apple is trying to KILL FLASH for mobiles. With its continuing growth towards martket dominance, it can substitute real web standards instead of this resource-hogging crap they call flash in Web 2.0.

So far they've gotten youtube and a bunch of other sites to get rid of their flash only-concept and convert to standards like AJAX. Notice all those sites "made for iPhone"? Goes to show that Apple is IN COMPETITION WITH Adobe. The real race is to see if standards or ad bloatware will win out here.
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imagine engine
Re: congratulations, ms!
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03/17, 10:02am, EDT
Apple iPhone customers have been repeatedly requesting on the Apple user forums for Apple to work with Adobe to port Flash to the iPhone. Though Apple has repeatedly denied access to Adobe stating performance concerns with the Flash player for use with the mobile version of Safari. I've experienced difficulty surfing some film studio websites that use Flash in their website design due to the iPhone lacks Flash support. I can easily view them on my Macbook Pro which runs OS X Leopard but unfortunately not on the iPhone which is supposed to be an all in one smartphone solution.
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