Adobe and Apple Sitting in a Tree, F L A S H To Be?
Just when we thought it was safe to forget about Flash on the iPhone, after Adobe said they were making it, after Steve Jobs said Flash Lite was too little and Flash was too much, after Adobe was reportedly strong-arming PDF for Flash, after Apple advocated AJAX and WebApps instead, after all the tears, and all the fears, is Flash once again on its way to the iPhone? Apple Insider says it might be:
>In an interview with Bloomberg at the Davos, Switzerland event, Adobe chief Shantanu Narayen describes development as a complicated two-way process [...] “It’s a hard technical challenge, and that’s part of the reason Apple and Adobe are collaborating,” he says. “The ball is in our court. The onus is on us to deliver.”
While many complain about the lack of Flash on the iPhone, it’s best to remember that while the iPhone provides the best mobile web experience, it’s not a desktop, and real Flash (not old, outdated, limited Flash Lite) is heavy lifting. Adobe has never properly optimized Flash for OS X, and it remains bloated, buggy, and a battery drain, which are annoying on a laptop but terminal on a mobile device like the iPhone.
If Adobe could make a real iPhone optimized version — preferably a viewer like the QuickTime app so we don’t suffer really poor load times under the assault of all those “punch the monkey” banner ads, it could be a game changer for mobile video.
Or Apple could just use the next time they’re on mic to tell Adobe: “we’re just not that into you”.
Of course, if sites like Hulu start doing what Ustream did, and just making an H.264 version for the iPhone… likely Adobe’s nightmare scenario. And a lot of incentive!
Could this really happen? Do we want it to? And if so, would the world turn upside down? Would it be…
[Thanks to Matt for the tip!]
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Youtube cometh!
Flash is only used for porn and banner ads. No need for it on iPhone.
I’ve been using flash on my jailbroken iPhone 3G for months now. It’s perfect. And to Frog, ever heard of this thing called YouTube? The mobile version is actually painful to use. After you finally find the video you’re looking for,(you have to scroll through like 4 videos at a time) you get that annoying “Not available on mobile.” popup. Desktop YouTube on the iPhone is much better.
Flash is part of the internet, like it or not. And since so many web designers don’t bother with (or know how to embed) alternate content, not having Flash on ANY browser is simply an incomplete and sloppy internet.
Ajax? Nahh… not a substitute.
O god. Who the he’ll cares about flash. If loading a huge file and then having it run doesn’t crash the iPhone, pinching and zooming will do it.
I tipped you guys off to this, yet you claim that it came from Apple Insider. I suppose you guys just didn’t check your emails…
I think it’ll be interesting how it would work out. I see it as a good thing. If this does end up happening, it would be nice to have the option to either enable/disable flash for those who don’t care for it and for those who would prefer to preserve battery.
I’ve never had a YouTube video say “not available for mobile” on my iPhone.
@Matt TiPb receives a ton of tips each day along with Rene checking RSS feeders like crazy. I would not be surprised if Rene saw this before you did…
@Jimmy: The iPhone already has the option of enabling/disabling plug-ins in Safari settings.
@Matt Sawyers Yeah, all I kno is that this story wasn’t posted for hours after I tipped you guys off to it. I live in Australia, so I have a different time zone to you guys. So you guys would have been sent the tip before any of you even woke up…
Without Flash Safari clashes all the time on my iPhone. But I would certainly like to have it installed.
Apologies Matt, email fail on my end. Really appreciate your tip and will add full credit above.
For those who say flash on the iPhone is not needed, think of the growing number of websites which aren’t porn or banner ads converting to flash sites to improve their image. Soon the iPhone won’t be able to access simple websites of many leading organisations. This needs to be fixed now. To ease memory strains on the iPhone, you should me able to touch where the flash product would show on a PC which will load the flash into a separate tab.
@ Rene Ritchie No its alrite. As long as the story is posted now, its fine. I can’t blame you for an email problem.
I have had “format not available” on my iphone a few times, but not that often. Still, flash support — at least flash video — is necessary if the iphone wants to claim the top spot as a portable media device.
Forgive the US-centric list, but aside from youtube and hulu, all four networks — abc, nbc, fox, and cbs — stream espisodes in flash, as do most cable networks, as well as cable-owned websites like thedailyshow.com. Flash video dominates, in part because of plugin ubiquity, in part because of the toolset available to designers, and yes, in part because of the ease of managing ad content in the stream. Flash video even has a dominant presence among independent providers from ifilm to southparkstudios.com. Some providers (e.g. ustream, collegehumor) manage an h264 version of much of their content, but not all of it, and the bigger players (for now) do not even attempt anything but flash. Would I prefer all providers use quicktime instead of flash streams? Of course — but it seems vanishingly unlikely Apple can convince all those heavyweights to change/support multiple formats.
Certainly Apple is in no rush — the jailbreak app iMobileCinema is not entirely stable yet, and no Android or WinMo product can do it, either — but the first mobile product that can reliably handle on-demand streams from all major content providers is going to have a big seller. Since all of those providers seem to have settled on flash, it seems logical that any device that aims for the crown of top portable media device would have to support some baseline version of flash video. I hope Adobe and Apple together can find some way to pull it off in this gen of the iphone.
One thing i can say to these Flash lovers, they love to watch porn on their iPhones, I can’t believe they love to watch ads on them.
Flash should already be on the iPhone mannnnnyyyyyyy regular sites use flash and it’s a pain not being able to navigate them I hope it’s on the next iPhone but it will require a significant memory upgrade
Flash isnt much 100% “needed” like maybe oh say MMS and Copy/Paste, but certainly is an improvement. To those who say Flash is just for porn, how about oh say maybe watching photo slideshows, online music players, and completely flash based sites?
we need flash to watch the videos that get posted on this blog LOL.
For all u porn lovers like me just check out tube8 if they can make flash and iphone versions available then surley it’s just a matter of time! By the way can anyone tell me how good the jailbreak version of flash is handling content at the mo?
On the desktop people use flashblockers to avoid the crap. On the iphone they can’t seem to be able to live without it.
I don’t want to have to live without it. I can give apple a pass on the iPhone/iphone3g I consider them beta devices. Apple is only 3 years in as a handset producer. The next iPhone needs to be above and beyond this current iPhone, no more it’s missing this missing that, I should not have to jailbreak to humiliate g1 owners with the functions of my 299 dollar phone. Mms is useless, but copy and paste, flash, better SMS, unified email, and push are a must in June or sales might drop off.
you are very good.I find many useful things ,thank you!
Like someone posted above – I need flash to be able to view videos posted on this site.
@Pinny: You shouldn’t need Flash to watch the videos on this site — that’s a failure of the video sites. YouTube should intercept the videos and send you to the YouTube App on the iPhone to watch the H.264 version.
Vimeo, Viddler and the rest should do like Ustream and make a non-Flash dependent version (H.264).
Flash, like any 3rd party extension, should be a choice, not a necessity, that way Adobe will be forced to make a better Flash we want to use and aren’t stuck using.
Less bugs, less bloat, remove Flash cookies, and fix the security model, and they’d be uber-competitive.
back to watching vids on the iPhone from this blog. Bring on the flash. If we can have it on these porn sites mentioned then we should be able to have it for the msn vids.
@rene. No offence but some people can’t see the vids. So yea; we need flash LOL
@rene I don’t want to be stuck using anything. It would be nice to have the choice though instead of nothing……. Worth thing about ace eh…
meh, flash, the sites i use alot that use flash alot on my laptop end up setting my crotch on fire and not in a porn way, and cause the whole thing to run slow when they’ve been open a while.
If implemented in any other form than the quicktime app, i’d rather leave it.
Crash in a Flash.
If tIpb links to another site’s video without checking to see if that format is actually supported on the iphone, that is hardly the fault of the video provider — or the iphone, for that matter.
Simply put, there is no “fault” on the part of any of the video sites. They are no more obligated to provide an h264 version of their content than Apple is to support flash. Sure, if they want to reach whatever fraction of the 13m iphones out that heavily view videos, they should, but if it is not worth their time and money to do so, that is their choice. Apple (and iphone customers) have to prove to them we are worth it, not the other way around. While 13m potential viewers seems like a large amount, it is trivial compared with the larger and more easily monetizable (through banners and in-stream ads) audience from flash-capable browsers. Thinking that any company has some sort of moral obligation to provide a specific format, much less stick to a standard is wishful thinking, at best.
Content sites, like any other company, will go where their business requires them to go. That could be flash, quicktime, or something new. (As long as it is not RealPlayer
) If Apple cannot convince them h264 is the way to go, they need to get on board with whatever format they choose, or be prepared to cede the iphone’s top media spot to whatever device does.
So here are the two factions.
Anti Flash: Complaints: Only used for porn and banner ads. Battery consumption. The ‘Hot crotch’ complaint. Remedy: Require 1000′s of video streaming entities to convert to h264 to cater to one entity.
Pro Flash: Complaints: Can’t view a very large percentage of the Internet. Remedy: Require two companies to collaborate on a solution to meet the demands of the overwhelming majority.
What seems reasonable? Do we need Captain Obvious for some guidance? Do you think Apple put the brakes on Flash to stand in solidarity with narrow-minded ignorance?
For those of you wondering why it has taken so long for Apple to ‘come to their senses’, here’s the 411. Money and ego.
Money: Now that App Store has hit critical mass, the threat of Flash applications overtaking iPhone apps is no longer a threat to Apple. So Apple can now begin to entertain this issue. (Yes, Flash does a lot more than just play videos).
Ego: Android is just now starting to put pressure on Apple. It’s obvious that Android’s multi-hardware OS is not doing circles around the iPhone OS, however, Google has a toy that Steve does not: Flash. And it won’t take long for Steve to add the toy to his repertoire. It wasn’t important that iPhone users were shouting ‘Flash’ from the rooftops. It’s more important that someone else has something that Apple does not.
Pierce the veil of ‘FlashLite is too little’ and ‘Flash is too big’ and you get money and ego.
@Jeff: You’re describing precisely where the internet was headed with Internet Explorer and proprietary ActiveX controls. Given your argument, web standards should have been abandoned along with CSS, PNG support, etc. so that the dominant Microsoft browser world could have just continued to roll along.
HTML5, H.264, etc. are better than Flash for the future web, same as Firefox and WebApps. Those sites shouldn’t change for Apple, they should change for themselves.
Wholeheartedly agreed that H264 is better for the open web, but that does not mean it is better for the content provider. Comedy Central has a flash transcoding solution in place, in-house Flash talent, and some very robust tools to place context-sensitive ads in their video streams virtually on demand. The Quicktime world (so far) has nothing similar in the same price range. Should they really switch, and develop their own ad tools, for the 0.48% of the internet that uses iphones — or more accurately, whatever fraction of that 0.48% that also would watch the daily show online? Should every provider make that evaluation and budgeting decision? I actually agree it would be better if they did, but so far nobody has made a case other than “it is better for openness,” which is not nearly enough.
Firefox and some w3c standards seized an opportunity because a critical mass of developers (including me) got fed up with the stagnancy of IE over the course of years. H264 vs Flash will need a similar fallow period from Adobe in order to grab that foothold, and, if Adobe were given to standing still, we would all be on the more open, “better for the web” svg, a web standard since 1999. As the challenger, the onus is on h264 and its backers to prove it is a superior format for a business to use. That alone will determine if h264 becomes another CSS or another SVG.
A more appropriate example is OpenGL — an open, powerful platform for 3D graphics. Not wanting developers to easily become cross-platform, Microsoft came out with DirectX. If you used OpenGL, you could easily port your game between Windows and the Mac, and Linux (or, heck, SGI) if you were so inclined. If you used DirectX, you tied yourselves deeply to Windows. For a while, OpenGL was even technically superior to DirectX. However, OpenGL supporters used openness and purity as their sole rallying cries, while Microsoft bent over backwards to provide developer tools. The choice boiled down to reaching 100% of the market (OpenGL) vs. reaching 95% of the market (DirectX) more quickly and cheaply. The game market did not so much vote with their feet as stampeded to Windows, adding another crippling blow to Mac market share. Over time, DirectX surpassed OpenGL in many areas, simply because of its heavier use.
h264 is nice technology, but nice technology alone has never been enough. Flash does more than just video, has far greater market penetration, an established developer base, and far superior developer and management tools. The Quicktime world will at least equal, if not surpass those; openness alone has never been enough to capture a market.
I believe Flash supports H.264 in their FLV (and other wrappers), which makes for much nicer video than their Sorrensen (sp?) format of old.
However, that Flash wrapper is what’s gumming up my Mac performance (bloated and buggy) so I’m still not sad to see it not gumming up my iPhone performance at this point…
@Rene: You still haven’t made a reasonable argument.
Openness: Yes to h264, but Flash does far more than just video… like apps and lots of them.
Gumming up: If you don’t want it, turn off the plugin.
But to deny the masses based on your arguments heretofore, comes across as elitist. Especially given the fact that you’d have the ability to turn the plugin to the off position. I don’t care if it’s ‘off’ by default as long as people can make a personal choice.
Yes, FLV video supports h.264; the container format is also open and publicly documented, so Apple, could, if they so chose, write their own FLV player, with whatever restrictions are permissable in that license.
The problem for video producers is not any love for the format — I agree with your assessment of Flash on the Mac — but pure dollars and cents, both with conversion and the ad management toolset. (Take a look at any of the full episodes offered by a broadcast network website for ad examples.) Right now, those sites only see pure h.264 as increased cost (admittedly, not much) and more difficulty in managing/booking revenue. Nobody is going to switch under those conditions.
I get that you do not want flash on the phone. For my part, I just want to be able to view video from any provider; non-flash-wrapped h.264 is fine (actually preferable) for me. If Apple wants people to use it instead of FLV, great — they have to provide compelling business reasons to the video providers of the world. To date, they have not. I worry that, if they cannot, and refuse to support FLV, some other handset will seize that market opportunity, and hurt the iphone’s share.
Unless Adobe go make flash an open standard and get it supported by W3C i find little to no reason why it should be desireable on any internet browsing device or software.
Hello I have a problem launching my counter strike, and my steam as well. Everytime i double click steam this error pups up: “Steam.exe (main exception)): CMuliFieldBlob(pSerialized): Partial field header at end for record”
I’ve tried to uninstall my steam but it still doesn’t work. Any one who can help me out here?
Hey guys,
Which is solid FLV Player, i don’t want to spend money and i want it to be a good one and that supports Windows, with playlist, snap pictures.
Thanks You for your help.
Hello guys. I’m building my first web site and I want to put some videos. I searched Google and I found some services but none is friendly enough for a newbie like me… I can’t understand anything since I don’t have any experience with html/php coding… so if any of you knows a good place with recourses for beginners please share! Thanks.