Even though the iPhone has only 30% Marketshare, approixmately 66% of all mobile browsing is done from the iPhone/iPod.

66% isn’t trivial, it is domination. That leaves the competitors exactly – NOWHERE

Consider that the only true rivals to iPhone: Android & RIM are both using WebKit! No, the war with Flash is on and Apple is winning.

Read up on the following juicy tidbits.

State of WebKit and the Internet http://farukat.es/journal/2009/08/311-age-of-webkit

WebKit on Smartphones http://www.cloudfour.com/448/webkit-the-dominant-smartphone-platform/

WebKit on RIM http://gigaom.com/2009/08/24/webkit-mobil/

iPhone Browser share http://www.theiphoneblog.com/2009/03/02/iphone-mobile-browser-share-67/

If companies plan to target Internet users on mobile devices, it’s time to drop Flash and start targeting WebKit as the baseline common denominator.

The newer Android phones and Nokia Linux based phones all support Flash for this reason.

The only reason that the iPhone doesn’t is because of Apple’s restrictive and monopolistic practices. Wake up and move to an open platform as you are sleepwalking into your entire life being owned by Apple. This is the same as Microsoft tried to do to us before Linux came along and gave us an alternative and forced MS to change their ways.

About WebGL: I’ve read some criticism regarding it being too low level, implying too much overhead to produce the simplest 3D things

What does apple have… 30% market share… I’m no math wiz but doesn’t that leave 70% for these other guys?

If the answer is no nobody will care

Even now, the number one crash-causing item on my computer is FLASH.

Who would develop for iPhone if you could just load a flash object? No, the exclusion of flash has allowed thousands of developers to develop in Cocoa to the benefit of Apple. Those same developers will/can go on to write Mac software. They are using Macs. This has benefitted Apple tremendously.

What Apple is doing is providing a way for the entire Non-Microsoft community a way to move away from proprietary technologies. They are giving developers an open source way to use flash like features on the iPhone, Mac & Linux.

Make no mistake. Apple is at war with Flash and is trying to kill it.

Not in the interest of locking people into Mac, but in the interest of freeing them from Microsoft & Adobe by using open source code & technologies that any company can use and optimize for their platform. Apple will optimize them for the iPhone to provide a great experience for iPhone users. Everyone else will use it because of the optimization that Apple has done.

The future of Mobile is Webkit. The future of mobile is HTML 5, WebGL.

Why? These other mobiles that are “getting” Flash are adding it as a marketing gimic, not as a real tool. They do not have nor will they ever have market share anywhere near the iPhone. Even if they have flash, it will not work well, will kill their batteries, and isn’t designed for mobiles.

The thing people don’t realize is that Apple, because of the volume of it’s iPod / iPhone markets can build products that no one else can touch. Even if someone could build as good a device as Apple does, they cannot do it for the price Apple can. Even if they could build a more expensive device than Apple that was better, they could not sell it to more people than the iPhone.

Like it or not, Apple is king and will remain for the foreseeable future….

Want a portable mp3 player? iPod. The highest capacity, highest quality, best value mp3 player is the iPod.

Want to play games on your mp3 player? iPod

Want lots of accessory options for your mp3 player? iPod

Want to use Nike+? iPod

Want high quality movies to go? iPod

Want to buy music and rent movies anywhere without a computer? iPod

Want lots of cool apps to play and impress people? iPod

Want car stereo integration? iPod

Want an industrial class OS? iPod / Android

Again, I will say it, even if another company can deliver all the functionality of the iPod/iPhone in another device, it will be of lower quality or cost more because they don’t have the buying power or manufacturing experience of Apple.

I understand javascript’s role in the front end of TuneKit. However, every article examining iTunes LP, its only available showcase, contain lines such as this:

“iTunes LP only works via a computer equipped with iTunes 9″ (taken from http://tinyurl.com/kmco9x )

If the content requires a non-browser application, or if the heavy lifting relies not on the browser itself, but on a separate application, that is a plugin and not an open browser-based solution. Period.

Like I said above, if TuneKit is just a vanilla js library designed to run solely in a browser, this ActiveX analogy does not apply.

As a standards bigot myself, I would be happy if this analogy is wrong, and my skepticism be unfounded. However, I have yet to find any documentation of the library or the format to date.

As for Flash on the desktop… as others have mentioned, there is much legacy content (unfortunately) in Flash. However, even without optimized Flash plug-ins, desktop Macs are sufficiently powerful enough to handle them. However, on mobile devices, that’s another story. Not only is the performance not there yet, but the battery drain will be substantial for those who go down that path.

We are still a few years away from a real alternative to Flash, but the writing is certainly on the wall. Apple isn’t missing out by skipping Flash at this point in time.

Rene is right. My MacBook, with a C2D processor and 4GB of RAM – nearly dies when it runs flash, I’d hate to see how my iPhone would cope!

No worries — believe me, I am all for open standards everywhere you can find them.

However, if TuneKit does leverage iTunes (or any other resident non-browser application), that sounds an awful lot like a plugin to me. Specifically, it sounds like an Apple version of ActiveX for Safari. TuneKit, as described here, communicates with non-browser applications to provide extra functionality the browser itself does not have. If other applications can also be embedded via TuneKit — that sounds a lot like a plugin architecture. Since the applications leveraged are apparently native code that may or may not be resident on a given client platform, that sounds anything but open to me.

Flash is coming to Blackberry, Windows Mobile, Android, and Symbian… do you notice the ONLY major smartphone vendor not on that list? GENIUS…

The other day I actually had to purchase a remote desktop application and login to my PC via 3G just to see a website I needed to get some information from. GENIUS…

Many websites, rightly or wrongly, prevent you from accessing them if you don’t have Flash. So on my iPhone I just get a popup saying I can’t view the website. GENIUS…

If me not having access to websites I want for 7 years is “genius” then I’d rather Apple be the biggest morons in the world and join the 99.9% of other browsers that support Flash.

Also, if it’s so genius not to support Flash, I suggest Apple remove it immediately from desktop Safari… let’s see how well that goes over.

TuneKit, in my mind, is just another example of rich internet content without plugins. Sure, this one links to iTunes, but it could link to anything, even embedded the new video container (if they ever figure out a standard)

Like with Google’s WebApps, it shows a potential. (Though Javascript remains an exploit rich target, like Flash).

Of course, if TuneKit is just a vanilla js library, other modern browsers will likely support it automatically, though, if it is just a vanilla js library, it will be more of a convenience for developers than any new features to bring it to par with Flash. If it has hooks into iTunes and leverages a single external program to do the heavy lifting, that it seems more akin to an ActiveX plugin than an open standard.

Also makes me wonder if Adobe will launch their own browser eventually…

Go ahead fanboys, call me stupid…

Again. There are zero issues here if Apple would compete instead of locking down the iPhone to iTunes/App Store.

Remember, just because Mobile Safari renders web pages well doesn’t mean it has desktop-class computing behind it, and Flash burns up MacBooks enough that the idea of plugin that melts people’s iPhones shouldn’t sound like a “good thing” to anyone at this point. (Though perhaps this will all scare Adobe into making a great mobile version of Flash as part of their open screen project).

No one would care except Apple won’t permit plugins for Mobile Safari in the app store and won’t let you get them from anywhere else.