Adobe Flash gives up on iPhone, gives out on Android?
Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen has told Telegraph that, since Apple's just not that into Flash, he and his almost ubiquitous plugin are moving on:
"We believe in open systems. We believe in the power of the internet and in customers making choices and I think a lot of the controversy was about their decision at that point. They've made their choice. We've made ours and we've moved on." [Telegraph]
The part about openness, of course, is Eric Schmidt-level disingenuous. It has nothing to do with corporate philosophy and everything to do with trying to pander for sympathy from a large, active user base. Unfortunately, it tends to work so if you're feeling any FOSS-pangs on Adobe's behalf, remind yourself that what they and their complaint to the FTC are all about is preventing developers getting locked into Xcode so Adobe can lock them into CS 5, and preventing video getting moved to HTML 5 so Adobe can keep it in Flash. And that's all fine, that's all great -- it's what a company should be doing for their products. It just shouldn't be wrapped in "openness" buzzwords, it should be wrapped in great, jaw-dropping, must-have technology.
Which brings us to the one mobile device OS Adobe has actually managed to ship Flash on some 3 years after everyone was demanding it on the iPhone -- Android 2.2. Android Central has given it fairly positive reviews. Laptop Magazine's Avram Piltch on the other hand was somewhat less than thrilled with the shipping version, given his headline:
Mobile Flash Fail: Weak Android Player Proves Jobs Right [Laptopmag]
He's referring to Steve Jobs' open letter on Flash and subsequent comments at the D8 conference. The headline is sensationalistic for certain (though who am I to judge, see above), but then Adobe's John Dowdell, after the reading the article, seemingly intimated Piltch was using an illegitimate version of the software on a hacked device (which he wasn't). [Macalope]
I've used Mobile Flash on my Nexus One and it's... okay. If this was 2007, it would even be promising. As it is, in 2010, Adobe can certainly move on from Apple, but it seems mobile is rapidly moving past Flash.
Editor-in-Chief of iMore, Executive Producer at Mobile Nations, co-host of Iterate and ZEN and TECH, cook, grappler, photon wrangler.
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Right on, Rene!
You know, after I watched an interview with Steve Jobs on some show, when he spoke about Adobe, I had to agree with him. It's old, it's antiquated and top heavy. It's time for it to move over if it's not going to change and get lean as the times change. It needs to step aside to the young bucks of programming who can offer a viable product to users who want and need snappy results without crappy assaults on the OS or the battery.
I think flash is to late. I surf the web a bit on my iPhone , and I can say a lot of the sites I visit now are mobile friendly. iPhone, iPad iPod are to powerful a force for websites to be waiting on flash on iPhone , on any device for that matter. Another thing I noticed about mobile friendly sites on my iPhone. If I google a topic , click on a link. If it's a mobile friendly site it will not display the info I googled
Ah..."Thoughts on..." and "Regarding..." -- the keywords signifying mindless fanboy wanking.
@ Jimbo
So would a title of "Regarding thoughts on Adobe" be a virtual ePeen moneyshot??? LoL
@Jimbo. You are, quite simply, a dipstick that has no clue. Put down the crayons and read a newspaper. Or better yet, turn off Sponge Bob and turn on the news. You might actually expand that little thing between your ears you call a brain!
Apple is anti flash because of money. It's not technology that limits flash like apple claims. It's greed. It's apps sold on itunes its shows, its control. Adobe has said its a Business decision for apple not a tech decision. Wake up fanboys.
@the truth. See comments above to Jimbo. They apply to you too.
I am trying out the Droid X today and I can't run Flash on it because the X is still on 2.1. Fragmented just a bit? Maybe.
@The Truth.. What you just said and everyone else that say it are dumb! Apple never wanted flash on the iPhone even before there was an app store, and they were pushing web apps on everyone. The media and tech sites were the ones that really wanted native apps on the iPhone. If your going to sell info, make sure it's the TRUTH!
Eventually Steve has to cave in on Flash, or the iOS devices will go the way of the Macintosh (=> far behind second place).
Every other small-to-medium business website is using Flash. Many restaurants, hairdressers, etc have invested a lot of the little money they have into a cool flash site, they not going to do this all over again. Many times now I wanted to look up a restaurant menu and all I got was the Lego stone.
If I was either Adobe Flash or Android product management, I would invest 100% of my resources to make flash work like a charm on Android. Then do a full on marketing assault on Apple a'la "iCant even look up my hairdressers opening times or look at 95% of all movies playing on the web"
I'm a proud owner of an iPhone 4, but I'm holding off on the iPad and wait for competition. I won't buy anything bigger than a phone from Apple before they fix Flash.
@TebowTD
I would have called it unsubstantiated drivel, except, since Rene backs himself up by linking back to his own earlier articles, wanking fit the description better.
Personally, Apple dropped the ball. Flash is amazing to have on an Android phone and even though you don't always need it, when you do its nice to have. In 2010 its ridiculous for a company to tell me what I can or can't do on a product I paid for.
@Blayze04 Were you forced to buy an iPhone, iPad or iPod touch? You made the choice knowing that Flash will not run on the device and then complain about it as if it is your right to dictate what features must be available. If you want Flash on your device then vote with your $ and buy something that has Flash.
Cmon man I'm not trying to talk crap or start anything but after my 2.2 froyo update my EVO is amazing I really think apple missed out on it n if u guys don't believe it ur on denial, I can get on any website especially since I have 20 megs of speed fr my WiFi n it makes my EVO like a mini laptop, no lie man the web experience with flash on my phone is truly amazing I hope the iphone4 being that's apso a good phone could take advantage of it
To all the Android fans that come to this site to flame I have this to say. In my entire experience of using iOS devices (First generation iPod Touch up to iPhone 4) I have to say that I have not once, not ever, never ever ever gone to a website on it that gave me a crippled experience because there was a lack of flash. The only thing I can really think of that I use flash for on my computer are Ads (oh no!! what will I do without flash ads!?!?), streaming music (apps for that) and streaming video (apps and almost complete compatibility using HTML5 for that). So tell me this. What exactly are you using your precious flash for on your phones? I don't get it. I would get an Android if I couldn't get an iPhone. It's my second choice no doubt but I still think I would disable flash as soon as I got one. And just so you know, if you're answer is to play flash games then don't bother answering me because that's just not worth it in my opinion.
LOL @ the Fragdroid fanbois. Hopeless chimp-screaming losers. They see Flash as Android's only advantage over iPhone, and they're right. And Flash sucks!
@ AlexLoves - "Eventually Steve has to cave in on Flash" Don't hold your breath. Or maybe on second though, do hold your breath.
Flash not on Apple IS about the money. @JWalker75, in the early days of the iPhone, pre-App Store, Apple never took a negative position on Flash, at least publicly. The initial browser didn't support Flash because Adobe didn't have a version other than Flash Lite and Apple didn't want to package that. It wasn't until 3rd party dev's put pressure on Apple did they even make a developer kit available. And once they saw the revenue with that, they knew they had to protect it, from Flash and any other 3rd party developer tool.
To be clear, I like the iPhone for what it is and have several of the. Same is true for Android. I will say this though, having the ABILITY to see content on a page is very nice. The first time I went to a page on my EVO 4G and the flash content just started playing made me realize what I was missing. Certainly seeing all the flash based ads wasn't one of them, but other rich content that the web designer intended, was.
Those of you knocking the ability to view flash on your iPhone saying "it's outdated... who needs it", make me laugh. To me Flash vs no Flash is the same as removable battery vs not. Clearly Apple has done well with a non-removable solution. But the fact that most other phones, Android included, have a removable battery probably accounts for some of the buying decisions going that way. There have been plenty of iPhone people who say "who needs a removable battery...". But I will bet you anything, if Apple made the battery removable, those same people would be championing how great it was.
The moral of the story is, having the ability to do so, makes you appreciate it that much more.
@Blayze04, you knew iPhone didn't support flash, then why do you buy it if it does not interest you. If you don't like iPhone, don't buy it. If you bought one and don't like it, bring it. And go to Android. It's pretty simple dude. Don't blame Apple for your own mistakes.
whopps ment *bring it back
you fandroids need to stop repeating what you hear and use some intelligence, maybe think for yourselves ?
• the app store just about breaks even, so that is not the reason for the lack of flash, its not about the greed
http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20100225/apple-billions-of-songs-billions-of-apps-not-much-profit/
• at all things digital steve told adobe to work on getting flash running well on the iphone but they never got back to him .. it's taken 3.5 years for the adobe fwits WITH the help of google to get a mediocre at best version out. if they get it running well that doesn't kill the battery then im sure flash could get on the iphone. if you want to wait 10 years for adobe to work that out.
• skyfire with flash support will come to the iphone.. to deal with the 10% of sites i visit that i need flash .. problem solved .
you sad morons need to get a life rather than trolling mac sites .. its pathetic ..
@MattC Ha. That's hilarious. You're best argument is to compare it to not having a removable battery? That's just stupid. Never in my life have did I have a reason I needed to remove a battery from my phone. If the iPhone could I still wouldn't. I'm not going to pay a ton of money to carry an extra battery with me in case I run out of juice. My iPhone lasts a pretty long time and when it's low I charge it for like half an hour max and it's full. And yet just a few days ago my father had a problem with his Droid where for some reason he couldn't receive picture messages. Tech support told him it was common and he had to remove the battery and put it back in to fix it. Oh wait, but the iPhone doesn't have those kinds of problems. Nevermind.
@zerocredibility, your name says it all. If anything, I am a Apple fanboy. I like to see myself as objective. I have owned every iPhone they have every made, and still do own almost all of them, as well as many of their computers, which I wouldn't trade. You think because someone says anything about Apple, they must be just Android guys trolling the site. Open your mind. Apple doesn't break out iTunes sales numbers, but rather lumps them into a "related products" category. A category of which has had nearly 20% increase per quarter since the App Store came into existence.
@PeterM11 it's called an analogy. Perhaps you've heard of it. I suppose you are one of the only iPhone users who has never had to reboot, or even worse, reset his iPhone? I'm not making excuses for your dad's phone. But don't be disingenuous. Both phones need a reboot once in a while. If you think otherwise, do a couple quick searches and you'll find Apple tech's telling customers to do the same thing. Not unusual in tech. Funny thing though, you must have a lot of influence in your dad's life.
I do not miss flash, flash is pointless, and intrusive and old pc garbage, HTML 5 is flawless, all you need to do is read the article jobs let out and you know why flash just isnt right, it's just like a Microsoft, unpolished, intrusive and pointless . If your going to rework flash? Why not make flash a html5? Lol then everyone can be happy, and all Internet videos won't mess up! Look at the videos of flash on android 2.2 phones, it's trash. Sloppy, makes the scrolling impossible, the video is a chop fest, and makes your screen unresponsive, steve jobs 1, adobe 0. End of freaking story. It's not like job hates adobe, macs have flash! Just not mobile, because flash + mobile = fail, just like the evidence.
I have an EVO running 2.2 with flash and for the most part, it is worthless. As some people have mentioned above, it is nice to have when you really want to watch a video on a website or use some other functionality of a flash site, but it is generally a bad experience. The whole phone becomes extremely laggy and scrolling is effectively disabled. Since sites have to be optimized for mobile flash anyways in order for the mobile experience to be good (well, at least decent I guess), why not just rewrite in HTML5? Also, for anyone that complains about the frustration of going to a website (i.e. to look at a restaurant menu or something) and not being able to view the content due to flash, I can almost guarantee that it isn't as frustrating as going to a website and seeing that they have an iPhone app and not an Android app.
All the video on HTML 5 -- including that on iPad -- uses H.264, which is as "open" a technology as any other proprietary, patented technology on which you must pay royalties. Steve Jobs deserves the Billy Mays award for the way he has conned journalists with his "open HTML 5 for video" pitch.
Funny, I have a Evo running 2.2 and flash never slows my phone down. I have it setup to load only when selected, and when it does load its only adding a few seconds to the load time for the page. It's great to be able to see videos and not have to leave the page. If I don't want to see the flash content I don't select it. The best thing is that I have the option and don't have some turtleneck wearing control freak deciding what's best for me and my device.
Bob Hahn: Erik Schmidt deserves a Billy Mays as well for getting the Freetards to believe Google is for open standards when.they have sold everyone the river on Net Neutrality. I am saying this as an Android user on Verizon and an iOS user as well. Schmidt is acting far worse than anything Jobs has done he's selling out the entire Internet.
I'd like to see Adobe develop a nice version of flash for ios that works thru jailbreak, just to stick it to Apple.
I've been using Frash on a JB iPhone for a couple of weeks now. There's nothing to see here.
Adobe hadn't produced a great mobile Flash yet for any device so the argument about not having it on iPhone back when they announced the App Store is moot. Flash was never designed or intended to do what Adobe wants it to do, hence why it's so problematic on mobile where they can't just throw power at it.
From someone who is experienced in web development and SEO: Flash sucks. Period. No, not "every other site" is flash. In fact. MOST ARE NOT. They are clunky, do not scale properly, often times are programmed lazily, do not rank well with Google, are not W3C compliant, are not accessible for those with disabilities, etc. Anyone using flash for content is an idiot (even NYT changed when the iPad came out). I used to say that Flash could be used for interactive elements only (NOT menus, but other small pieces), but with the advent of jQuery and HTML5, it is NO LONGER NEEDED and Flash is actually the WORSE OPTION. jQuery degrades when not supported to still show the content. CSS classe can be swapped out depending on device. Flash can do none of this. Plugin not installed or up-to-date? Won't display.
@ Andrew Matthew Kaiser
I pretty much agree with you.
Look. I'm neither an Apple fanboy or a Flash fanboy. For me, mobile computing is more about what I NEED vs. what I WANT. That being said, for 99% of my mobile computing needs, I don't NEED Flash. Would it be nice to have in the rare instances when I want to visit a Flash-based website? Sure. Do I WANT Flash on the iPhone? My answer is: not if it would degrade my mobile experience.
Even on my PC, Flash tends to be clunky, buggy, and generally CPU intensive, especially when you consider the kinds of content viewable with Flash. Maybe it would be nice to watch TV episodes on Hulu while I'm on the road, but that is easily solved by upragding the content to HTML 5. Pretty much all other flash content is either advertisements, or lame games that I wouldn't bother playing on an iPhone anyway. For that, I can wait until I get to a PC.
Flash websites, like restaurants with Flash menus, are in my opinion behind the times. They also tend to run slowly and/or crash fairly often. Most of my browser crashes are due to Flash problems, and I'm unlikely to return to websites that use Flash heavily.
I would be more interested to see a complete revamp of the Flash core that isn't going to turn my laptop into a crotch-roasting blast furnace. If Adobe were to revamp Flash so that it worked well on my PC, and also update it to work effectively on mobile platforms, I'm sure I'd give it a look, especially if it were an official product. My bottom line is that I don't have an absolutely need for Flash on my iPhone, so I am more than happy to live without it. Until then, I'm sure those who disagree with me will continue to complain about it anyway.
I don't miss Flash at all. Flash videos suck in quality. For videos, divx is the best.
How much divx content do you see on the web?
How many iPhones have been sold without Flash? End. Of. Discussion.
You know, Flash runs perfectly fine on a desktop. But when it comes to a mobile phone,.. Geez man. Just re-write your software & shut up. No wonder Jobs makes good products.
the reason for Apple not allowing flash is because even on a Mac, or PC for that matter, flash causes extreme crashes as well as buggy performance not just in safari but in internet explorer, firefox, and even chrome, the full version of the only platform that supports flash on mobile. Flash just cant handle the truth, they complain to the FTC and then when they are turned down they act like they never cared anyway. Sure they can say, "oh they made their decision and we made ours. Adobe it's not decision for you, you need Apple and iOS, they don't need you. Apple has prospered the last three without you. It is time for you to finally realize that flash is through and completely revise it otherwise, its days at the top are drastically numbered.
@fraydog
Updated my mom's iPhone os the other day. Still can't use wallpapers. Fragmented just a bit? Maybe. Sad that the iPhone 3g hardware can't support wallpapers. Understandable tho since wallpapers require top notch, new revolutionary hardware.
@Frankenstein.. man... never really thought of it that way.. I want to see the android market succeed in all honesty. Just pushes apple even farther to do more with hardware of the phone to stay on the top of the mountain, and not just rely on apps alone.
@Everyone against Flash. From personal experience I've seen flash work fine on other mobile devices. Since we are on the topic. When I see these other devices able to run flash it does make me jealous. All this talk about flash is not optimized for mobile devices is garbage. You fanboy people, if your device doesn't have it or not capable of doing something there is always a bogus reason why it's not doing it. Just give me the choice if I buy your product! Steve doesn't want anything on his device that he can't control to the "T" so that everybody with an iPhone can say "well the iPhone just works." He has to control and limit things. That's the diff btw other devices. They give you "OPTIONS" and let you control your experience. Apple controls your experience so that you can say "it just works"
If you never had flash on your phone, how can you argue. I have it on my nexus and it works just fine. Just makes the browser feel more complete, and the games are cool too
Flash sucks. Apple rules.
@Dumbass
How does your argument apply to Flash? I honestly don't see Flash working well on 2 year old Android devices either though. The problem with wallpapers on the 3G was Apple tested wallpapers and they did not perform to standards. Simple as that.
Honestly, I have an iPhone and an iPad, am am now getting a little frustrated with the wife who uses thebipad more than ms saying "why doesn't this website work on the iPad" all the time. I agree with an earlier comment - lots of small businesses have invested in flash - it should work on the iPad ! (either that or I replace the wife!!)
This is old news... The argument will be moot anyway in the next two years, with the growth of flash to html5 converters as well more and more sites switching to newer video and interactivity coding.
This tired argument again? And on top of that....late.
Simple as this. You want Flash, use it. You don't...don't. The anger from some users is because they don't have a CHOICE. Choice is not this devilish thing, its actually good for people who has a mind of their own....I mean you first off have the option to download flash if you want it. And even if you do you have it disabled until you want to. So I don't see the problem.
But to be fair, most these idiots with iPhones yelling they want Flash should just shut up. They knew they had no choice when they bought the device. Live with it and get over it. Never seen so many adults act like damn kids.
@fraydog
Yeah, every device out there has fragmentation. So quit with the silliness. You can't get everything on a 3G that you can on a 4 that you can on an iPad and so on. I don't see anyone yelping about that. At some point older versions will stop being supported. Thats technology. Android had breakneck development, so it just happened a bit faster. Seeing as the majority of owners are now on a 2.1 or greater build. The fragmentation bit is getting quite long in the tooth.
Rene,
You always impress me with your ability to sweep aside all the crap. Have you ever read Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged? If not, I hope you do!
ok, guys and girls...fanboys and trolls.
THIS IS IT!
Flash rulez the World....It's the best of the World, super high-quality piece of high-tech.
If you don't like flash, don't use it. If you don't like Flash, buy an Iphone and become comfortable with your new nickname "Apple Fanboy".
But hey, at least Steve likes you guys...i mean, not only because of the money. Every big company needs some idiots as fans. So be proud to be an Apple Moron. Slave.
Employer : We need some kind of .... you know ... some morons which do some shiddy job for a few bucks.
Job Agency : Hmm....we only have some Apple Fanboys here atm.
Employer : Perfect! I'll just say i'm a Big Apple Fanboy... I'll hang some Steve Jobs and Iphone Posters around the work place and guess they'll do this shiddy job for me for a few bucks.....slaves.
Job Agency : WOW.Good Idea!
Frash works...just saying.
I have an Evo with Android 2.2. (i read this website a lot, even though I find rene ritchie infuriating.)
My opinion? Flash sucks. And it sucks BIG. It is a huge resource hog that is designed to work with a mouse, not a touchscreen. In fact, I think I use the internet less since flash hit my device. It is horrible. Videos? Slow. Ads? County. Games? Forget it.
I side with Apple all the way against flash. I want html 5 to take over YESTERDAY.
Apple needs to screws off. If users want to download Flash, then let them!!! Why do we need Apple to tell us what we can and can't download???? Same with Google Voice! Getting so fed up with Apple!
Flash is a joke on smartphones. Apple should never allow Flash on iOS devices.
@estebancam
You used the Internet less because of Flash, which YOU have to enable on your device to use. Why not disabled it?
Its been nearly 5 years since the first iPhone released with no flash because its dated and unstable, but question is how far has HTML 5 in that? In my opinion not far at all
I've read a lot of web developers here that HTML5 is so much easier to code, more elegant, etc. Point taken.
So please take my point: I'm out thinking where to eat. Palo Alto has this great restaurant Evvia (www.evvia.net). I'd like to take a look at their menu.
Ooh no. The iteractive part of the web site is all flash. Should they code everything in HTML5? Of course! But they are a restaurant. Even though they are less than a mile from Stanford University, they think about food, and not about HTML. They paid someone a while back to set up a nice dynamic website, and they want this investment to last for a while.
How about me? I'm not a fanboy for any device, I just want them to work. And when I needed the menu,
the iPhone didn't work.
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