I don’t want to feed into the hype, but this just cracks me up.
Any time anyone from Adobe mentions the iPhone, the tech world, in particular the Flash community, goes wild. The latest mention of it by Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen has gotten it started again.
This one quote, two lines, is what has everyone in an uproar:
It’s a hard technical challenge, and that’s part of the reason Apple and Adobe are collaborating. The ball is in our court. The onus is on us to deliver.
It’s not really much different than anything that has been said before, but this has sparked innumerable reports (once again) that Flash is coming to the iPhone.
The funny thing is that the exact same quote is also used by some blogs as “proof” that Flash is NOT coming to the iPhone:
http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/02/02/he-saidshe-said-flash-not-coming-to-iphone/
And people wonder why Adobe is so untalkative about it. 🙂
HA! here’s yet another instance. Exact same quote, but hopes are dashed.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/158712/flash_on_iphone_hopes_dashed.html
Yet, here, my good friends at flashmagazine, take this quote as confirmation that Flash is coming to the iPhone.
http://www.flashmagazine.com/news/detail/flash_on_the_iphone_is_in_progress/
it’s crazy! 🙂
It is is technically almost impossible to port flash to iphone. Just imagine all the flash apps which will pop up customized for iphone, bypassing the app store. How will apple generate revenue from that? very tricky indeed.
I have to disagree. If they just came out and said either “Yes, we’re working on it” or “No, it won’t happen for the foreseeable future”, then all these rumors would stop.
I’m sure Apple has a large hand in what Adobe can say publicly, since they feed off of rumors like that for brand awareness, but Narayen isn’t helping matters with these little snippet quotes.
Jon, well I agree, a strong definitive answer would be best, but apparently nobody is ready to give that. So everything they do say is analyzed to death.
Yuh. I heard news also from here.
Congrats!!
Peter will be excited about this.
http://www.flashmagazine.com/news/detail/flash_on_the_iphone_is_in_progress/
Sorry. Keith.
I didn’t know some one already mentioned previous link. Here’s another information.
http://i.gizmodo.com/5143766/flash-on-iphone-is-coming-up-to-adobe-to-clear-tech-hurdles?skyline=true&s=i
Yes, I just saw same news here.
I think it is coming.
http://www.tuaw.com/2009/02/01/flash-coming-to-the-iphone-after-all/
Thanks for your read
The only way to find out, is to wait.
Apple has blocked a lot of apps just because they were giving options to do something that Apple didn’t want to give. Its very unlikely Apple ever ties up for Flash. It will be just hope!
Because the iPhone only clocks something like 400mhz, apps that compete with the app-store are out, so there’s no harm for apple in trying to bring some support to safari. The best they can hope for is to make video players and simple animations work.
Ian, the iPod Touch Generation 2 has 533MHz though (just a bit of bragging here 😉
The real question is how far would Adobe be willing to go to create a custom Flash runtime that suits the iPhone/iPod, one that certainly isn’t as featureful as the latest Flash and not as lame as Flash Lite.
Yup. I got information hear.
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/01/31/adobe_apple_working_together_on_flash_for_iphone.html
Well, there’s no need to doubt that Adobe is working on it. Paul Betlem (Sr. Director of Engineering at Adobe Systems) confirmed this at this years FOTB:
http://www.flashmagazine.com/news/detail/flash_for_the_iphone_confirmed_at_fotb/
If Shantanu says to Bloomberg (which I trust is reporting this correctly) that “It’s a hard technical challenge, and that’s part of the reason Apple and Adobe are collaborating” I choose to see that as proof that it is indeed hard to make Flash Player 10 run well on a 400Mhz CPU, don’t you?
J
BTW: that previous comment posted as me wasn’t mine, but I guess you have the IP address registered Keith?
I’m not saying it’s not being worked on. That much is obvious and has been said multiple times. But “being worked on” is no guarantee or confirmation that it will ever see the light of day. The funniest thing to me is that the same quote get’s analyzed both ways – as confirmation that it will soon be there, and as proof that it will not be on there. 🙂
Personally, I think we’ll see Flash on the iPhone eventually, but I still insist it’s far more complex as a business problem than a technical problem. Allowing full Flash on the iPhone with no limitations would be akin to allowing a bit-torrent song and movie downloader app in the app store. 🙂
I mean that from a business viewpoint. Apple gets 30 cents for everyone who downloads a stupid 99 cent fart app. I could make a Flash fart app in less than 5 minutes – and most of that would be spent finding (or recording) a fart sound.
My guess (purely speculation) is that Apple wants to have some kind of control in that sense. That is more of a technical challenge than performance.
Indeed! I’m totally with you. Apple wouldn’t kill a cash cow unless they are forced 🙂
What I wonder the most about is what kind of Player Adobe is working on? Is it a standalone or a Safari plugin? If it’s a plugin, then it’s not really a Business Problem, is it? I mean – what fun is it to only be able to fart when you’re online? 😉
J
I could definitely imagine a lite version that enables the user to view Flash content such as banners that don’t have user interaction, but anything beyond that would only hurt Apple’s store.
My 3 dongle does not control what my mac runs, all I need is a smaller device for my dongle and use skype, the mobile industries current approach is not maintainable.
I will not buy an iPhone until it supports flash and I propose that all flash creatives should stop buying them in protest and stop bigging them up? We need to be investing in more open phone platforms. We know this sharing over the web can bring changes, Keith if all your blog entries concerned some openplatform phone, I bet that loads of people would be buying thoughs instead.. not sure that there are any available but its a powerful thought.. create the market rather than follow!
But all credit you doing cool stuff with these iPhones.
I’ve don’t believe flash in its current incarnation as a web technology would be good for apple ore anyone trying to create apps for Iphone. The app store model works well as a way fro Iphone developers to not only get there apps out with minimal risk of be stolen from, but also maybe get a little money for there efforts. There is already a mini price battle over free vs pay, the whole walmart effect thing. A new battle for web vs App Store distro would act to further confuse things.
I have written flash applications for gov, business and educational customers since FutureSplash. I have also written opengl C/C++ based applications for the same group of customers. As a professional developer the iphone as a platform and business model is very exciting to me. Right now at least, the apps in the app store are all on equal footing distribution wise, sorta. This platform, though strong and innovative, is still in its infancy and we don’t want to pressure it too much.
Flash is a great idea incubator!
My suggestion, for what its worth, is for adobe to work out a deal where iphone application authors can use flash as a development platform for Iphone content and not try to force the issue of getting the player into the safari browser that ships on the IPhone. That way we keep our app store marketplace and have a choice to use flash as a development platform if we so choose. Best of both worlds……
Lastly kudos to Bit 101, who has been suppling us with example fla’s forever, for posting great iphone development topical articles. The flash community has a lot to offer iPhone development.