FireCore has released another update to its hugely popular software for jailbroken second generation Apple TV's (2010, 720p version). The new 1.5 release includes a revamped video player which claims to improve playback performance of most video file types.

Today we're happy to release a brand new version of aTV Flash (black) which includes a revamped player that is optimized for iOS 5.0 and later. This new player improves performance for virtually all file type resulting in noticeably smoother playback. We've also baked in a number of other goodies including NFS streaming, subtitle timing settings, additional translations and a mountain of other improvements and fixes.

Still nothing concrete on the release of a jailbrealk for the latest Apple TV (2012, 1080p version) or an untethered jailbreak for the Apple  TV 2 running iOS 5.1. FireCore says that it is still working hard on both fronts but its is still too early to give an estimate on the release date.

If you’re looking for the full change log, you’ll find it below. If you really don’t need the full details and just want to get yourself updated, version 1.5 is available now from the Firecore website. If you're already running a version of aTV Flash (black) the new 1.5 version can be installed through the Maintenance --> Manage Extras menu.

Need help jailbreaking your Apple TV 2? If so, be sure to check out our full how-to guide.

Source: FireCore

Full Changelog

• Revamped player with improved performance (AppleTV 4.4 and later)
• Added NFS streaming
• Added Catalan, Czech, Korean and Traditional Chinese translations
• Added support for localized TV show pattern: TV Show/Season #/S##E##.extension
• Added manual subtitle time correction (-10.0s to +10.0s)
• Added support for embedded .FLAC cover art
• Added support for .AC3, .DTS and .MOD files
• Improved .EYETV file handling
• Improved audio synchronization in slow and unstable networks
• Improved slideshow operation with small images
• Improved movie folders detection logic to ignore hidden files
• Improved metadata fetching to support movies split into multiple files (dvd#, cd#, disk#)
• Improved zoom mode operation for non-square pixels
• Improved DVD menu handling
• Improved .OGG file handling (now correctly treated as audio)
• Improved error handling for connection issues
• Improved buffering logic
• Improved installation routine
• Other minor UI improvements
• Resolved format detection that was causing rare playback issues
• Resolved issue with volume level resetting during rw/fw
• Resolved floating crashes usually observed when using SMB with Windows 7 shares
• Resolved conflicts with XBMC related to SMB
• Resolved issues with metadata fetching for 'Show.Name.###.extension' pattern
• Resolved crashes observed in folders with significant number of files
• Resolved playback error on DVD and ISO files observed when file path contains '?' character
• Resolved crashes when working with long file paths
• Resolved rare issue with incorrect pre-playback screen layout
• Other miscellaneous bug fixes

Trying to figure out how to watch Flash videos on your new iPad? Unfortunately, Apple has never supported the Adobe Flash Player plugin (or any web browser plugin) for a number of stability, security, and other reasons, and Adobe has recently discontinued their attempts to get Flash to work properly on mobile devices in general. (It was designed for big, powerful computers, not highly portable, low power phones and tablets.)

But all hope is not lost! There are still a variety of ways to watch Flash videos on your iPad. (Some of these also work for Microsoft Silverlight content, like Netflix.com!)

The HTML5 alternative for Flash on the iPad

Many websites that use Flash on your Mac or Windows PC offer the exact same video in HTML5/H.264 format for your iPad. YouTube.com is the biggest example. Go there on your PC and you get Flash, go there on your iPad and you get HTML5/H.264. It "just works". The same is true for many other sites as well, from popular video sharing channels to adult entertainment.

Before you try anything else, simply try going to the website in Safari. And if it doesn't work automatically, look for link for "Mobile version" or "iPhone/iPad optimized", use it.

The App Store alternative for Flash on the iPad

Instead of converting their videos to HTML5 on the web, some sites have chosen to offer apps instead. For example, if you want to watch the streaming video for our iPhone & iPad Live podcast on your Mac or Windows PC, you're watching it in Flash at Ustream.com. If you want to watch it on your iPad, you simply download the Ustream app from the App Store and you're good to go. Same for Netflix, Hulu+, and many, many others.

Likewise, a lot of popular Flash games have versions of the same game in the App Store, ready for you to play with full native graphics and performance. Most of the time they'll even sync back to the same games you're playing on Facebook or Google+.

If a Flash video or game won't play in Safari, go to the App Store and search for the name of the website or the name of the game. Often they'll have an app for that.

The proxy browser alternative for Flash on the iPad

Instead of trying to render Flash video on the iPad, there are a few alternative web browsers on the App Store that render Flash on their own servers, then convert it to HTML5/H.264 video and stream it live to your iPad. Generally, you tap the Flash video you want to watch, it takes a few moments to start processing in the cloud, and then the video starts to play.

It doesn't work 100% of the time, and only works with Flash video, and not interactive Flash apps or games, but it does work for a large percentage of content not yet converted for the iPad.

There are a few different alternatives.

Skyfire is great for general-purposed browsing.

$4.99 - Download now

iSwifter builds in a lot of popular online games.

Free - Download now

The VNC remote-computing alternative for Flash on the iPad

This is the nuclear option, but it's still an option. If you really need to access a full Flash site on your iPad, one way to do it is to establish a remote VNC connection to your laptop or desktop Mac or Windows PC. The only drawback, and it might be a deal-breaker for things like listening to music or videos, is that there's no sound -- only video. And, if your connection isn't good, even the video can be choppy.

If you really need it, though, there are a lot of great apps for this. Our current favorite is Screens.

$19.99 - Download now

If you have any other ways, or if you like a certain way better, to watch Flash content on your new iPad, let us know!

Firecore has released an updated version of its aTV Flash (black) software that runs on any jailbroken second generation Apple TV. The new update, version 1.2,  adds in some nice new features like video zoom options, grid view, watched icons, quick access to recently visited browser pages and a huge raft of bug fixes.

• Three all new zoom options (Normal, Crop, and Stretch) allow you choose how videos are displayed. You can keep videos in their native format (widescreen or pillar box) or crop/stretch them to fill the entire screen.
• Watched indicator icons have been added to the grid view. These icons allow you to quickly see which content is new and ready to be enjoyed. (Note: These can be disabled through the Media --> Settings menu if desired)
• Couch Surfer now displays thumbnail images in the 'top shelf' area of the main menu, which allows you to quickly get back to recently viewed pages.

• Added video zoom options (available through Playback Menu)
• Added watched indicators to grid view
• Added 'Recently Visited' section to Browser top shelf
• Added support for MicroDVD .SUB files
• Added screensaver during pause
• Added file delete option
• Added activity indicator for metadata clearing
• Added 'tune' icon placeholder for audio files without metadata
• Added episode number to the fetched name the list view
• Added Reload Metadata' option in contextual menu for folders
• Added 'no items' message to the 'Unwatched' filter of the list view
• Added gray ticket image caching
• Added loading screen when opening Manage Extras menu
• Improved scrubber bar logic
• Improved audio feedback for watched and pre-playback screens
• Improved poster loading for large folders
• Improved support for DVDs without menus
• Improved subtitle support for right-to-left languages (e.g. Hebrew)
• Improved installer device detection
• Resolved minor memory management issues
• Resolved issues with subtitles settings while playing a playlist
• Resolved issues with yellow subtitles displayed for movies converted with Handbrake
• Resolved conflicts with default audio player
• Resolved issues with passwords that contain @ symbols
• Resolved issues with metadata loading for files that contain '/' in folder or file name
• Resolved buffer overflow in libafpclient observed when navigating folders with long names
• Resolved issues with installer Bonjour detection
• Resolved rare crashes during web browsing
• Changed metadata format to S.# / Ep.# for TV Shows
• Disabled metadata processing during movie playback
• Corrected audio feedback when pressing Menu while in grid view
• Minor UI improvements
• Other miscellaneous bug fixes

If you’re not already jailbroken, you can jailbreak your AppleTV via Seas0nPass. You’ll just need the most recent version of Seas0nPass and a micro-usb cable. For help, you can check out our guide on how to jailbreak the AppleTV second generation. All the steps will remain the same as long as you grab the correct version of Seas0nPass for your AppleTV firmware.

Source: Firecore

According to a report by Ynetnews, Apple is looking to open a research and development center in Israel. A delegation of Apple representatives headed by VP Ed Frank is currently in the country meeting with high tech companies such as Intel. The new R&D operation will apparently be lead by Aharon Aharon, the former head of Zoran Corporation’s R&D center.

Calcalist has also learned that a delegation headed by Apple VP Ed Frank is currently visiting Israel to meet with several high-tech companies. Frank took a tour of Haifa and visited Intel’s headquarters in the city’s Scientific Industries Center (MATAM). He is examining the north park of the center as a possible location for Apple’s center, Calcalist learned.

Source: Ynetnews via Jeff

Firecore has announced that its aTV Flash (black) software for jailbroken second gen Apple TV’s has finally come out of beta and is now at version 1.0. aTV Flash adds a whole host of additional features to your Apple TV such as a media player that can handle loads of different video formats, a WebKit web browser, Last.fm radio, Weather and RSS feeds.

• The new Media Player included in aTV Flash (black) empowers you to go beyond iTunes and play most popular media formats. This includes formats such as: AVI, FLAC, ISO, M2TS, MKV, MP3, MP4, MPEG, MPG, VOB, WMV and many others.
• Cover art and metadata are downloaded automatically and added to your files with an end result of amazing! If you've already taken the time to add your own metadata you can you can use that too.
• Surf the web with a native web browser that provides a rich web experience on the AppleTV. Included is support for things like HTML5 music and video streaming as well as easy to use bookmarks and history. Navigating the web is easily done with the included AppleTV remote or the free Remote app for the iPhone and iPad.
• Go beyond just listening to music and start truly experiencing it by utilizing the full power of Last.fm. While streaming Last.fm radio (or playing your own music) you'll have access to artist bios, and a seemingly endless amount of artist photos.
• Get quick access to weather and RSS news feeds. Your current weather location will be detected automatically, and other locations can be easily added as well.

Source: Firecore

aTV Flash (black) Demo from FireCore, LLC on Vimeo.

Let's be blunt -- if you're not already in the TiPb Forums you're missing out on the best darn discussion in iPhone and iPad today, so head on over and register now!

• You don't need Flash do you?

• Do you need a jailbreak solution for your iPhone 4S?

• Show off your the home screen of your iPhone 4S here!

• If you have any questions regarding the recently released iTunes match, this is the place to find your answers.

See you in the forums!

...And were suddenly silenced.

Have an idea for the next *iDoodle? Send it in to news@tipb.com!*

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iOS 5.0.1 is here but battery fixes remain unclear, plus geniuses going iPad, iTunes Match gets yet another beta, Facebook opting in, Adobe kills Flash TV, Nook Tablet, and Georgia, Seth, and Rene talk the week in apps. This is iPad Live!

Meta

• New Mobile Nations video feeds, and introducing Stock Talk!
• Circle in with TiPb on Google+ Pages!

iOS 5.0.1

• Apple releases iOS 5.0.1 to the masses, includes bug fixes for battery life
• How to update your iPhone or iPad software over the air (OTA)
• How’s your battery life on iOS 5.0.1?
• Apple still investigating battery life issues post-iOS 5.0.1
• iO5 5 has a hidden auto-correct word bar, can be enabled without jailbreak

News

• Rumor: Apple Store Genius Bars replacing Mac Book Pros with iPads
• Apple deleting beta iTunes Match libraries today
• Apple releases iTunes 10.5.1 beta 3 to developers, more iTunes Match fixes
• Rumor: Facebook to switch from opt-out to opt-in, better protect personal data
• Adobe also kills Flash for TV
• Nook Tablet hands on: iPad competitor or Kindle Fire catch up?

Apps

• Get social with your art with Mixel for iPad
• App for That: How to edit the IPTC info on a photo
• TiPb Picks of the Week for November 12, 2011
• Facebook for iPhone bugs: Pictures showing up wrong

Hosts

• Georgia (@GeorgiaTiPb)
• Rene Ritchie (@reneritchie)
• Seth Clifford (@sethclifford)

Credits

Thanks to the TiPb iPad Accessory Store for sponsoring the podcast, and to everyone who showed up for the live chat!

Music Hear me Roar by iPad Live theme song contest winner, DieselJesus!

While the big news yesterday was Adobe putting a bullet in the head of Flash Player for mobile, Ryan Lawler over a *GigaOm" noted a similar end for Flash for TV.

Adobe will continue to support existing licensees who are planning on supporting Flash Player for web browsing on digital home devices and are using the Flash Player Porting Kit to do so. However we believe the right approach to deliver content on televisions is through applications, not a web browsing experience, and we will continue to encourage the device and content publishing community down that path.

Apple TV, of course, never supported Flash Player, instead creating apps for YouTube, and a long while later, Vimeo and other web-based video sites. Google, however, decided to go all in with Flash -- effectively turning their backs on a tradition of open, standards based web support -- just to have a checkbox they thought would hurt Apple and help their ODM's compete.

Hopefully now, with all giant ships pointing in the same HTML 5 direction, users on all major platforms will get better technology, faster.

Source GigaOm

Danny Winokur, VP and GM, interactive development at Adobe, confirms earlier rumors that Flash Player mobile is getting scrapped.

Our future work with Flash on mobile devices will be focused on enabling Flash developers to package native apps with Adobe AIR for all the major app stores. We will no longer continue to develop Flash Player in the browser to work with new mobile device configurations (chipset, browser, OS version, etc.) following the upcoming release of Flash Player 11.1 for Android and BlackBerry PlayBook. We will of course continue to provide critical bug fixes and security updates for existing device configurations. We will also allow our source code licensees to continue working on and release their own implementations.

Good for Adobe. Flash, like ActiveX before it, filled holes in the browser HTML was simply incapable of filling on its own -- at the time. But time marches on. Now with Adobe, Google, RIM, et al, no longer wasting time in petty competitive feuds with Apple, HTML 5 can move on further and even faster than before.

Source: Adobe Featured Blogs

ZDNet, citing developers who'd been briefed on the plans, claims Adobe is getting ready to pull the plug on mobile Flash Player for Android and BlackBerry Playbook.

Our future work with Flash on mobile devices will be focused on enabling Flash developers to package native apps with Adobe AIR for all the major app stores. We will no longer adapt Flash Player for mobile devices to new browser, OS version or device configurations. Some of our source code licensees may opt to continue working on and releasing their own implementations. We will continue to support the current Android and PlayBook configurations with critical bug fixes and security updates.

For Flash, this could be the end of a long, tortured existence. When the iPhone debuted in 2007 Adobe immediately complained they weren't on there, despite it taking until 2011 for them to even begin to roll out halfway decent mobile plugins. Back and forth feuding with Apple didn't get Flash onto iPhone or iPad, since Apple believed Flash to be a dead technology, and Steve Jobs announced they'd not support it. And the plugins Adobe did roll out for Android only supported video, not Flash app, and always felt like a McGyver effort at best. (Frankly, if Google, Palm, and RIM hadn't been playing a silly games with Adobe against Apple, we all could have been a couple more years ahead in HTML 5 apps by now.)

For Air, it's a mixed bag. Cross-compilers, which Apple initially banned and then un-banned from the App Store, can make life much easier for developers but can also lead to lowest-common-denominator apps that don't take advantage of platform-specific features and lag behind native SDK's in their support. For games it rarely matters, for regular apps it can be more of a challenge.

For HTML 5 this could be a huge win. Adobe is great at making content creation tools and distractions like the Flash runtimes and Omniture analytics have led to a split focus and failure to embrace emerging technologies fast enough. If this rumor pans out, it will be great to see if Adobe can make HTML 5 tools a first class citizen, finally, in their creative line up.

Somewhere, Steve Jobs' Force Ghost is smiling.

Source: ZDNet

FireCore has updated its aTV Flash (Black) software to RC1, which adds a number of new features including a new grid view browsing mode, subtitle related improvements and most importantly, a huge list of performance and playback related improvements.

If you’re already running a version of aTV Flash (black) on your Jailbroken Apple TV, the new RC1 version can be installed through the Maintenance –> Manage Extras menu on your Apple TV. If you want to run it, you will need to jailbreak your Apple TV first. Luckily FireCore also released an upated version of its Seas0nPass Apple TV (Black) jailbreak which now supports fimware versions 4.4, 4.41and 4.4.2. So you are all set.

If you get stuck and need any help, don’t forget you can always visit our Apple TV forum!

Source: FireCore

Just switch over to iPhone from BlackBerry or Android and wondering how to get an LED notification for new messages? While it's not quite the same things, with iOS 5 on the iPhone 4S or iPhone 4, you can take advantage of your camera flash as an indicator. If you find yourself missing messages due to not hearing the sounds, or would rather skip the noises and just see a light, check out a few simple steps to get yourself going.

1. Open your settings and scroll down to Accessibility.
2. Scroll to the middle and look for LED Flash for Alerts, and switch to on.

Just like that you can now take advantage of utilizing your LED from your camera as a message indicator for new incoming messages. Luckily you can easily switch the options off and on easily while on the go, so if you want to turn it off at any point you can without an issue.

Daily Tips range from beginner-level 101 to advanced-level ninjary. If you already know this tip, keep the link handy as a quick way to help a friend. If you have a tip of your own you’d like to suggest, add them to the comments or send them in to dailytips@tipb.com. (If it’s especially awesome and previously unknown to us, we’ll even give ya a reward…)

One of the new features of the iPhone 4S is an 8 megapixel camera equipped with a fast f/2.4 lens. Without question, this was the feature I was most excited about, and I almost immediately started snapping pics.

For sample photos and a summary of my thoughts, follow along after the break! (All photos are original; none have been edited in any way beyond being resized to fit the page.)

Landscapes

The iPhone 4S does a phenomenal job with landscapes. These have the potential of being tricky for cameras because of the broad range of lights and darks, but even with HDR turned off, the iPhone 4S produces great results. The two photos above were taken without use of HDR.

HDR

That leads us to HDR. HDR stands for High Dynamic Range and refers to the range between the darkest part of the photo and the brightest part of the photo. Camera sensors can only record so much of this range, so if a photo's dynamic range is too big, darks will be too dark and brights will be too bright. With HDR enabled, however, the iPhone 4S will take two photos, one exposed for the darks, and one exposed for the brights, and merge them together as one photo.

The photos above, although not the most interesting of subjects, does a great job of demonstrating the capabilities of the iPhone 4S HDR. The first photo was exposing for the shade, and thus blew out the sky. With HDR turned on, both the shade and sky look good.

Movement

Since the iPhone 4S is equipped with an f/2.4 lens, it has the ability to let in more light and speed up the shutter speed. Theoretically, this would mean that the iPhone 4S should do a better job of freezing motion. Without having full control of the settings, however, this can be hard to achieve.

In the end, I'm impressed with how the iPhone 4S handles motion. The above pic does have a little motion blur, especially on my face, but it's not too bad. Below is a picture of my daughter that I took while she was bouncing up and down. On the iPhone 4, it would have never come out that clear.

Face Detection

The iPhone 4S now has the ability detect faces and use them as the focus and exposure point. It works great! I was impressed with how it recognized my daughter's face even when she was moving around or when I was taking a profile shot with only one eye visible.

Macro

The Macro capabilities of the iPhone 4S camera are very impressive - when it can lock a focus, that is. Unfortunately, I was continually disappointed with the iPhone 4S's inability to focus. I understand for objects that are very tiny and blend in with the background, but the camera even struggled with focusing on larger items that stood out from the background, like in the following image.

Digital Zoom

First of all, it's important to emphasize that the iPhone 4S is equipped with a 5x digital zoom, not optical zoom. The difference is that the lens is not capable of zooming, but the software is. So using the digital zoom on the iPhone 4S is equivalent to taking the photo without the zoom and cropping it. This greatly reduces the quality of the photo and there are very few situations where you would want to use the digital zoom.

However, since the iPhone 4S has been upgraded to an 8 megapixel camera, there is an improvement to the digital zoom over the iPhone 4. The first photo above was taken with 0x zoom and the second one was taken with 5x zoom. You can see obvious damage done to the quality of the image, but it is, admittedly, better than I was expecting. I also believe that this is an example of a situation where you might want to use the digital zoom if you wanted to, say, show your kids a picture of the duck you saw earlier in the day.

Low Light

The iPhone 4 has a great camera, but it was always lacking in low light situations. I was very excited to test out the iPhone 4S in low light since it's equipped with an f/2.4 lens and better sensor. I am definitely impressed with the improvement. My living room has the worst lighting on the planet and I could never get a decent photo of my daughter with the iPhone 4 while indoors at night. But with the iPhone 4S, I was able to capture the above shot! It doesn't take much movement to make your shots blurry, however, but that should be expected.

Here's an example of a macro shot in low, bad light.

Flash

The last thing I tested was the flash and it worked well! Just as with the iPhone 4, it is very slow and your photos are guaranteed to show any small amount of motion blur. I tend to hate camera flashes, but if you're trying to capture a memory in a dark environment, it's often times your only choice. For those times, the flash on the iPhone 4S will get the job done.

Conclusion

The iPhone 4S is equipped with a very nice camera that takes beautiful photos. The macro lens has the potential to be incredible, but struggles with focus more than I was expecting. At 8 megapixels, the iPhone 4S has the ability to produce nice 8"x10" prints that can be displayed in your home.

The camera was the feature of the iPhone 4S I was looking forward to the most, and it has delivered - it turned out to be my favorite feature of the iPhone 4S. Yes, I like it even more than Siri.

Have you been taking some amazing shots with your iPhone 4S? Head on over to our forums to show them off!

Like Apple with iOS for iPhone and iPad, Microsoft appears to have no intention of supporting Adobe Flash or other web plugins in the upcoming IE 10 for Metro in Windows 8 tablets.

Running Metro style IE plug-in free improves battery life as well as security, reliability, and privacy for consumers. Plug-ins were important early on in the web’s history. But the web has come a long way since then with HTML5. Providing compatibility with legacy plug-in technologies would detract from, rather than improve, the consumer experience of browsing in the Metro style UI.

Will there be the same level of outrage-mongering by then, or will it have become as accepted as RealMedia-free video, ActiveX-free websites, and floppy-less PCs?

[Building Windows 8 via Daring Fireball]

Adobe has finally announced support for simultaneous Flash and HTTP video streaming from the Flash Media Server product. This means that devices that don't support Adobe's Flash player or plugin, like iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad, will instead get HTTP streaming videos. Same content, same server, easier for broadcasters, easier for users. And it only took years. (Microsoft announced something similar for Silverlight back in November of 2009.)

Adobe has created consistency with Adobe Flash and Adobe AIR running on more devices than any other platform. With Flash, publishers are assured that protection, transport and quality is consistent across MAC, PC, Linux, Android and Blackberry Tablet OS. Apple iPhone and iPad have had a significant impact how consumers experience and engage with video and have changed the industry. Publishers are now faced with a challenge and forced to prepare content for delivery through HTML5 to play in the Apple Safari browser or native Apps. Now publishers can simplify their video publishing and protection workflows with Adobe Flash Media Server 4.5 with protected HLS support, audio channel extraction, DVR/PVR live, on demand and variant playlists. One set of content without any preparation or additional storage and deliver safely to both Adobe Flash with HDS and to Apple devices using HLS.

Yes, you can use the same assets (if they are encoded to Apple Specs) and the same server to prepare, protect and deliver both to HLS to Apple devices and HDS (HTTP Dynamic Streaming) to Adobe Flash Player.

Welcome, Adobe.

[Adobe Blog, Adobe PR]

FireCore has announced a major update to its aTV Flash (black) software that runs on jailbroken second generation Apple TV’s. The update (beta 7) now includes music playback, cloud backup and even Last.fm powered artist slideshows.

• A new music player has been built into Media Player, which allows you to stream most music file types from a Mac, PC or NAS drive without using iTunes. During playback, album art, track info, and artist images will automatically be downloaded from Last.fm. Artist images are used in slideshows that can be viewed while music is playing in the background. Support for folder playlists is also included.

• New cloud backup feature that provides a way to easily backup all your 3rd party (FireCore, XBMC, Plex, etc...) settings and data to the cloud. Once backed up, a list of your previously saved backups will be available allowing you to to easily restore one of them if needed. Backups are stored securely in the cloud and will remain linked to the AppleTV's serial number - this means they will always be available even if you update or restore your AppleTV.

• Media Player now features three distinct options for viewing different types of metadata. The the left (<<) and right (>>) buttons can be used to cycle through the views when browsing through your media.

Does anyone still jailbreak their Apple TV? What is the main reason you do it?

[FireCore]

Georgia really wants Flash support on the iPad, with the option to toggle it on and off as she so chooses, and I've said in the past I'd like a Flash Player app (Flash is technically more than just video, but 90% of the time people talk about wanting Flash they just want their videos.) But [stuff] like this really makes me question if I even want that. When OS X Lion debuted earlier this week, Adobe quickly blasted off a blog post saying Apple had killed hardware acceleration and Apple was to blame for poor Flash performance in Lion.

And fair enough. It's not like Apple provided a beta process, with a preview release in early June and a GM candidate several weeks ago. It's not like major developers like Adobe didn't have time or opportunity to get the beta, get it running on as many Macs as possible, and figure out any issues before the public release. So what did Adobe do?

The final release of Mac OS X Lion (10.7) provides the same support for Flash hardware video acceleration as Mac OS X Snow Leopard (10.6). The previous “Known Issue” described in a tech note suggesting that video hardware acceleration was disabled in Lion was incorrect and based on tests with a pre-release version of Mac OS X Lion that related to only one particular Mac GPU configuration. We continue to work closely with Apple to provide Flash Player users with a high quality experience on Mac computers.

"A" pre-release version, "only one particular Mac GPU configuration"?! And based on that they blast Apple in a blog post that gets wide pick up? Nice.

The retraction is classy but Adobe's failed to innovate or improve Flash for much of the last decade. It's the IE6 of plugins. In 2007 people complained about the lack of Flash on the iPhone and blamed Apple -- when there was no version of Flash that could run on the iPhone. Now, 4 years later, there's still no decent Flash for mobile, only various levels of beta that work only for Flash video, and even then are hit and miss at best (PlayBook and TouchPad both have serious firepower behind them and even they don't approach a consistently great user experience for Flash.)

So either the Flash technology is great and deserves to continue, and is just taking longer than anyone would like to get there, or it was a proprietary filler, like ActiveX, that was clumsy but useful, and has reached its limits. Either way, my advice to Adobe remains the same -- shut up. Stop bitching, stop blogging, and ship a great version of Flash for mobile. And for Mac. You've had a decade for the latter and almost half that for the former.

[Adobe blog]

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Georgia kicks Seth and Rene in the Flash! Also, iOS 5 beta 3, iPad 3 manufacturers, volume pricing, App Store re-alignment, the Amazon tablet, and iPad as a second screen. This is iPad Live!

• Show notes

Hosts

• Georgia (@GeorgiaTiPb)
• Rene @reneritchie)
• Seth @sethclifford)

Credits

Thanks to the TiPb iPad Accessory Store for sponsoring the podcast, and to everyone who showed up for the live chat!

Music Hear me Roar by iPad Live theme song contest winner, DieselJesus!

Google has an interesting tool up called Swiffy, which converts Flash FLV files to "HTML5" formats which should be compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. (I put HTML5 in quotes because it represents not just the HTML5 standard itself, but typically and conveniently includes CSS3, JavaScript, H.264 video, and other technologies).

Swiffy converts Flash SWF files to HTML5, allowing you to reuse Flash content on devices without a Flash player (such as iPhones and iPads).

Swiffy currently supports a subset of SWF 8 and ActionScript 2.0, and the output works in all Webkit browsers such as Chrome and Mobile Safari. If possible, exporting your Flash animation as a SWF 5 file might give better results.

Flash is more than just video, however, and Flash games, interfaces, and other media types can't yet be replicated by HTML5. Still for content that Flash -- and its overhead -- aren't needed for, this sounds like a great tool. (It also sounds like something banner ad companies will jump on...)

I'm trying it out now on some simple Flash slideshow files but getting errors. If I get it working, I'll update with the results.

[Swiffy via Daring Fireball]

Adobe is adding support for Apple's HTTP Live Streaming technology to Adobe Flash Media Server, which means live web video using that platform will soon be compatible with iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch. Currently this type of live video is only available via Flash plugin, which is still inching its way towards mobile, and which Apple is still not interested in for their devices.

By offering HTTP Live Streaming on the server side, no Flash plugin (or any other type of plugin) is required for iOS -- it just detects Safari or the embedded web view and serves the supported H.264 format. (Which sounds similar to what Microsoft did for SilverLight video almost a year and a half ago.)

Video demo of HTTP Live Streaming to iPad, after the break...

[Adobe, thanks Anthony!]

Curious how to watch Flash video on your iPad, iPod touch and iPhone? Sure Apple doesn't and probably won't even support Adobe's Flash plugin but guess what -- there are a couple of apps for that! You won't get Flash games or Flash apps, but thanks to some server-side Flash-to-H.264 transcoding, you can get a lot of the video you want on the device you have. And we'll show you how after the break!

If you desperately want to watch Flash video on your iPhone, iPod touch and iPad there are a couple of web browser apps you'll want to check out.

SkyFire

SkyFire is now on version 3.0 and its support for Flash has gotten better with every release. They now boast smoother video playback and because they proxy the content it could save you time and bandwidth (important for those of you with low 3G data caps.) It's not a universal app so you'll have to buy it twice if you want it on both iPhone/iPod touch and the optimized version for iPad, but it also provides other features like social integration and private browsing mode.

• SkyFire for iPhone, iPod touch - $2.99 iTunes link
• SkyFire for iPad - $4.99 iTunes link

iSwifter

iSwifter is iPad only but they claim incredible speed and wide ranging support for Flash content. The download itself is free but you'll be prompted to "buy" the app for $2.99 if you want to support them. Other games are available inside the app for $0.99 in-app purchases as well.

• iSwifter for iPad - Free with in-app purchase - iTunes link

[Thanks Todd!]

Tips of the day will range from beginner-level 101 to advanced-level ninjary. If you already know this tip, keep the link handy as a quick way to help a friend. If you have a tip of your own you'd like to suggest, add them to the comments or send them in to news@tipb.com. (If it's especially awesome and previously unknown to us, we'll even give ya a reward...)

Netgear CEO Patrick Lo has spoken out over Apple’s closed ecosystem and the ego of Steve Jobs. Speaking at a lunch in Sydney Australia, Lo questioned the future of Apple’s closed system, in the face of mounting competition from Google’s “Open” Android operating system.

Once Steve Jobs goes away, which is probably not far away, then Apple will have to make a strategic decision on whether to open up the platform. Ultimately a closed system just can't go that far ... If they continue to close it and let Android continue to creep up then it's pretty difficult as I see it.

What's the reason for him to trash Flash? There's no reason other than ego.

Lo did not stop with Apple, he also claimed that Microsoft had fallen too far behind with the Windows Phone 7 platform and that it was now game over.

Strong views, but are they fair? Do Apple need to open up the platform to continue the growth needed to see off Android? Do Apple care about the iPhone being the number one selling smartphone? Let us know what you think in the comments!

[Sydney Morning Herald]

Toshiba is yet another company launching yet another Android-based tablet trying desperately to differentiate themselves and get a little attention by having some fun with iPhone and iPad users.

So I thought I'd have a little fun back. Launching a super-secret Word Lens-like iPhone app that automagically translates BS into English, I went to the Toshiba Tablet site, was redirected to their "iOS doesn't support Flash" site -- wait, what? Really? -- then watched as the letters re-arranged themselves in augmented reality glory to give me a more accurate reflection of the device's true capabilities.

The "entire internet" isn't achieved by simply adding Flash to WebKit. Flash isn't even a part of most of the internet, just the web. Even the "entire web" includes more plugins than just Flash, like Silverlight and the Flash of the previous decade, ActiveX.

So while it would be nice to have a Flash player on iOS, it would be even nicer if companies like Toshiba spent less time making silly sites targeting iPad users and spent more time making fantastic user experiences to woo iPad users away (and force Apple to work harder to woo them back).

Otherwise they're just proving Tim Cook right.

(Actual Toshiba screen shot after the break).

Google has recently announced that they're removing H.264 -- the video compression open standard used by everything from iPad and iPhone to YouTube and Netflix -- from their Chrome browser. Up until now Google has been the only company to support all the major video codecs, including H.264, OGG Theora, and their own, newly open-sourced WebM. Apple supports H.264, as does Microsoft, and Firefox supports only OGG Theora.

Why the sudden change? Some might say to hurt Apple, whose iOS and iTunes depend heavily on the technology and have shown no signs of slowing down even after Google decided to stop so much partnering and start much more competing with Apple directly in the mobile OS and media services space. Others might say it's simply to give Google a competitive advantage and push adoption of their own WebM format. Neither motives are mutually exclusive but again put the advancement of standards-based web technology on the back burner -- something Google once championed. (Hey, you know it's bad when Microsoft is chiding you over lack of standards support, okay?)

Google claims they don't want to support proprietary formats like H.264, which rings decidedly false since they still do -- and have gone out of their way to expand -- support for Adobe's just-as-proprietary Flash plugin. Yes, H.264 carries licensing fees for commercial content but to say those amount to little more than a rounding error when compared to Google's monthly, never mind yearly profits is an overstatement. H.264 is a an international and open standard, supported by hardware acceleration in chipsets and file format compatibility in an increasing amount of consumer video creation and playback gear. It was on its way to becoming the video equivalent of MP3 (which Google probably won't drop support for either). Yet with native H.264 support taken away from Chrome, only Adobe Flash H.264 support will remain (because Flash is packaged right into Chrome, and Flash uses H.264 for a lot of their higher quality video). So in order to watch it, you'll have to use Flash.

Why does this matter to iPhone and iPad users? Because if Google (and Palm and RIM) hadn't chosen to compete against Apple by cozying up to Adobe's Flash the amount of battery draining, phone heating web video content would be lessened today and the H.264 share would be even higher. In other words, we'd have even more iOS-friendly videos and less sites we couldn't access on our iOS devices.

Remember, Flash existed to fill a void in web technology, much like ActiveX in Internet Explorer 6, and like ActiveX (and Real) the advent of better, more efficient solutions would have led to Flash's gradual decrease until it was back to what it was ideally and originally suited for -- efficient frame-based animation.

Apple, famously, doesn't support Flash on iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, or Apple TV and doesn't even install the plugin by default in Mac OS X. Do we really want Google to be more like Apple?

I've promised to be nicer to Google this year but they're making it hard right out the outset. Still, I'm not going to complain about this as a competitive business decision, and I won't vomit even a little at how they once again disingenuously and insultingly wrapped their competitive business decision up in the cloak of openness in an attempt to pander to open software advocates. (They know better.) I'll just hope Google changes their mind before those self-same FOSSies turn on them. Beware the faboys scorned.

But even if they don't, what will happen? Will YouTube go through the massive re-encoding effort to switch to WebM? Will Netflix? Will iTunes? Probably not, so as usual it will just be us users who suffer. Or switch back to IE...

Skyfire is the browser for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad that does server-side transcoding, allowing you to watch a lot of the Flash videos that otherwise appear blank on your non-Flash supporting devices. We've posted on both Skyfire for iPhone and iPod touch, and Skyfire for iPad versions before but you know what's better than posting about them? Yup! Giving them away!

Skyfire is offering TiPb readers ten (10!) copies each of Skyfire for iPhone and iPod touch, and Skyfire for iPad and all you have to do to win one is leave a comment below and include #TiPbTeamiPad or #TiPbTeamiPhone so we know which version you want to get! (Yes, you can include both if you're rocking both devices).

Also be sure to include a real email address. We won't make it public but Skyfire will need it to gift you your app!

Despite hundreds of thousands of iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad apps in the App Store, there are still some huge gaps, and major apps missing from the big players, including Apple themselves, Adobe, Google, Microsoft, and BlackBerry maker RIM. Some of the best known software on the market simply isn't available for iOS. We're hoping that changes in 2011, and after the break are the apps we're hoping help make the change!

Apple: Files

I wrote at length about the need for a Finder app and amended it to a Files app in 2010 and now, at the beginning of 2011, it still tops my list for new iPhone and iPad apps I want from Apple. The reason is simple: document access on iOS as it currently stands is a nightmare. Apple's own iDisk and third parties like DropBox and Box.net offer functionality that really should be native and as off-line as it is on. Again, the Photo app is the model. It preserves the sandbox by providing a central repository for files, and allows them to easily be opened via the Picker in any other app. What Photos does or images and video, Files should do for documents (and both should do via Safari so we can upload to the web, just saying...). Apple, make it happen.

Also want:

• iWork for iPhone. We have it for iPad, we've seen it teased for iPhone, it can't possibly not be released in 2011.
• iPhoto for iOS. Create albums, move photos between them, do basic editing like crop and red-eye removal, and sync selected photos. We got iMovie for iPhone (and hopefully for iPad 2 soon), give us iPhoto.

Adobe: Flash Player

For years people have been angry at Apple for the lack of Flash support. And that's ridiculous. It's entirely Adobe's fault for coasting on shoddy code for the last five years and only delivering a workable mobile Flash, in beta, near the end of 2010. But deliver it they have. It's not great; I've disabled it on my Nexus One, but Adobe is working on it fearfully hard, and Google and Palm and RIM have chosen to support it (and in so doing slowed the switch to HTML 5. Jerks.), so it'll get good enough. I don't think Apple would allow a Flash plugin like on other devices -- it's a security risk and a user experience hit -- but a Flash Player? Apple could work with Adobe to create a Flash app much like the YouTube app. A single app that, if it detects Flash video anywhere else on the device, especially Safari, it can take the handoff and play it in its own little, highly optimized, hopefully hardware accelerated, Flash-cookie-free sandbox. (Much how the QuickTime player handles H.264 video). It's not 2007 anymore, and 2011 isn't Flash free, so it's time to bite the bullet on this one.

Also want:

• Creative Suite Viewer That I can view AutoCad docs on my iPhone and iPad and not Photoshop, Illustrator, or InDesign is a disgrace. Get on that, Adobe!

Google: Gmail

I don't want to come off as greedy, since my mind is still blown by getting Google Voice and Google Latitude in 2010, but in 2011 I really, truly would like a native Gmail app that can handle things like attaching pictures and video (and Files.app, right Apple?). In a perfect world Google would have made Gmail more compatible with other mail systems, seamlessly handling labels as folders and stars as flags. In a perfect world, Apple would actually handle things like stars/flags in the built-in Mail app. But keeping with the pragmatic theme of this post, and acknowledging how annoying separate email apps are on Android, I'd still like a native Gmail app for iPhone and iPad. If it gets decent push notifications built in, like the Google Mobile app, I won't even have to worry about iOS not having a "set default mail client" setting.

Also want:

• Google Navigation When Android got this for free we heard rumors iPhone would be getting it as well. Then not. Then again. Then not again. Google, just do it.

(If you could somehow get Apple to add those newfangled vector graphics to the Google-powered, built-in Maps app, we'd appreciate that as well).

Microsoft: Office

Documents to Go is great. QuickOffice is grand. Even Google Docs is usable over the web. But Microsoft, baby (can I call you baby?) none of those are Office. Sure, Office is a beast of a suite, as frustrating as it is fantastic, but it's the standard and it belongs on iPhone and iPad. You've built it for Windows Mobile. You've built it for Windows Phone. You've even built it for Mac and are working on it for Nokia. You know how to do Apple and you know how to do mobile, so it's time to do Mobile Apple. Sure you lose a differentiator for your own OS, but you had no problem doing that for Exchange, did you? Microsoft, stop teasing us and make 2011 the year of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint for iPhone and iPad. Okay?

Also want:

• Outlook ActiveSync is okay but for hard core Exchange users a native Outlook app is every bit as important as a native Gmail app is to Googlers. Let's get that sync'ed.
• Zune Pass Apple hasn't done subscription music yet but they have sold a gazillion iOS devices. Get those users on Zune Pass before iTunes.com launches.

RIM: BlackBerry Connect

CrackBerry Kevin already laid out why, in a post Kik-world, RIM would be better off owning the cross-platform instant messaging space than sitting on the sidelines while some third-party service breaks the crack off from the berry, so I'll just echo his sentiments here. BlackBerry Connect used to bring BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) to other devices; it could do the same again. Do I expect to see Big Mike bound across a WWDC stage any time soon? No, but Apple did announce a Microsoft ActiveSync license at the iOS 2 event in 2008, so announcing a BlackBerry Connect license in 2011 wouldn't be unprecedented.

Also want:

• BrickBreaker. Kidding! Give me BBM and I'm good.

Your picks?

Those the top 5 big name apps I'd like to see come to iPhone and iPad in 2011. What are yours? (Besides Facebook for iPad, of course!)

After an anxious wait it looks like Skyfire is finally out for the iPad. Just like the iPhone version of Skyfire released in early November, iPad users can tap into the millions of flash videos available online through a clever on-the-fly transcoding process conducted on Skyfire's servers. In addition to the regular flash-enabling features Skyfire brings to the table, the developers have packed in a ton of great social functionality for you to play with.

You can do things like check your Facebook or Twitter news feeds from the bottom toolbar, along with sharing links to a number of social services and others like Read It Later. They've also decided to include a universal 'like' button for users who want to share what they're reading (or watching) with friends on Facebook.

But they didn't stop there. Skyfire for iPad has a 'Fireplace' button along the bottom which lets you quickly get to the links that only your Facebook friends have shared, making it easy to check out what your friends have been looking at online without even leaving the app. Two more small yet significant features are the ability to browse in full-screen, and Skyfire's tab UI which felt very snappy compared to Safari.

You can get a full feature-list and pictures after the break, and don't forget to tell us your likes and dislikes for Skyfire on the iPad in the comments below!

[iTunes -- $4.99]

• Play millions of Flash videos – everyday, with no limits!
• All-new ‘Skybar’ toolbar gives one-click access to video and related content
• Stay in touch: Unique Facebook and Twitter 'Quickview' allows you to see your wall and feeds with one click.
• Universal ‘Like’: Like ANY page on the internet, with one click.
• Fireplace: See only the links shared by Friends. Why? Filter what friends did from what friends shared (which is a great starting point for browsing)
• Popular: See what Friends and the Facebook community have to say about the site you are currently exploring
• Be informed: Quick access to GReader feeds
• Be social: Share via Facebook and Twitter
• Share to more services including GReader, Instapaper, Pinboard and Read It Later
• Standard browser elements: Tabs, search, sharing, bookmarks, history, etc.
• Full screen option for maximum use of screen real-estate – with scroll to top
• ‘Desktop’ option loads pages as on a desktop browser, giving more flexibility in accessing web sites
• Private Browsing option: Browse with no history and cookies left behind

Skyfire has released a demo video (see below) showing off the iPad version of their Flash transcoding browser. Already available for the iPhone with fairly positive reviews; some of the features in the iPad version are the ability to view full screen Flash video as well as embedded Facebook, Twitter and Google Reader integration.

The iPad version will be a totally separate app, which basically means you will have to pay again if you already paid for the iPhone version. No information on pricing, but expect to pay slightly more than the $2.99 that the iPhone version currently costs.

Hopefully Skyfire will have ironed out its previous server overload issues, prior to the launch of the iPad version. Do you use Skyfire? Are you excited by the iPad version? Let us know in the comments!

[Skyfire]

Skyfire for iPhone is a web browsing application that converts Adobe Flash to HTML5/H.264 so you can view it on iPhone or iPad touch. Seeing as Apple chose not to implement Flash into iOS, a lot of videos on the web still can't be watched on an iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad. Skyfire steps in to try and bridge this gap and while it's a nice feature to have, but not always the best experience.

iTunes Link

While having access to Flash content may be useful to some, the overall process can be daunting. A lot of times, I found that the app would take a while to convert the content. If you are on wifi, the process seems to be a bit smoother, but on 3G it was definitely noticeable. I will give them a little bit of a break here seeing as they sold a ridiculous amount of copies and had to pull it due to their servers being overwhelmed. This may be part of the reason streaming is taking a while.

Either way - in my experience, once the content did stream, it seemed to be quite choppy and broken up. I'm hoping this is something that will get better as Skyfire adds more server bandwidth. A lot of the times I noticed the audio streamed pretty quickly but the video portion would struggle to keep up with the audio or fall behind. Seeing as viewing Flash content is the main feature of the app, I'm really hoping we see major improvements in the near future.

As for the rest of the app, I actually quite enjoyed using it as a browser. Settings will give you an option to browse privately, which is nice. It also gives you the option of desktop or iPhone mode. To me, this is much easier than having to toggle individual sites from mobile to desktop view. It will save you a bit of time and you can just switch with two clicks instead of searching a site to figure out how to toggle mobile views on or off.

Sharing is also easy within Skyfire - you simply click the little plus symbol in the bottom right corner of the screen and you can share directly through Facebook, Twitter, or e-mail. There is also a feature called Facebook Quickview which allows you to view your Facebook profile and stream from within Skyfire. It's a nice feature but not something I really see a need for. I've never been a fan of the Facebook for iPhone app so I suppose having access to the mobile or desktop site in one click may come in handy here and there. It's still not something I see myself personally using very often.

Skyfire also has a feature that allows you to search for video and content on any term you choose. When you click the search icon, it brings up suggestions of what you may search for based on the page you're currently viewing as well. This is an extremely neat feature but sometimes it would throw out weird suggestions that had nothing to do with the site you're browsing. If this feature is refined a bit more, I could see it becoming something I'd use frequently.

Bookmarks can also be added just like they can in Safari, so you should feel right at home if you've become accustomed to using bookmarks in Safari. It would be nice if your already existing bookmarks from Safari could be imported into Skyfire. Other than that, the overall browsing experience is great. I'm just not sure the main selling feature of the app is quite up to par yet.

Pros

• Great overall browsing experience
• Adds a bit more functionality than Safari currently offers
• Toggling between desktop and mobile mode is easy and more convenient than switching on individual sites

Cons

• Flash to HTML5 converting to streaming process can be quite daunting and slow at times
• Audio and video do not always sync up after streaming to HTML5
• Experienced a few crashes on 3G while trying to convert and stream video
• Search suggestions can be a bit off at times

Skyfire has announced via Twitter that it is working on a version of their Flash-friendly browser specifically for the iPad. While the browser does not actually play flash video, when users click on a page that contains Flash video, Skyfire’s servers download, render and translate the video into H.264 which can be viewed natively on iOS devices. Because of this, performance is highly dependent on Skyfire’s server load. This was plainly visible last week following the launch of the iPhone version when the servers ground to a halt due to such high demand. This resulted in Skyfire pulling the app from the iTunes store. It is now starting to roll out again in various countries.

You can install the iPhone version on your iPad now, however it does not look great visually due to the pixel doubling.

No news as to when we can expect the iPad version yet, or if it will be a universal application, we will keep you informed as soon as we know for sure. Are you looking forward to an iPad version?

[@skyfire]

According to Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch, Apple is out to get Flash. Which I guess is fair since Flash has been out to melt every Apple device I've ever owned. Fast Company quotes:

"I just think there's this negative campaigning going on, and, for whatever reason, Apple is really choosing to incite it, and condone it," Lynch says. "I think that's unfortunate. We don't think it's good for the web to have aspects closed off--a blockade of certain types of expression. There's a decade of content out there that you just can't view on Apple's device, and I think that's not only hurtful to Adobe, but hurtful to everyone that created that content."

This following Apple not allowing the Flash runtime (or any runtimes) on iPhone or iPad, and recently shipping the new MacBook Air Flash plugin-free. (Which Ars Technica reported can result in as much as 33% battery life improvement).

It's not Apple, however, that is Adobe's enemy. It's time. The same thing happened to Real Media (ask your grandfather) and ActiveX (ask your father). It's a cycle that keeps repeating -- the web lacks certain needful technology so a proprietary 3rd party plugin rises up to fill the gap until HTML and associated standards evolve and the plugin is no longer needed. It's the natural order, and Adobe is finding it increasingly hard to fight mother nature.

And that's okay. Flash is still great at a few things. It just doesn't need to do the battery draining, CPU melting, security-troubled, privacy violating stuff it's not good at any more. Better for Flash, better for the web, better for users.

Adobe's core strength is content creation anyway. Buying Flash and moving into content delivery may have been a bold experiment but it's one likely to enjoy increasingly niche relevance as the web marches on.

Luckily Adobe seems to be hedging their bets with HTML 5 authoring tools. That's a far better response than Kevin Lynch's.

[Fast Company]

Skyfire, the Flash-transcoding browser for iPhone, will slowly, carefully be returning to the App Store today in small amounts and for limited times.:

We are going to open batches of downloads for new users over the coming days. The first batch will be in a few minutes on the Apple App Store. It will be first come, first serve.

Due to overwhelming demand, we are taking this approach because Skyfire believes a good user experience should come first, and we would rather have fewer, happier customers, and add new users as we can support them. We will open the first batches to US users only, with additional country support to follow shortly.

Please note that there may be some initial congestion as a flood of new users simultaneously try to use the service, but try again an hour later and things should smooth out.

We expect to open more batches frequently over the coming days.

So yes, they removed it because the demand from iPhone users was melting their transcoding servers (the machines that convert unsupported Flash to supported H.264 on the fly), but they'll slowly be letting it back out. And it's up to you to get it when and if you can.

Solution or confusion? Let us know in the comments...

[Skyfire blog, thanks to our good friend Phil for the heads-up!]

After 2 months of waiting in review with Apple, the new Skyfire mobile browser will be approved and available in the App Store for iPhone and iPad at 9 a.m. ET on Thursday for just $2.99. From CNN Money:

To get around Apple's restriction, Skyfire came up with an innovative solution: When users click on a page that contains Flash video, Skyfire's servers download, render and translate the video into HTML 5, which is a Web standard that iOS devices support. Skyfire then displays a thumbnail that users can click on to stream the video from its servers.

"We will attack those pesky blue Flash error messages," said Jeffrey Glueck, Skyfire's CEO.

We've previously heard that Microsoft worked with Apple to do server-side Silverlight transcoding and streaming to iPhone but this is the first we've seen anyone using the same approach for Flash. It should help users who want to see the 46% of web video not already available in HTML 5, though it still won't give you Hulu -- Hollywood blocks mobile access to online, Flash-based Hulu video. One step forward, half a step (and a kick in the shins) back.

Will you be grabbing this Flash-converting browser once it hits the App Store on Thursday morning? Let us know in the comments below!

[CNN Money]

A new reports suggest that 54% of all video online is now HTML5 compatible (mostly H.264), which means it's iPad, iPhone and iPod touch compatible as well. Here are some of the discoveries from MeFeedia:

• 54% of web video is now available for playback in HTML5, with H.264 being the dominant video format. Mobile is driving HTML5 video adoption. HTML5 video is the most common format for mobiles, including iPhone and iPad.
• Publishers and platforms now offer iframe embeds, allowing them to switch players dynamically depending on the access device.
• Alongside mobile growth, we expect that most video sites will follow this trend.

This is awesome news for iOS users, and signals a dramatic shift in online video playback from just 10% penetration in January of this year. Looking at the numbers a bit further, HTML5 video has more than doubled in numbers since May at just 26%, and further suggests a rapidly growing trend of major online outlets integrating HTML5 video into their sites.

Although Flash is still the dominant video playback method, could HTML5 video soon be overtaking Adobe in the streaming video space, and will it be driven mostly by iOS devices? Daring Fireball points to an interview between Robert Scoble and Starbucks CIO Stephen Gillett, where Starbucks chose to go HTML5 rather than Flash simply to support iOS devices.

Does knowing this make you miss Flash on the iPhone any less, or do you still want your Flash video and want it now?

[MeFeedia]

by Andrew Wray

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer snuck into Adobe to talk with their CEO, Shantanu Narayen, about how they could team up, cartoon villain-style, to take on the growing mobile power of Apple and one Steven P. Jobs. the NYT Bits blog says:

The meeting, which lasted more than an hour, covered a number of topics, but one of the main thrusts of the discussion was Apple and its control of the mobile phone market and how the two companies could team up in the battle against Apple. A possible acquisition of Adobe by Microsoft were among the options.

One person familiar with the discussion said the two companies had talked about the blockade that Apple’s chief executive, Steven P. Jobs, had placed on Adobe’s Flash software for its hand-held devices and whether a partnership by Adobe and Microsoft could fend off Apple, which continues to grow at juggernaut speeds.

Crazier things have happened in tech, so let us know what you think. Would Microdobe (Adobesoft?) pose a larger threat to Apple than either currently does alone? Could we see an Flash Phone 7? CS5 Office Suite? And how will previous Adobe best-fremeny Google feel about being left to third wheel this little Legion of Doom?

[NYT Bits Blog]

Like Google, Adobe is also over-joyed at Apple's newly changed and clarified developer license agreement, specifically the part that now allows cross-compilers like Flash CS5 Packager for iPhone:

Apple’s announcement today that it has lifted restrictions on its third-party developer guidelines has direct implications for Adobe’s Packager for iPhone, a feature in the Flash Professional CS5 authoring tool. This feature was created to enable Flash developers to quickly and easily deliver applications for iOS devices. The feature is available for developers to use today in Flash Professional CS5, and we will now resume development work on this feature for future releases.

It's not all rosy in Adobe land, however, as they point out Apple still won't let the still not really functional Flash player for mobile onto iOS:

Adobe will continue to work to bring full web browsing with Flash Player 10.1 as well as standalone applications on AIR to a broad range of devices, working with key industry partners including Google, HTC, Microsoft, Motorola, Nokia, Palm/HP, RIM, Samsung and others.

I've used Flash Player mobile 10.1 on my Nexus One. It works worse than Flash for Mac which has been around for years and is still horrible (even with hardware acceleration). Flash for BlackBerry and Flash for Palm still haven't shipped and are so late they could verge on vaporware at this point. Despite Adobe talking about Flash for iOS (then iPhone OS) since 2008, it simply doesn't exit.

So yes, yay, Flash games and apps can now be ported to iOS. Whoosh, another 2000+. But let's get Flash player working really well on just one mobile platform before we whine about it on iOS again, shall we?

[Adobe Featured Blogs]

Skyfire is a browser on other mobile platforms that was at one point purely proxy-based like Opera Mini (where everything was pre-rendered on a server then pushed out to the device via compressed files) but is now an all-grown up WebKit engine where Flash content is still proxied (processed server side and sent out as iOS friendly video).

They're submitting it to the App Store -- we know because, also like Opera, they announced their intent to submit -- for iPhone and some concerned internet denizens are wondering whether or not it will get accepted, and what if anything it may mean about Apple's current stance on Flash.

Short answer: nothing.

Long answer: Skyfire for iPhone would use the built-in WebKit viewer any app could use, and would probably proxy Flash the same way Microsoft claimed they worked with Apple to serve Silverlight. That means you'll have a way to watch video, but probably not interact with punch-the-monkey adds. Win. [Hat tip to @sachasegan]

Why is it an apparent issue then? Because Skyfire posted about submitting it, because Apple conspiracy theorists love to conspire about theories concerning Apple, and because the App Store approval process remains utterly opaque and at times seemingly arbitrary.

Hopefully Skyfire gets approved and works well. My guess is it will get approved partly because it won't work well -- on-the-fly transcoding Flash to H.264 is a daunting task for developers (getting Flash to run native on Android is still hit and miss), and will be an exercise in patience and perseverance for users accustomed to things that just work.

We'll see.

[Skyfire]

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.

A lot of people have been waiting for Flash on an iPhone (unofficially of course), and if you're jailbroken, you can have it now, via Frash.  Frash is basically a port of Flash 10.1 for mobile.  We also have to keep in mind, it's in a severe Alpha stage.  And it shows.  But if you just can't wait to get your hands on a way to run Flash on an iPhone, click on through for some more thoughts as well as a walkthrough complete with video of how to install.

First for my thoughts on Frash. Honestly, a year ago I would have been more excited to have Flash on an iPhone. Maybe it's just me, but ever since El Jobso essentially put the ban hammer down when it comes to Flash on iPhone, a lot of companies and web designers have been more wary when coding websites. It seems like more and more sites everyday are embedding code in order to make their sites more iPhone friendly. A huge example is Vimeo. I hated it when I'd be browing news sites or blogs and videos would be embedded with services like Vimeo. You just couldn't watch them. Now, they load nicely in a Quicktime mobile player and you're good to go. Facebook also supports iPhone mobile video viewing from within their native app. This solved most of my Flash woes overnight.

I can also see why some people still want Flash. Some websites still use splashscreens written in Flash. It's especially irritating to not be able to get to a website's main page just because the intro is written in Flash. Most of the time, you can type index.html or something of the like into the address bar after the web address to bypass Flash, but not always. (Not to mention it's a pretty annoying workaround.) If you're someone who tends to deal with a lot of Flash content, Frash is probably your best solution as of now.

I wouldn't recommend installing Frash on any iPhone model below a 3GS. Safari will most likely do nothing but crash on you. And again, keep in mind Frash is still in it's very infant stages. But if you're still interested in giving Frash a go, follow these instructions to install or watch the video below which also provides a walkthrough and demonstration of some of the bugs I've experienced with Frash so far.

• Jailbreak Your iDevice via JailbreakMe.com, you can find directions here.

• Next, you'll need to add a repo to Cydia. Tap Sources along the bottom, then go to manage, tap edit at the top, then add the following repo: http://repo.benm.at/

• Once you're done adding the repo, search "Frash" in Cydia and install. That's it, you're done. You should now be able to access flash data via Safari on your iDevice.

YouTube Link

We've seen Frash, the Jailbreak port of Android Flash, on the iPad but now it's making its move over to iPhone courtesy of Comex who coded it and Grant Pannell who compiled it.

Ally is going to look at this more in depth later in the week, but if you're Jailbroken and you've just been dying to get some Flash on your iPhone, there's now an alpha for that.

I'll just note here, however, that I've turned the official Flash 10.1 mobile off on my Nexus One since it didn't really rock my world (maybe I'm just used to not having it?), and while they complain about Apple like whiny kids on a forced march, Adobe still hasn't shipped a working version of Flash for webOS or BlackBerry -- two platforms that really, really want it.

All that to highlight just how alpha and unofficial this Frash build is, and remind you to keep an eye on your resources. (Or check out Comex's tweet longer...]

Update: Ben Miller let us know that you can now go to his Cydia repo, repo.benm.at, to install Frash more easily.

[DigitalDJ.net, thanks everyone who sent this in]

YouTube is experimenting with a new i-frame based embed style that would server up good ole' Flash video for machines that support it and new fangled HTML5 video for Apple's iOS devices, iPhone and iPad:

An enhancement to our video embed capability is now available through a new embed code style. This new style uses <i-frame> and looks like this:

<iframe type="text/html" width="640" height="385" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/VIDEO_ID" frameborder="0"></iframe>

So, somewhere down the road, you'll be able to play the YouTube video you want, in-line on the website you want, on the device you want, Apple and Adobe be damned.

Example after the break.

[YouTube via 9to5Mac]

It's no secret our beloved iPads will not be running Adobe Flash natively anytime soon. That however hasn't stifled the communities desire to at least try it out. Be it good, bad or just downright ugly; @comex has come to the rescue of those with inquiring minds by putting together what he considers and alpha build of Frash. Frash, being a port of the Adobe Flash runtime for Android taken from the latest Froyo builds. It's been a while now since the actual release took place. Given that, I decided since I have a jailbroken iPad I would give it a try and see if Flash on iPad was something so compelling that it would add to the already awesome experience and the following is what I came up with.

Installation And Uninstallation:

The installation process of Frash is quite simple. While it may not exactly be for everyone, if you managed to jailbreak your iPad then you should be quite comfortable in installing Frash. The process is as follows:

1. You must have a Jailbroken iPad.
2. You will need to install SSH on your iPad from Cydia and then reboot iPad.
3. You will need the latest Frash.deb file (Google this folks, we cannot host it)
4. You'll need to load up something to browse your iPads internal files. CyberDuck for Mac is suggested or WinSCP for Windows users. When logging in, you will need to supply your iPads credentials. In this case login is ‘root’ and password is ‘alpine’.
5. Open up the iPad’s filesystem and navigate to /var/root/Media
6. Inside here create a folder named ‘Cydia’, open it and inside it create a folder, ‘AutoInstall’ i.e. /var/root/Media/Cydia/AutoInstall
7. Open the folder ‘AutoInstall’ and copy Frash.deb from step 3 here and reboot the iPad (May need to do it more then once)
8. Should you decide to uninstall Frash, just search for Frash in Cydia and you will find the uninstaller.

Implementation And Use:

So now what?? If the process has gone as it should have you should now be able to open up mobile Safari and browse to any site which has Flash content be able able to view it. Again, keep in mind all this is alpha. Do expect crashes, do expect certain portions of flash enabled sites to not work. Also, get used to seeing that HUGE red Flash logo on practically every site you go to. The implementation is certainly not where some folks would love it to be but, comex has said he will continue to improve upon frash and eventually also make it available for the iPhone (3GS and iPhone 4). This is great stuff for those who really want to have Flash on their devices.

Closing Thoughts:

For now anyways, Steve Jobs was right in my opinion. We really do not need flash in our iPads. Using Frash in it's current state after a while just simply began to annoy me. Flash ad's, big flash logos all over the place, embedded videos that once worked, no longer did. Some of this stuff comex can surely fix. However, some of it really just isn't worth having in the grand scheme of things. I'm sure many could argue had Steve allowed it we'd likely see a better implementation of Flash but since that's not how things turned out, this is what we have. Once some of the bugs have been worked out in frash, I may return to check it out but for now, I'm of the impression that I'm better off without it.

Frash is an effort to take Android's Flash implementation and get it working on an iPad, Jailbreak style. Brought to you by comex, the mind behind the Spirit Jailbreak, it follows up on his efforts to get Flash up on iPhone and iPod touch. How's it look? Check the video after the break.

Frash is a port of the Adobe Flash runtime for Android to the iPhone, using a compatibility layer, by comex ( http://twitter.com/comex ). Frash can currently run most Flash programs natively in the MobileSafari browser. Frash currently only runs on the iPad, but support for other devices (3GS+ only due to technical restrictions) is planned, as well as support for iOS 4.

A release is planned for when Frash is stable. Developers are welcome to join the effort at http://github.com/comex/frash – fork it and send a pull request with your patches.

Shot on an iPhone 4 and edited using iMovie on the phone.

[via Redmond Pie]

We all know Flash isn't going to come from Apple, but it appears the man responsible for the Spirit Jailbreak may also have gotten Flash up and running on the iPhone and iPod Touch anyway. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that if and when a capability like this is released, you'd have to be jailbroken in order to use it.

This appears to be a very early release but it still shows potential for those who really want/need Flash on their iOS devices.  Perhaps an iPad release would follow shortly?  Any iPhone or iPod Touch users out there who would jailbreak just in order to get Flash?  Real or fake? Hit the jump for a video.

[via Redmond Pie]

YouTube link

Steve Jobs likens not supporting Flash to getting rid of the 3.5 floppy disk or HyperCard on the Mac. Adobe never showed them Flash running Fast. Apple didn't think they'd use it. They have limited resources and choose to back horses they think are on the rise and not on their way to the graveyard. Apple didn't use Flash on the iPhone but after they didn't use it on the iPad Adobe rose a stink. Apple didn't talk to press but enough was enough, and so Steve Jobs wrote his open letter, "thoughts on Flash".

(Note: it was probably the ban on cross-compilers, not the lack of Flash on iPad that got Adobe steamed considering how much they'd invested in Flash CS5 packager for iPhone.)

Video after the break!

In the latest email from Steve Jobs we are seeing a kinder and gentler individual who actually had something positive to say regarding Adobe. MacStories reader Josh Cheney shot off the following in a email:

“Do you hate Adobe and their products (Photoshop, Illustrator, etc) or do you just hate their view on Flash?”

Jobs then responded with some more than usual kind words:

“I respect and admire Adobe. We just chose to not have Flash on our devices.”

See, Steve does have a heart but we all know deep down he wants to bury Adobe with every chance he gets.

[MacStories]

It was only a matter of time that developers searched through the latest iPhone OS 4 beta to find secret goodies and this time we see that the next generations of the iPod and iPad both may receive a LED camera flash (which we guess also presupposes they're receive cameras, right?). The code is as follows:

FLASHDISABLEDiPad = "The iPad needs to cool down before you can use the flash.";

FLASHDISABLEDiPod = "The iPod needs to cool down before you can use the flash.";

Knowing that it is highly likely the next generation of iPad will contain a camera with flash, anyone out there regretting picking up the first generation? Or after the iPod touch incident last year, can we even be sure it'll make it into the next shipping product? Sound off in the comments!

[9to5Mac]

In the ongoing feud between Apple and Adobe, Adobe's founders have posted an open letter, "thoughts on openess" and Adobe has begun rolling out a new ad campaign on Engadget -- and presumably other geek-rich online sites -- declaring their love for Apple, and then telling users how saintly Adobe, users like us, and little puppies are being hurt by Apple's evil ways.

It's smart, at least much smarter than Adobe's initial responses to -- and complaints to the federal government about -- Steve Jobs' "thoughts on Flash", although it still pretends that Adobe isn't as self-interested, controlling, and out for money and market share as Apple -- which they absolutely are.

If the web fragments into closed systems, if companies put content and applications behind walls, some indeed may thrive — but their success will come at the expense of the very creativity and innovation that has made the Internet a revolutionary force.

[...]

We believe that Apple, by taking the opposite approach, has taken a step that could undermine this next chapter of the web — the chapter in which mobile devices outnumber computers, any individual can be a publisher, and content is accessed anywhere and at any time.

Interestingly, Adobe's open letter contains three registered trademark symbols (®), including one on Flash. Steve Jobs' contained none.

Flash is Adobe's. Tell us how popular it is. Make a phenomenal mobile version that does things so well it makes HTML5 cry in its standards-based containers. Win the case that Flash is better and too important to ignore. But continuing to pretend Adobe and Flash are open and end-user interests are what Adobe is fighting for is insulting.

Smart users know better. They've used Adobe products. Words aren't going to make a dent now; it's time for deliverables.

[Adobe via Engadget]

Companies and individuals as diverse as mobile chip-licenser ARM, browser-maker Opera, and former US Secretary of Labor Robert Reich are offering opinions on Adobe, Flash, Apple's restriction on cross-compilers, and rumors of an Adobe-prompted DOJ/FTC inquiry into Apple -- and they won't be making Adobe very happy.

ARM flat out says Adobe's Flash has held back the delivery of smartbooks (think netbooks running on smartphone-scale ARM-processors). Adobe and ARM signed a partnership in 2008 and ARM hoped Flash would be up and running by 2009, but say it's "slipped". They think we'll see it in late 2010 (though there was outcry the iPhone didn't have it in 2007, right?)

Opera, makers of Opera Mini for iPhone, believe Flash still serves a purpose but that that purpose is no longer online video:

"But flash as a video container makes very little sense for CPU, WiFi battery usage etcetera – you can cook an egg on [devices] once you start running Flash on them and there's a reason for that."

Robert Reich, former US Secretary of Labor meanwhile wonders why Apple's ban on the use of cross-compilers is even on the DOJ/FTC radar:

Apple’s supposed sin was to tell software developers that if they want to make apps for iPhones and iPads they have to use Apple programming tools. No more outside tools (like Adobe’s Flash format) that can run on rival devices like Google’s Android phones and RIM’s BlackBerrys.

What’s wrong with that? Apple says it’s necessary to maintain quality. If consumers disagree they can buy platforms elsewhere. Apple was the world’s #3 smartphone supplier in 2009, with 16.2 percent of worldwide market share. RIM was #2, with 18.8 percent. Google isn’t exactly a wallflower. These and other firms are innovating like mad, as are tens of thousands of independent developers. If Apple’s decision reduces the number of future apps that can run on its products, Apple will suffer and presumably change its mind.

Sounds familiar.

Steve Jobs' open letter on Flash should be a huge wakeup call for Adobe. While they're tried to play the victim for developers and complained to the government, increased adoption of H.264 and comments like these show they're beginning to lose the mindshare battle. Fortunately it looks like Adobe is also going get into making HTML5 development tools.

I'd upgrade to CS6 in a minute for that.

[ZDNet, TechRadar via 9to5Mac, Robert Reich via TUAW, TechCrunch]

An Android-based tablet was captured on video running Flash -- or should we say trying to run Flash -- before it crashes:

"Here's a quick and dirty hands-on video review of the Android multi-touch tablet prototype (Android ipad). Yes, it does Adobe flash and air well."

Ironically, you can hear the cameraman boast how he's happy he did not purchase an iPad just as he goes to YouTube and the tablet crashes.

(For the record, after watching this video I am perfectly content with my iPad purchase.)

In fairness, this is beta software on a beta device, and it will no doubt improve as they throw time, money, and hardware at it. Then again, it's 2010 and Apple's had YouTube on the iPhone since 2007, and now have it on the iPad (running cool to the touch with 10 hours of battery life).

Is Adobe proving Steve Jobs right?

Video after the break!

[Daring Fireball]

H.264, the video codec Apple supports for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad playback, and for the HTML5 video tag in Safari, and now Microsoft is supporting it as well, which means its 66% share will likely go up. Add to that Steve Jobs think the competing, Firefox-supported license-free alternative, OGG Theora, will face patent infringement claims, and it's looking like we have a web video standards winner.

As anyone who read Steve Jobs' thoughts on Flash knows, he made a strong case for H.264 video and his hopes/belief it would render the need for Flash's FLV container, and especially its older, software-bound H.263 codec obsolete. TechCrunch contacted Encoding.com and found out it might just be already. According to the graph above, and given YouTube's 40% market share alone, it looks like H.264 is up around 66% and growing.

That's bad news for Adobe, and for OGG Theora whose competing standard is implemented alongside H.264 in Google's Chrome browser, and exclusively in Mozilla's Firefox. Worse news is that Microsoft has announced they're going exclusive for Internet Explorer 9, and like Apple they're doing it with H.264.

Mozilla backs Theora as a matter of policy, since even though H.264 is free for non-commerical end-users for years to come, it's owned by a consortium who could theoretically seek a license in the future. Theora is theoretically license-free in perpetuity -- but companies like Apple believe that's also theoretical and only ever one lawsuit away from changing.

Steve Jobs, sending from his iPad again, says exactly that:

All video codecs are covered by patents. A patent pool is being assembled to go after Theora and other "open source" codecs now. Unfortunately juste because something is open scourse, it doesn't mean or guarantee that i doesn't infringe on others patents. An open standard is different from being royalty free or open source.

So Apple is paying for H.264 and not risking getting sued for Theora later, and they're banking on H.264 uptake to be so fast and far, Flash won't be needed for video playback. At 66% we're getting close to that point. At 75-80% we'll be at it. H.264 will be the standard and all of Apple's devices and platforms will already support it -- and support it well.

Now H.264 becoming the standard doesn't mean it's the best choice or even the right one, just like DVD, Blu-Ray, USB, MP3, etc. might not be the best or right choices for their standards, but at a certain point all the major browsers and platforms have to get behind something that's good enough so that when users hit the web or load a video, it just plays.

Firefox should add H.264 support as well. It's time to check that box off and start arguing about the next one. 3D or a smell plugin or something...

[TechCrunch, fsfe.org via Microsoft blogs, 9to5Mac]

Choosing a live interview as his platform of choice, Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen fired back at Apple and Steve Jobs' open letter "thoughts on Flash".

Roughly addressing each of Jobs' points:

1. Narayan chuckled at the thought of Flash being considered closed. "Flash is an open specification." They're using different meanings for "open" here. Clearly Adobe owns Flash but they're fairly open about its use. It's a dependent standard.

2. It does not appear as though he addressed the full web question this time, but has said in the past 75% of video runs on Flash. He also didn't address the growing number of sites bypassing Flash and going directly to H.264.

3. Security and performance were addressed by blaming Apple for Mac OS X. Since security for Flash (and Acrobat) are an even larger concern for Windows users, we're not sure how seriously we can take him on that. We've also had enough Flash-related crashes on our Windows machine to not buy that argument either. Certainly, until the most recent version of OS X, Apple didn't provide the low-level hardware access Adobe needed for better performance.

4. Narayan called Jobs assertion about battery life drain for Flash "patently false". Jobs was fairly specific in separating out software decoding as being the drain. Narayan said every accusation Jobs made could be explained by an Apple proprietary lock. However, we're not certain when Apple locked Sorensen decoding out of every chipset on the planet...

5. Flash websites being designed for point-and-click mouse interaction versus multitouch gestures was not addressed.

6. In response to Jobs' "most important reason", Apple's desire not to have an intermediary exist between developers and iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad devices in the form of CS5 Flash packager-like cross-compilers, Narayan pointed to 100 apps already created in Flash and already approved for the App Store. However, he didn't address Jobs' point, which was that while easier for developers, it created a barrier towards platform feature implementation.

Countering a carefully prepared, piece-by-piece massacre of your product by someone like Steve Jobs and Apple marketing during a live interview is gutsy but probably not the wisest course of action.

Narayan also didn't try to counter Jobs fatal thrust -- that there's still no functional, full implementation of Flash on mobile despite talk of it going back to 2007. He didn't have to -- no one should think for a moment that, even if Adobe could deliver functional, full Flash for mobile at some point in the not-so-distant future, that Apple would allow it.

Again, Apple views Flash just like IE6 and ActiveX -- something that was once needed but is being surpassed by better, standards-based alternatives. That Microsoft held ActiveX and Adobe is trying to share Flash is irrelevant. To Apple, it's just another anachronism, and we know Apple's record on those.

Either way, both Apple and Adobe have now gone all in. Either Adobe ships an incredible version of Flash that blows mobile socks off world-round and gets users flocking to Android, webOS, and other alternatives by the millions, or Apple gets all the sites that matter to serve them direct H.264 and port their games over to the App Store.

The ground war has begun.

[WSJ blogs]

Steve Jobs has posted his "Thoughts on Flash" up on Apple.com, and like his previous thoughts on (DRM) music, it's a fascinating insight into the mind and tactics of Apple's CEO. As background, this follows up iPhone, iPod touch, and now iPad shipping without Flash support, Apple's recent change in license to prevent the use of cross-compilers like Adobe Flash CS5's Packager for iPhone (which let developers make Flash apps and output iPhone apps), and Apple's recent addition of Mac APIs to allow hardware accelerated Flash on the desktop.

Jobs begins by stating how close Apple and Adobe were and how they've drifted apart. He then breaks down his case against Flash on mobile into 6 key areas:

1. Flash is not open, it's wholly owned and controlled by Adobe. While Apple also has proprietary products, they believe the web should be open, and Jobs singles out Apple's support of WebKit (the rendering engine behind Safari, Chrome, etc.) as an example of this in action.

2. Flash is not needed for the "full web" because H.264 is becoming the standard and as sites update to support H.264 they automatically provide video supported by the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. He lists Vimeo, Netflix, Facebook, ABC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, ESPN, NPR, Time, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Sports Illustrated, People, National Geographic as examples. Jobs also says Flash games aren't needed because the App Store has 50,000 games, more than any other platform in the world, and many of them free.

3. Security and performance. Flash is increasingly an attack vector for malware, and Apple still claims it's the number one cause of crashes on the Mac.

In addition, Flash has not performed well on mobile devices. We have routinely asked Adobe to show us Flash performing well on a mobile device, any mobile device, for a few years now. We have never seen it. Adobe publicly said that Flash would ship on a smartphone in early 2009, then the second half of 2009, then the first half of 2010, and now they say the second half of 2010. We think it will eventually ship, but we’re glad we didn’t hold our breath. Who knows how it will perform?

1. Battery life, Jobs claims, would take a significant hit with Flash support. Since H.264 content already runs on the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad natively and with full hardware decoding, that only leaves the older codecs for Flash, and these would require the much more "expensive" software decoding.

2. The move to multitouch is not supported by a mouse pointer-centric Flash sites that use rollovers and other desktop behaviors and since these will need to be re-written anyway, Jobs believes they might as well be re-written in open HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript formats.

3. Most importantly, Jobs says Apple doesn't want 3rd party cross-compilers sitting between developers and the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad.

The third party may not adopt enhancements from one platform unless they are available on all of their supported platforms. Hence developers only have access to the lowest common denominator set of features. Again, we cannot accept an outcome where developers are blocked from using our innovations and enhancements because they are not available on our competitor’s platforms.

Flash is a cross platform development tool. It is not Adobe’s goal to help developers write the best iPhone, iPod and iPad apps. It is their goal to help developers write cross platform apps. And Adobe has been painfully slow to adopt enhancements to Apple’s platforms. For example, although Mac OS X has been shipping for almost 10 years now, Adobe just adopted it fully (Cocoa) two weeks ago when they shipped CS5. Adobe was the last major third party developer to fully adopt Mac OS X.

(Insert your Final Cut Pro jokes here).

Jobs ends with his characteristic "boom":

New open standards created in the mobile era, such as HTML5, will win on mobile devices (and PCs too). Perhaps Adobe should focus more on creating great HTML5 tools for the future, and less on criticizing Apple for leaving the past behind.

After his "thoughts on music", we slowly saw DRM get dropped and iTunes music go "free". Will Jobs' "thoughts on Flash" cause a similar evolution of the open web?

[Apple]

Speaking of Facebook, it looks like they've joined the growing list of sites that are now providing HTML5 video for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad compatible playback. UPDATE: As noted in the comments, Facebook isn't using HTML5, they're pushing the video straight to the iPhone and iPad's native H.264-compatible QuickTime player.

That list of compatible sites now includes YouTube and Vimeo, TED, Brightcove-powered sites such as New York Times and Time Magazine, CBS.com (in trial form),

Good news for us and for Apple, not great news for Adobe on the video front, as yet another reason for needing Flash bites the dust.

And boy does Hulu look like last-mover these days...

[MacStories via Redmond Pie]

Adobe's Mike Chambers put up yet another screed against Apple and their iPhone platform -- specifically the disallowing of cross-compilers -- this time basically saying Adobe was going to stop work on Flash CS5's iPhone packager because:

The primary goal of Flash has always been to enable cross browser, platform and device development. The cool web game that you build can easily be targeted and deployed to multiple platforms and devices. However, this is the exact opposite of what Apple wants. They want to tie developers down to their platform, and restrict their options to make it difficult for developers to target other platforms.

Adobe, of course, doesn't care about devices because they don't make devices. They make content development tools (CS5) and delivery platforms (Flash), and as much as they decry Apple wanting to "tie developers down to their platform", that's exactly what Adobe wants as well -- they just want the platform they're tied down to to be Flash.

Apple's Trudy Miller responded to CNET:

"Someone has it backwards--it is HTML5, CSS, JavaScript, and H.264 (all supported by the iPhone and iPad) that are open and standard, while Adobe's Flash is closed and proprietary," said spokeswoman Trudy Miller in a statement.

No doubt both companies are doing what they feel is best for their platform. Adobe makes things easier for developers and more plentiful for users, while Apple wants developers to make more purposeful apps that are better for their devices and users. Arguments can and have been made for both approaches. For Adobe to pretend they're any nobler in these arguments, for them to use faux-nobility to try and rally developer and user support, however, is more than a little disingenuous.

Either way, Adobe seems to be throwing in the Apple towel and going all-in on Android, which is how they really should be handling this -- on the technological battlefield by getting great Flash apps made.

Otherwise we'll say it again -- it reminds us of Microsoft when Firefox shook up the browser space after years of IE6 complacency and ActiveX lock-in. If nothing else, HTML5 might just get Flash going again, though if their as slow to respond as Microsoft has been getting IE9 to market, it might be too late.

Why didn't Apple support Adobe's popular Flash plugin way back in 2007 when it first launched the original iPhone 2G? Because Adobe still can't get it to run on the most powerful, most modern 2010 devices Android, Palm and others have to offer. That's why.

"We have a number of excited partners who are working aggressively with us to bring Flash to their devices, whether they be smartphones as well as handsets, and so companies like Google or RIM or Palm are going to be releasing versions of Flash on smartphones and tablets in the second half of the year."

Maybe Adobe will finally get it working in Q2 2010, but we've heard that "it's coming!" line once too often now, so forgive us if "partners working aggressively" gives us a something diametrically opposed to confidence.

The facts remain, however, that the iPad will run HTML5 video inline today (and iPhone OS 4 this summer) without even getting warm to the touch while our laptops and multicore desktops turn into noisy miniature blast furnaces when the plugin spins up on their far more powerful hardware.

Flash, like Internet Explorer 6 and ActiveX filled a need and became a popular if proprietary and problematic solution. Years without competition finally caught up with Microsoft by way of Firefox and WebKit, as it's now catching up with Adobe by way of HTML5. Many years and incredible loss of mindshare later, Microsoft is scheduled to finally ship a standards-compliant browser with IE9. Maybe Adobe can work a faster miracle with Flash. But even if they do, HTML5 will have had months of mobile video delivery under its belt on a platform Apple predicted in their iAds (which also uses HTML5) introduction will soon be 100,000,000 strong. That's a heck of a head start and Apple is not a company known to look back.

You didn't have Flash on the iPhone in 2007 for the same reason you don't have Flash on any mobile device outside a Nokia netbookphone today. For the same reason you can't jump on a Corellian star-freighter and hit hyperspace for Endor. The technology doesn't exist yet, and when and if it ever does, for Apple and the iPhone it will likely be too little, too late.

[Business Insider via PreCentral.net]

Just when you think the internet can't take any more crazy it laughs, loosens its belt another notch, and unleashes something like ITWorld's story about Adobe getting ready to sue Apple over the iPhone's lack of Flash support or the iPhone OS 4 SDK prohibiting cross-compilers, or Canada winning Olympic hockey, whatever.

It's not like the real news isn't crazy enough right now, what with iPad and Adobe CS5 shipping and iPhone OS 4 getting previewed all within the last week or so.

Just what exactly is Adobe's cause of action remains unaddressed, of course. Last we checked, being upset -- even being righteously PO'd -- isn't grounds for legal action.

If ever Apple gains a true monopoly position in mobile and abuses that monopoly, then cases will no doubt be made (remember, you can have a monopoly, and you can be abusive, you just can't be an abusive monopoly). Until that time, we get the feeling Apple is going to do everything they can to leverage their technology to get as far ahead of the mobile platform competition as they can. They're going to go at a dead sprint, in fact, until they reach that very line. They want to be so far ahead by the time they have to worry about anti-trust and may be forced to switch gears, competitors will be too far behind to catch up.

Adobe's only option is to do the same -- take Flash further and faster than Apple takes the iPhone. Make it killer on the backs of Android or some other platform. That or sue Apple for patent violations if they have the portfolio stones, because as far as we can tell, there's nothing involving the iPhone's lack of plugin support or cross-compiler acceptance for them to sue over.

Of course, free enterprise means the freedom to sue just because, so ultimately who knows what Adobe will do. We're not lawyers anyway, so if you are, correct us in the comments (pro bono, 'natch).

With the apparent iPhone 4.0 SDK ban on cross-compiled code, Adobe has begun firing back at Apple. The New York Times Bits Blog carried the following statement from Adobe:

We are aware of Apple’s new SDK language and are looking into it. We continue to develop our Packager for iPhone OS technology, which we plan to debut in Flash CS5

The TheFlashBlog (which readers might remember from iPad porn posts past) took it far more personally:

What is clear is that Apple has timed this purposely to hurt sales of CS5. This has nothing to do whatsoever with bringing the Flash player to Apple’s devices. That is a separate discussion entirely. What they are saying is that they won’t allow applications onto their marketplace solely because of what language was originally used to create them. This is a frightening move that has no rational defense other than wanting tyrannical control over developers and more importantly, wanting to use developers as pawns in their crusade against Adobe. This does not just affect Adobe but also other technologies like Unity3D.

[...] Now let me put aside my role as an official representative of Adobe for a moment as I would look to make it clear what is going through my mind at the moment. Go screw yourself Apple.

The timing does seem interesting. Apple could have put this in iPhone 3.2 for iPad. They could have skipped iPhone 4.0 betas and put it in the final iPhone 4.0 GM release (rendering wasted all the apps (time and money) developers had built using CS5 between Flash release and iPhone 4.0 release).

The timing could be to hurt Adobe CS5 sales (though certainly lots of creative professionals use CS5 for reasons that have nothing to do with Flash cross-compiling) or it could be an advance warning to developers not to use those tools because they won't be allowed (or perhaps even compatible) with the final iPhone 4.0 release. Spending several months making an iPhone app in CS5 and then not being able to run it under iPhone 4.0 would be worse.

Ultimately, the language used by Apple is unclear and everyone is going to waste a lot of time and worry until it's clarified.

Daring Fireball discovered that, as part of Apple's newly released iPhone 4.0 beta, the licensing agreement now seems to ban binaries compiled by Adobe's upcoming CS5, Mono Touch, and the like:

Applications may only use Documented APIs in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any private APIs. Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine, and only code written in C, C++, and Objective-C may compile and directly link against the Documented APIs (e.g., Applications that link to Documented APIs through an intermediary translation or compatibility layer or tool are prohibited).

This seems to mean that cross-compilers, which let you develop in the soon-to-be-announced Adobe Flash CS5, the C# and .NET-based Mono Touch, or similar environments and spit out iPhone-compatible binaries at the end, are being prohibited.

Unity, which is used by many large iPhone game developers, creates Xcode Cocoa touch projects (the native iPhone frameworks) rather than binaries so it may not be effected. Given the importance of iPhone gaming and the companies developing them, it's hard to see Apple going hard-line against them the way they're stamping so very firmly on the neck of Adobe, Mono, etc. here.

As to the reasoning behind this change, Daring Fireball posits:

And, obviously, such a meta-platform [Flash or Mono sitting on top of Cocoa] would be out of Apple’s control. Consider a world where some other company’s cross-platform toolkit proved wildly popular. Then Apple releases major new features to iPhone OS, and that other company’s toolkit is slow to adopt them. At that point, it’s the other company that controls when third-party apps can make use of these features.

In other words, it once again highlights Apple's device-centric philosophy. They want beautiful boxes that run commodity apps and services. Adobe, Mono (even Google) want commodity boxes that run their apps and services. Those diametrically opposed points create these conflicts.

Pragmatically, selfishly, and completely from a user's perspective however, I'll take great, dedicated developers making apps specifically and purposefully for the platform (in this case, iPhone) any day over the code-once-spit-out-everywhere approach that has never delivered on that promise (other than with ugly, janky Air and Java apps).

Adobe CS5 with iPhone compilation launches in less than a week.

As announced by Chris Anderson:

Excited about this. Non-flash version of http://ted.com is now live for iphone. Videos, comments, ratings. Hurrah!

For those maintaining score at home, that YouTube and Vimeo, countless porn sites, and an experiment by CBS.com. Still waiting on Hulu...

[@TEDChris via @Gartenberg]

The Other Mac Blog and MacRumors have discovered and confirmed that CBS.com is at least testing iPad-compatible playback ahead of Apple's magical new device launch on April 3.

This new version of the video does not yet work but appears to be based on HTML5. The css files reference HTML5 and have a number of "webkit" specific calls. Webkit is the browser engine used in the iPad's mobile safari. While the videos don't currently play, the "fullscreen mode" reportedly already works in the iPad simulator.

UPDATE: 9to5Mac has several examples up of the site in the iPad simulator.

The iPad, like the iPhone and iPod touch, doesn't support the Flash plugin that CBS.com uses for computer-based browsers. More and more sites, including YouTube are testing HTML5 as an alternative, however, so It will be interesting to see if CBS.com pulls the trigger on it, and how many other big media properties follow suit. Hulu anyone?

Adobe has announced that their CS5 suite, the latest version of their industry leading content creation tools like Flash, Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign, will be launching April 12 (with availability likely to follow at a point that is later).

The big news for iPhone developers is that Flash CS5, as previously reported, will allow ahead-of-time-compiling that should allow for easy (or easier) porting of Flash apps to the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad.

So, if you prefer developing in Flash rather than Xcode and don't mind the lack of interface builder tools, you can stay in Flash and spit out iPhone binaries. (Just please -- please -- make them awesome).

Though not specifically iPhone related, Adobe is providing some sneak previews of other CS5 apps, including one I still don't -- nay, can't -- believe is real: content aware fill for Photoshop (embedded below, but watch it on as big a screen as you can.)

Now if they were to add this to an iPad version of a PhotoShop.com app...

YouTube link

All Things Digital is reporting that NPR along with The Wall Street Journal are just a few of the big-name media outlets preparing Flash-free versions of their respective sites specifically for Apple's new iPad.

While National Public Radio is scrambling to have their iPad application available for the iPad release date, they are also putting the finishing touches on their app alternative solution for users to listen to their programming directly from the iPad on April 3rd.

"Use the iPad’s browser to visit NPR.org, which will detect that it’s being viewed with Apple’s device and serve up a custom-built site. This means no trace of Adobe’s (ADBE) Flash, which is used to power graphics and media on the site."

The Wall Street Journal will also have their Flash-free, iPad specific, front page in a few short weeks. However, the deeper you click into their site you will find that Flash does still exist. That's certainly understandable given how large the site is and how deeply Flash content, especially video and advertising, has been integrated. Detecting iPad Safari's unique user agent string might be easy enough (that's how so many sites detect and deliver iPhone optimized web sites already), but setting up complete mirrors absent Flash is by no means a simple task and may not be a viable solution for those sites out there that depend on Flash to display most of their content. (Though hopefully it will cause sites that use Flash for no reason -- we're looking at you restaurants! -- to rethink the decision and switch to more basic, searchable, and friendly standards based technologies).

As the battle between Adobe and Apple over Flash continues to heat up, it's interesting to see where the chips are falling. Is not having Flash on the iPad or iPhone still a concern to you? Let us (and them) know how you feel in the comments!

Valleywag claims "people familiar with the meeting" between Steve Jobs and the Wall Street Journal have told them Apple's CEO once again dismissed Flash as "old technology", while Bloomberg News reports on Adobe CEO, Shantanu Narayen calling Apple a "proprietary lock".

Jobs apparently repeated claims that Flash is buggy and crashes Macs, is a CPU hog with security holes, would reduced battery life to 1.5 hours, and was basically old technology, something Apple doesn't spend time on and historically jettisons quickly, like floppy drives, FireWire 400, and even optical drives on the MacBook Air. Switching to H.264 was said to be trivial, though Valleywag points out it's fairly non-trivial in implementation.

Narayen, commenting on the record, had this to say:

"Considering the amount of content on the Web that uses Flash — not allowing your consumers to access that content isn't showing off the Web in all its glory. Apple's business model is more trying to maintain a proprietary lock."

Since, Open Screen Project or not, Flash is ultimately controlled by Adobe while HTML5 is an open standard, the "proprietary lock" comment is a tad ironic. Narayen, however, also pointed out that Flash 10.1 was the the "middle-ground" solution Jobs himself asked for following the launch of the iPhone -- more fully featured than Flash Lite, not as resource intensive as Flash (Full).

The Apple vs. Adobe, iPhone vs. Flash debate has beaten whole heaping herds of horses to death now, so we'll just ask you this -- do comments from the CEOs, on the record or gossipy alike, inform or sway your opinion in any way?

[via Macrumors, iLounge]

The San Francisco Chronicle reports that, according to Adobe 7 million iPhone and iPod touch users attempted to download Flash in December, well over the 3 million who tried back in June. We wonder how many of those were for Hulu, and whether rumors of a Hulu app for iPad would change them significantly?

Engadget feels that both Apple and Adobe's competition (competing smartphone platforms that will soon include Flash 10.1, and competing video and rich-content delivery systems from HTML5 to Silverlight which now streams H.264 to the iPhone) are the only ones who will benefit.

We figure technology might as well, as Flash is forced to make less resource intensive, more security and privacy-friendly plugins and Apple and others are forced to make and push alternatives.

Case in point, Hulu. Techcrunch and 9to5mac hear a a Hulu app might still be in progress and set to launch in March in time for the iPad. Their videos are already H.264 so no conversion is required, but they make money off their advertising, which is entirely Flash-based now, and would need to either be replaced with HTML5 for a web app, or Cocoa touch for a native App Store app.

Either way, we're still waiting..

We all know by now there's no Flash on the iPhone or iPod touch, and it doesn't look like there'll be Flash on the iPad, which is probably why Adobe's Chief Technology Officer fired off an impassioned defense of the plugin, while a software engineer shows how a still-unfixed bug crashes it, and the first full on HTML5 video player concept makes its debut.

First up, Adobe CTO, Kevin Lynch has posted a full throated defense of Flash on his Adobe Blog and in a follow up comment notes:

Regarding crashing, I can tell you that we don't ship Flash with any known crash bugs, and if there was such a widespread problem historically Flash could not have achieved its wide use today.

How does this reconcile with Apple CEO, Steve Jobs saying something along the lines of "Whenever a Mac crashes more often than not it’s because of Flash"? TUAW draws our attention to Matthew Dempsky who found a bug that causes Flash to crash in Safari and Chrome, and Firefox to crash completely. And Adobe hasn't fixed it some 16 months later... Dempsky has created http://flashcrash.dempsky.org/ to demonstrate (remember, it will crash Firefox completely!), and says:

This page exploits a bug that I reported to Adobe in September 2008, and has affected every release of Flash on every platform since then. Despite numerous email exchanges with the Flash product manager about the bug, the bug report being hidden from the public for "security" reasons, and [although] Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch's claims otherwise, it continues to be an issue. [...] I'm just a software engineer who at one time had to deal with Adobe's sorry excuse for a development platform and made an earnest effort on several occasions at helping them improve it for everyone. (This issue is merely the tip of the iceberg of ridiculous bugs and random backwards and forwards incompatibilities known as Adobe's Flash Player plug-in.)

TUAW makes the case that Adobe's been resting on their de facto-standard laurels.

Daring Fireball, meanwhile links to SublimeVideo, the first (to our knowledge) full on HTML5 and JavaScript alternative video player. It's still early days, of course, but it works without a plugin, doesn't buffer until you tell it to, and lets you jump to any point in the video with fairly robust controls -- and more to come.

(And Gruber also notes that MPEG LA, owners of H.264, the proprietary codec used by Apple's gear and online in Safari, Chrome, and Flash -- but not in Firefox -- have announced it will remain without charge for free-to-end-user video through 2016)

Lynch, and former Macromedia Flash MX co-creator, Jeremy Allaire on TechCrunch, make valid points that HTML5 can't replace Flash and that Adobe works really hard on both.

In an ideal world, however, perhaps HTML5 can relieve Flash of some of the duties for which it's unsuited, give us back a lighter, cleaner, faster web overall, and let Flash and Adobe concentrate on those tasks for which there is no Flash alternative -- complex data visualizations, for example.

(And we'd also appreciate it if Flash stopped allowing websites to abuse local settings by storing "cookies" on our system -- okay Adobe?)

[Via TUAW, Daring Fireball]

I've mentioned a couple times already, given the recent flare-up in the discussion about iPad and iPhone not supporting Flash, that not so long ago you had a hard time using any browser other than IE6 because of another proprietary plugin -- Microsoft's ActiveX. Times change, though, and these days Firefox, Safari, and Chrome users seldom if ever come across the big red X. It's possible Flash and its blue lego block will soon be likewise optional on major sites.

Scobleizer draws the same analogy:

Let’s go back a few years to when Firefox was just coming on the scene. Remember that? I remember that it didn’t work with a ton of websites. Things like banks, e-commerce sites, and others. Why not? Because those sites were coded specifically for the dominant Internet Explorer back then.

Some people thought Firefox was going to fail because of these broken links. Just like Adobe is trying to say that Apple’s iPad is going to fail because of its own set of broken links.

But just a few years later and have you seen a site that doesn’t work on Firefox? I haven’t.

What happened? Firefox FORCED developers to get on board with the standards-based web.

The same thing is happening now, based on my talks with developers: they are not including Flash in their future web plans any longer.

I work in web development and just did a major site redesign for an international company. It went from a lot of Flash, to no Flash. Why? Marketing wanted a site that would be more easily viewed on BlackBerrys and iPhones.

Daring Fireball drives this home:

Flash is no longer ubiquitous. There’s a big difference between “everywhere” and “almost everywhere”. Adobe’s own statistics on Flash’s market penetration claim 99 percent penetration as of last month. That’s because, according to their survey methodology, they’re only counting “PCs” — which ignores the entire sort of devices which have brought about this debate. Adobe is arguing that Flash is installed on 99 percent of all web browsers that support Flash, not 99 percent of all web browsers.

Used to be you could argue that Flash, whatever its merits, delivered content to the entire audience you cared about. That’s no longer true, and Adobe’s Flash penetration is shrinking with each iPhone OS device Apple sells.

According to an anonymous source in attendance at Apple's recent, internal iPad town hall meeting at the Cupertino campus, Steve Jobs answered some employee questions by saying "Adobe is lazy" and that Google's "don't be evil" motto was "BS". Wired reports:

On Google: We did not enter the search business, Jobs said. They entered the phone business. Make no mistake they want to kill the iPhone. We won’t let them, he says. Someone else asks something on a different topic, but there’s no getting Jobs off this rant. I want to go back to that other question first and say one more thing, he says. This don’t be evil mantra: “It’s bullshit.” Audience roars.

About Adobe: They are lazy, Jobs says. They have all this potential to do interesting things but they just refuse to do it. They don’t do anything with the approaches that Apple is taking, like Carbon. Apple does not support Flash because it is so buggy, he says. Whenever a Mac crashes more often than not it’s because of Flash. No one will be using Flash, he says. The world is moving to HTML5.

Wired points out that, by getting around the App Store pocket veto and delivering Google Voice for iPhone via an HTML5 web app, Jobs should be careful what he wishes for. Google maps data and YouTube were shown off during the iPad launch, as was PDF support, though no Flash (despite some ad-related confusion).

More than a battle of words, however, this is a battle for control of the consumer internet experience -- and the tremendous revenue that comes with it.

MacRumors brings a few more details on that:

• Apple's next iPhone is an "A+" update, and Android won't be able to keep up with Apple's aggressive pace.
• iPad, iPhone, and Mac are the most important products Jobs has been a part of.
• Lala was a talent acquisition to bring their people into iTunes.
• 2010 Macs will take Apple to the "next level"
• Blu-Ray is still a bag of hurt, so Apple is still waiting on it.

An "A+" update for the 4th generation iPhone, eh? Bring it on!

And 9to5mac finally puts to bed the does-iPad-support-Flash flood they kicked off yesterday by noting Apple and their advertising agency have updated promotional videos and images on Apple.com to properly reflect the lack of Adobe Flash support on the iPad, including the blue lego bricks of plugin fail we iPhone users are so used to.

As we were told by our source at the secretive organization, Apple came crashing down on them with urgent requests to change the video.

In other no-Flash-on-the-iPad news, TheFlashBlog has removed the lone porn fail image from their condemnation graphic, while Merlin Mann at Kung Fu Grippe [via Daring Fireball] points out that if the graphic had been in Flash rather than a JPG, no iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch owner would have seen it anyway... (Or would they, as Gruber updates to pass on that the site in question has an iPhone version that replaces the Flash with QuickTime. D'oh!)

Thus ends the latest flare up in the never ending Flash on iPhone OS saga. Right?

TheFlashBlog's Lee Brimelow, Platform Evangelist at Adobe "focusing on the Flash, Flex, and AIR developer communities" has put up a series of iPad mockups highlighting a wide range of web sites all showing the blue lego brick of Flash plugin fail -- and they feature the range of games like Farmville, news sites like CNN, TV sites like Hulu, and online porn like... well, you get the idea.

In all fairness porn is underplayed compared to the rest, but that it's played at all by someone from Adobe is -- forgive us -- a ballsy move. Of course easy to access, free, online porn is a major reason a certain segment is upset there's no Flash on the iPhone or iPad. Regardless of your personal feelings one way or another about it, porn is historically a huge early adapter of technology, including VHS, DVD, online video -- now increasingly Flash-based -- and even the iPhone via Jailbreak and web apps.

Brimelow is using the visuals, mainstream and adult alike, to point out how ubiquitous Flash is on the 'net, and how Apple shouldn't be calling the iPad (and previously the iPhone), the ultimate browsing experience" when it doesn't include Flash.

That's a valid point, and one Adobe's Photoshop Product Manager John Nack addresses candidly and, in our opinion more convincingly, on his own blog. He made me rethink some preconceptions, so it's well worth a read.

But Apple isn't aiming the iPhone or iPad at the web, or computing, as it is today. They're attempting to reframe their mobile devices as appliances for tomorrow. Yesterday's web was all about Internet Explorer 6 and Microsoft's proprietary ActiveX platform. Today is about Flash. We've moved passed IE6 and ActiveX, and Apple is betting we're moving past Flash as well.

The porn industry, interestingly, will likely be one of the early indicators on whether that ends up being true or not. Along with sites like Hulu, Brimelow's post might just end up being less an inditement of Apple today, but a checkbox for HTML5 conversion tomorrow.

As to gaming, Gruber's right. How would Flash games written for a mouse and keyboard on an iPad -- or iPhone -- anyway? They'd need to convert them for multitouch and fingers anyway, and then why not make an app that fully leverages the hardware?

[Via Daring Fireball]

UPDATE: 9to5mac followed up and found out they were hi-res mockup/optimized pages used for the promotional material. Likely NO Flash.

TiPb assumed, for reasons we've written about ad nauseum infinitum, that there was no way Apple's new iPad would include Adobe's Flash plugin, yet 9to5mac has been analyzing the publicity videos and claims in them Flash there be:

In Apple's official video the iPad, they show the New York Times being used. Looks pretty nice right? Well, unless the Times has a special iPad version of the site that converts Flash into jpegs or something, THE IPAD HAS FLASH. Normally, we'd say that Apple simply did the renders in the Mac version of Safari and just CG'ed it into the video. However, you can see the page rendering and being resolution independent as well, so it is likely being done on an iPad.

Of course, during Steve Jobs' on-stage demo, we saw no sign of Flash, only the now famous/infamous blue lego-brick of plugin fail. And Adobe doesn't seem to know anything about it, given the little barb the Flash team posted the other day:

It looks like Apple is continuing to impose restrictions on their devices that limit both content publishers and consumers. Unlike many other ebook readers using the ePub file format, consumers will not be able to access ePub content with Apple's DRM technology on devices made by other manufacturers. And without Flash support, iPad users will not be able to access the full range of web content, including over 70% of games and 75% of video on the web.

We'll get to that scary ePub news in another post, and schedule our tears right behind those we're saving for the "iPad/iPhone don't run ActiveX" charges inevitably to follow, but for right now--

What's going on here? Internally Apple has Flash running in the lab and it crept into the demo? "One more thing" scheduled for pre-launch hype? Is the NYT doing dynamic for-iPad/iPhone Flash to H.264 or JPG conversion? Did some eager video maker make a colossal mistake? WHAT?!

Daring Fireball has an interesting post up regarding the continued lack of a Flash Player for the iPhone, and the reasons why Flash support for the iTablet/iSlate/iPad is unlikely:

I’ll leave the last word to Apple COO Tim Cook, who a year ago said, “We believe in the simple, not the complex. We believe that we need to own and control the primary technologies behind the products we make, and participate only in markets where we can make a significant contribution.”

Flash is owned and controlled by Adobe.

Gruber breaks it down into several broad strokes.

• According to Apple plugins in general, and according to sources at Apple, Flash in particular, is the leading cause of crashes on Mac OS X.
• In order to make a 64-bit version of Safari on Mac, Apple had to create a new plugin architecture because Adobe (still) only makes 32-bit Flash and since Apple has no control of the Flash code, they have to work around it.
• Flash is the only remaining major web technology that's proprietary and controlled by one company, which is not good for the web, and if Apple can't control something, they'd rather it be non-proprietary.
• Flash performance on Mac OS X is poor compared to QuickTime. Adobe would like to address this via direct hardware acceleration, Apple would rather developers use the existing, higher-level QuickTime APIs.
• Flash is used as a runtime, which Apple doesn't support on the iPhone.

I'll add two more things to this list, especially applicable to the iPhone:

• Flash is an increasingly large target for malware attacks. While Apple is slow to respond to zero day exploits, Adobe is as well. The idea that Apple would have to wait on Adobe to patch an iPhone exploit is likely not appealing to Apple. Imagine how long iPhone firmware updates would take then?
• Flash is privacy hostile, allowing sites to store "Flash cookies" which can restore deliberately deleted browser cookies and otherwise track user data. That Adobe still doesn't better inform their users, and relies on an obscure website to provide controls is troubling to say the least. (That page is supposed to contain site-specific permission for Flash to access webcams. Mine contains entries for major online media sites and e-commerce stores).

Apple believes control helps them create the best user experience. It's incredibly frustrating at times, but it's how they've built their business and arguably attained some of their success.

I don't believe for one moment Apple is pushing open standards over Flash for altruistic reasons. In this instance, however, their reasons happen to coincide with what's better for the web. They're also are one of the few companies powerful and popular enough to push HTML5 video.

The iPhone and quite possibly the iTablet are their best shot at doing that.

Microsoft is working with Apple on getting Silverlight (their Flash-like technology) content onto the iPhone? Made our eyes widen as well, but it wasn't what we expected. Unlike the debate over Flash, and a Flash player/plugin for iPhone, this doesn't involve a Silverlight player/plugin at all, but what looks to be a much smarter backend solution. According to Microsoft User Experience Platform Manager Brian Goldfarb:

"So we've worked with Apple to create a server-side based solution with IIS Media Services," Goldfarb continued, "and what we're doing is taking content that's encoded for smooth streaming and enabling the content owner to say, 'I want to enable the iPhone.' The server will dynamically make the content work -- same content, same point of origin -- on the iPhone. We do this with the HTML 5 <VIDEO> tag, in many ways."

"We're translating the content to support the MPEG2 v8 [decoder] format that the iPhone format; we're moving it to their adaptive streaming format. So it's the same IIS smooth streaming content, the same server, the same point of origin, but now I can get that content to play without any code changes, without any real work, on the iPhone. That's the critical thing for our customers."

Goldfarb clarifies that "worked with Apple" means his team did everything, but made sure Apple was "comfortable" with the solution.

TiPb clarifies that if this ends up working well, it gets more video to more iPhone users without the security, privacy, performance, and dodgy plugin architecture that plagues desktop implementations of code-interpreters.

So add to the list of YouTube, Ustream, Stickam, and Vimeo, we could now see all Silverlight video (including Netflix?) made compatible with the iPhone and H.264.

Rather than Flash 10.1, maybe Adobe should be looking to build this cleaner, safer-sounding solution into their next plugin as well?

[Betanews via 9to5mac]

Adobe's getting snarky over the continued absence of Flash on the iPhone, now presenting users with the above message which reads:

Flash Player not available for your device. Apple restricts use of technologies required by products like Flash Player. Until Apple eliminates these restrictions, Adobe cannot provide Flash Player for the iPhone or iPod Touch (sic).

Fair enough. Apple doesn't allow code interpreters like Flash, Java, SilverLight, etc. on the iPhone. Even Apple's own media plugin, QuickTime, doesn't run inline on websites but rather launches a separate player app to show videos.

While the iPhone has an amazing web browser with Safari, it's still a mobile web browser, and the iPhone doesn't have anywhere near the CPU power, memory, battery, or other hardware resources that a laptop does, and even laptops can still be hit especially hard by Flash content. Maybe Adobe's upcoming mobile friendly Flash 10.1 will finally present a really good, optimized, clean (and dare we hope secure and privacy-respectful) version of the plugin.

That is, if we're getting the true story from either Apple or Adobe (as highlighted by this reddit thread, whether real or parody).

[via Adobe UI Gripes]

Daring Fireball has been linking to some interesting discussions on Adobe's recent announcement that Flash CS5 will compile "ahead of time" native iPhone binaries that can be submitted, as is, to Apple's iTunes App Store.

First up, KickingBear reminds everyone to give it a chance before burying it just on concept or principle:

Let’s be frank here – **** the tools. If you’re as deep a fan of the Cocoa tool-chain as I am then you likely came to them as I did – after years of dealing with the drastically inferior. Do I believe Cocoa is still the best tool? Yes, I do. But let’s not pretend that it’s the only tool. Some crazy people may prefer other tools, and we may well think they’re insane for doing so. The proof, however, is in the pudding. And it’s the pudding that our customers buy. I’m in love with my oven and at this point I doubt I’ll ever change it but I have no illusions that fashion won’t pass me by. If Adobe, or anyone else, can produce tools that provide a more compelling application on the iPhone then good for them.

On the flip side, /dev/why takes a look at what's generated by the current process:

Now, the notion that what this thing emits is indistinguishable from something Xcode emits is laughable. They are very different, and not in a good way. While the apps may get acceptable frame rates on an iPhone 3GS, they don’t on earlier hardware, and they almost certainly uses substantially more power battery than native games.

If you're interested in the topic, give both articles a read and then let us know what you think.

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Since Adobe can't get Flash on the iPhone -- yet -- they figure the next best thing is to let Flash CS5 and ActionScript 3 compile native iPhone apps that can be submitted to the iTunes App Store and run on iPhones and iPod touches everywhere.

In fact, Chroma Circuit, Trading Stuff, Fickleblox, Just Letters, South Park, The Roach Game, and Red Hood -- all already on the App Store -- we also all already developed using Flash and converted to the iPhone.

Like the earlier announcement from Novell about MonoTouch letting .NET compile iPhone apps, Flash is using the same "ahead of time" compilation instead of "just-in-time" to build the native apps.

Some will say this lowers the barrier of entry for developers to gain access to the App Store. We just hope it doesn't make it so low they trip over it on their way in.

Again, from our point of view, it's ultimate not about making things easier for developers, it's about making things better for end-users. It's not about us getting more apps, it's about us getting better ones.

If a bunch of brilliant Flash (or .Net or Java or whatever.runtime) developers suddenly cross over and decide to make brilliant apps for the iPhone, then, yay! However, in our experience the truly brilliant developers are the ones who care so deeply about their apps they edit them down to the last sub-pixel level, and tweak the code until it behaves like it was born to the metal. In other words, those developers likely already picked up Cocoa like it wasn't no thing.

The other ones, the ones who just want to pump out as many $0.99 CrApps as possible -- yeah, we're worried they're turning our direction, and we have enough of them already, thanks very much.

Are we overly pessimistic? (Though we're hardly the only ones). Do you think a lot of great Flash games will suddenly make the jump to the iPhone now? If so, name us your favorites, and let us know!

Adobe is working on Flash 10.1, which is a version that's finally supposed to suck less -- battery power and cpu cycles, that is. Meaning, it might just be a contender to finally bring acceptable performance to mobile clients like the iPhone sometime in 2010, even if everyone BUT Apple has signed on at this point.

Back up: since the iPhone debuted with the first mobile web client that actually rendered "just the internet", some users have clamored for Flash. And why now? They were used to that also being on "just the internet". However, the iPhone was still a mobile device and Flash is still notorious for bloat, bugs, and otherwise non-Mobile friendly behavior (and no, we won't mention the increased attack vectors runtimes bring to the table, nor the privacy concerns over Flash-cookies, again, okay?)

Steve Jobs himself famously blamed Adobe for having a desktop version that was too big, and a Lite version that didn't really work, and said Adobe was missing a middle version that would be "just right".

Well, Flash 10.1 might just be that mythical middle-ground, using the GPU to hardware accelerate it's renderings. About time. Included as well will be multi-touch and gesture support, and the ability to save state so as not to waste resources when users switch browser "pages".

This all ties into Adobe's Open Screen project, whose aim it is to make Flash the platform for dynamic web content on mobile, something Adobe really wants and everyone from competing renderers like Microsoft's SilverLight, to truly open web advocates aren't nearly as interested in. Apple, thus far, has been heavily investing in WebKit and technologies like HTML 5, CSS, and JavaScript, which can obviate the need for Flash in many of the place it's (arguably wrongly) being used today. Likewise, H.264 has brought YouTube, Ustream, Stickam, and other video platforms to the iPhone without Flash wrappers, and HTTP Live Streaming will take that further still.

This has no-doubt been noticed by Adobe, and factored into making Flash 10.1 a much better product. Apple, however, is the last major holdout to announce support (or even interest in) Flash 10.1.

There are still some users who are desperate to get Flash on their iPhone (and NO, not just for porn vidz!), and equally vocal users who consider the iPhone a blissful oasis from the fan noise, heat, drain, slowdown, and punching monkey ad-banners Flash has traditionally brought with it. Of course, Flash is a runtime and a development platform -- and Adobe is showing off Flash-developed games -- so one major question will be whether Apple is interested in fragmenting their App Store ecosystem beyond the simple WebApps that currently exist.

Check out PreCentral.net for a video of the new Adobe Flash 10.1 beta running on the Palm Pre, then come back and tell us what you want.

More than 2 years post-iPhone launch, no news on Flash ever coming to the iPhone, yet Apple is pressing ahead with technologies like H.264 video (YouTube App's been using it since day one), HTML 5 and CSS animation (iPhone Safari supported them first), HTTP Live Streaming, and now WebGL for hardware accelerated 3D-graphics, and TuneKit, the framework behind the new iTunes LP rich media content.

Read on to find out what they are, how they work, and why they might make plugins like Flash increasingly unnecessary...

Says developer blog Wolfire:

WebGL is basically an initiative to bring 3D graphics into web browsers natively, without having to download any plugins. This is achieved by adding a few things to HTML5, namely, defining a JavaScript binding to OpenGL ES 2.0 and letting you draw things into a 3D context of the canvas element.

This would bring 3D-gaming (or any 3D application) right into the browser with hardware acceleration, with no plugin like Flash needed to hog your memory, heat up your processor, or crash the browser. (Browsers can do all of those things well enough without the extra help). In addition to WebKit (which is the foundation of Apple's Safari, Google's Chrome, Palm's Web, BlackBerry's just-purchased Torch Mobile, and some Nokia devices), Firefox and Opera are also supporting it. Internet Explorer? Shrug.

TuneKit is the foundation behind iTunes 9's new iTunes LP and iTunes Extras formats, according to AppleInsider:

Similar to Apple's use of the SproutCore JavaScript framework to build its MobileMe web apps, TuneKit provides media developers with a familiar JavaScript framework for creating interactive bonus materials. TuneKit, like SproutCore, proves that a proprietary middleware runtime plugin such as Adobe Flash or Microsoft Silverlight is simply unnecessary to deliver this kind of interactive media content, thanks in part to rapid advances in JavaScript rendering engine optimization.

Like TiPb, they couldn't help but notice the 720p nature of the current iTunes LP and iTunes Extras formats seem destined for the Apple TV, and we're keeping the oft-rumored iTablet on that list as well.

Adobe Flash on the other hand, still hasn't produced an optimized version for Mac OS X, never mind iPhone OS X, according to Apple is the number one cause of browser crashes, continues to experience security threats (though Javascript is no angel here either), and is under increasing privacy scrutiny due to Flash cookies. (If you've never checked, here's the page on Adobe's site that shows which websites are storing information about you in the Flash plugin).

Since, at the end of the day, users don't care about Flash or WebKit/browser technology, they just want their videos and games, things like WebGL and TuneKit could very well replace large amounts of Flash (and competing formats like SilverLight) on the web, especially the mobile web.

And personally I'm fine with that. A series of cutting edge, specific, highly optimized technologies are sometimes better than aging, overextended architectures anyway (feel free to insert iTunes jokes here).

Well, at least kill the need for Flash on the iPhone? Daring Fireball says a simple "yes" to Yahoo! Tech's question.

The idea is that a standards based technology, open and broadly used, could make redundant proprietary and sometimes bloated and buggy plugins like Adobe Flash, Microsoft Silverlight, and Sun JavaFX.

Apple's Safari, including Mobile Safari on the iPhone, and Mozilla Firefox are already supporting HTML5 features. Microsoft's Internet Explorer -- so far -- isn't.

The article gives pros and cons for both sides of the debate. Since Apple is introduction the third generation of their iPhone software tomorrow, and still no Flash in sight, we likely have a good idea which way they're leaning already...

Lately the forums have been on fire and leading up to another iPhone release it is bound to be one wild ride. So now is a perfect time to get yourself registered and join in on the conversation.

Just yesterday Rene started a interesting thread, Are You Running Your iPhone 3G on EDGE and Why? While I understand why some of you may choose to EDGE over 3G, for me, I like to live dangerously, 3G or go home. How about you? Stop by and let Rene know what you think.

This next thread was started by Crackberry veteran forum moderator, Duvi. He simply wants to know, do you think the next iPhone will come with a flash for the camera? Feel free to speculate all you'd like on that one. I'm going with no, it will not have a flash.

Next up we have a thread that yours truly started, it's simply about the latest iPhone rumors. Is there an EDGE only iPhone in the works? How about a CDMA version for China? And before all of you Verizon hopefuls start to get exited - no, a CDMA version from China would not work on the Verizon network. They use different frequencies. Thoughts?

Poor RIM, I can't remember such a hyped phone that pretty much just flopped from the very beginning. Enter the BlackBerry Storm. It seems like the in thing to do these days is ditch your Storm for an iPhone 3G. Not a bad move in our opinion and we welcome forum member whsingleton to the good side!

You heard that the App Store is approaching 1 billion app downloads right? Well you could win a $10,000 iTunes gift card and Dizzy wants to know, what would you do with a $10,000 iTunes gift card?!

Our last thread for today comes to us from Ivoryplum. Ivoryplum wants to know what is the average sync time with iTunes? I honestly can't complain with my syncing. How about you?

So there you have it folks, some really good threads for all of you to check out. Just remember to register first!

See you on the forums!

At Mobile World Congress in Barcelona today, Adobe took the wrapper off a real for-real version of their desktop Flash player designed (and hopefully optimized) for mobile devices like the iPhone. Well, technically they took the wrappers off the wrappers, since Flash Mobile won't ship until the end of 2009 on its current schedule, and it won't support the iPhone even then, only Windows Phone 6.5 (are we allowed to call it WinPho now?), Google Android, Palm Pre, and Nokia. Even these implementations are likely to only ship in 2010.

And the iPhone version? According to Anup Murarka, director of partner development and technology (via Macworld):

“We’ve made a lot of progress, but there is still a lot of engineering work to be done. [...] We’re working with Apple on what we have. We’re committed to make the Flash plug-in work on the iPhone.”

Analysts aren't so sure, citing lack of low-level system access on the iPhone (and BlackBerry) as limitations, as well as Apple's preference for their own QuickTime technology.

So, if no news is good news, not much news must be... what exactly then?

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!]

Another analyst deflating missive from everyone's favorite mythical Mac pundit, the Macalope. This time, the horny headed one explains why there's no Flash or Java on the iPhone:

Uh, because they blow?

There's more to it than that, of course:

And here we have the real issue. Sure, the iPhone could run Flash, but — particularly given the already unoptimized state of Flash on OS X — it would probably have to run some stripped-down, crappier version of Flash.

For the full story behind the various procs and cons, check out the full article, and also take a look at the Macalope's weekly column for the latest Windows Mobile CES news -- which makes TiPb wonder if Ballmer is picking his code names from Lady Marmalade these days...

According to Macrumors, Adobe and ARM, which is the chipset Apple uses to power the iPhone, have announced they're making a special version optimized for mobile devices. (And, yes, to be snarky, I'll believe that when I get a version optimized for Intel on the Mac, b'okay?)

Never the less, none other than chief Androidika Andy Rubin himself showed up at Adobe MAX today to show off Flash running on that other handset -- the one I'm Round Robin'ing this week, the G1.

Will that put pressure on Apple? Or if people start suffering Flash exploits, are subjected to Flash cookies, or get tired of jumping monkey ads, will it only harden Apple's resolve?

Back in August AT&T sent out a customer satisfaction survey to all iPhone owners. Well now it seems a new survey is being sent out to all of us on the AT&T network asking how the 2.1 firmware is working for us and what we want to see next on your iPhone 3G.

Now don't get too excited yet! Just because they are asking what we want does not necessarily mean we will get it. Keep in mind Apple has stated before that certain features such as copy/paste and directional GPS take a back seat to other issues that need addressing so on and so forth. But it is better than AT&T and Apple flat out ignoring us right? So at least it is a start.

Apple Insider states:

The questionnaire asks owners to pick the top five hardware or software add-ons they'd like to see and include many of the most prominent requests made in the community, including cutting and pasting text, built-in instant messaging, Flash/Java support and MMS messaging.

So when and if you get this survey, be sure to speak your mind and let AT&T what know what you want. This is our chance... they seem to be listening. (Or at least they are pretending to be!)

[Via Appleinsider]

The iPhone runs mobile OS X, a stripped down and highly optimized subset of Mac OS X. Adobe has just released Flash 10, including a version for Apple's platform. Does this new version finally address all the bugginess and bloat, that has long plagued the non-Windows version of Flash? What about the general privacy and security concerns around Flash cookies and exploits? Ars Technica put the new builds through their paces, and Daring Fireball sums it up thusly:

Performance still sucks on Mac OS X compared to Windows Vista. Using the exact same computer (four-core 2.66 GHz Mac Pro with 6 GB of RAM), Hulu video playback consumes 56 percent CPU on Mac OS X 10.5 vs. just 7 percent on Vista.

John Gruber updates his post to say it's not as bad as he first thought, but 2 times slower is still 2 (or more!) times too many. The iPhone is not as forgiving as a desktop or even laptop computer. If Adobe really wants Flash on the iPhone -- as they keep harping to the media -- why not make a highly optimized, super-fast build that would befit the OS X platform? You know, like Apple has done with Quicktime X?

How much kicking can an re-un-dead horse take before there's just nothing left but steaming, rotting, fertilizer?

Speaking of which, Adobe is back in the news, again, touting Flash for the iPhone, again, and wondering out loud if Apple will support it, again. Just a couple days ago we went over some of the challenges and potential solutions to Flash on the iPhone, and we've already covered the neglectful bloat and bugs (Adobe's never bothered to optimize Flash for OS X), security (opens additional attack vectors for hackers), and privacy (keeps secret cookies) issues that come with Flash, so why is this back on the radar? Politics.

Adobe is hoping the outcry from the ZOMG! Vidz! fan base, which probably doesn't know about the above, but really wants to watch all that free porn video, combined with pressure from Google's more "open" Android environment (which may or may not actually support Flash, and if it does, may or may not do so in a usable, non-evil manner), will force Apple to let Flash in the door.

We doubt it. AJAX for WebApps and Cocoa Touch for real Apps sucks the "air" out of Adobe's Flash-pirations, and we're pretty sure that's a Good Thing for iPhone users (though, admittedly, not for Flash/Flex developers eager to get on Apple's device but not willing to do so using standard or Apple-provided frameworks).

Personally, while we can see the slim chance for a stripped down, highly-optimized (and 3rd party cookie free!) Flash Player app for video and video alone, we don't see Adobe getting what they really want: their bid for a Rich Internet Application development environment onto the most used mobile platform on the market.

Daring Fireball thinks it's a non-starter as well. How about you? Think we'll ever see Flash on the iPhone? Do we even want to? If so, why?

(Thanks Terry for the tip!)

TiPb loves answering your emails, but we also love sharing our answers with the community in hopes that more people will benefit, and even better answers will present themselves (hey, that's why we have them forums!). For today's debut TiPb Answers, reader Michael asks:

I can't believe that my pet iPhone omission wasn't a choice in the poll of what we'd like to see in iPhone 2.2. Flash support! Maybe a system update isn't necessary to roll out Flash, but that has been my only gripe with my iPhone (other than having to deal with AT&T during purchase and setup). I can't watch Hulu, or other Flash based video on my phone without it. I've wondered if this isn't exactly Apple's intent - why permit Hulu to compete with the iTunes store? What do you think?

TiPb answers, after the jump!

Our understanding is a little different than the above, Michael, so please bear with us as we go back a bit and get into Flash a little more deeply.

First, video is only one of the things Flash does (and some would argue while Flash does make video ubiquitous, it wasn't until they jumped to the H.264 codec -- same as Apple uses in iTunes -- that they made it actually watchable!), it's not the only thing or even the main (technologically speaking) thing. What Flash does, in broad stroke, is make interactive animation on the internet, and this interactivity has grown over the years into a fairly sophisticated scripting language in its own right. Yet, despite what UK courts might think, it remains a proprietary third party add on, and regardless of its popularity, is not really part of the core internet (read: web, including HTML, CSS, and Javascript).

Currently, the major uses of Flash on the internet consist of:

1. Video wrappers, like YouTube and similar sites.
2. Multi-media websites, like movie studies often employ to present more dynamic, more *protected* content.
3. Rich internet applications, such as Adobe's Photoshop express, which seeks to make Flash a/the standard for WebApps.
4. Hyper-annoying "punch the monkey"-style adverts that enable user-tracking more secretly and robustly than regular web snooping.

While you asked about #1, we have to understand that a FULL Flash deployment on the iPhone would also bring the others as well, along with the historically bloated, buggy implementations Adobe has never seen fit to address on the desktop OS X, and the various security and privacy issues that go along with it. Bottom-line, full-on-Flash is basically a code interpreter like Java, which adds a far greater burden to resources while making the device far more vulnerable to hackers, and lets advertisers annoy and invade us to deal-breaking degree. Bottom-line? We'll probably not see desktop-class Flash support in near to far future, and while Flash-centric developers should lament that, users should probably be ecstatically happy about that.

Want to make your rich internet WebApp for the iPhone? Use AJAX. Want to make a Batman site that take 10 minutes to load, won't scale to the iPhone screen size and protects your valuable Hollywood content from -- gasp -- a fan downloading an image? Stick to HTML. Want to clutter out MobileSafari with Flash monkey nonsense while slipping insidious cookies onto our system? Don't let the lack of support hit you on the apps on the way out...

As to Flash-video in the specific -- this is far more likely. While politics between Apple and Adobe may be playing a part, it's not impossible to imagine either a simple Flash video plugin that passes the video off into an intermediary player similar to the existing Quicktime plugin.

For us, this would be the best solution as it would give the most popular aspect of Flash (ZOMG! Vidz!) to the masses, while sandboxing the security and privacy issues, and hopefully forcing Adobe to create a better, and more optimized OS X application (similar to how Apple streamlined Quicktime X for the iPhone).

With regards to Hulu, please first remember it's a US-only site, which while a huge percentage of the iPhone user-base, is basically dead to the 69+ other countries that will get the iPhone in 2008. However, before NBC patched things up with iTunes, they did flirt with providing a similar service directly to iPhone users anyway. So we imagine that Hulu could fairly easily add iPhone support if they wanted to, not to mention give a little love to those of us outside the US (understanding the complex rights messes they've gotten themselves into over the years...)

Anyone have anything to add for Michael?

Last week the UK ruled that Apple was misrepresenting the iPhone's provisioning of "just the internet" due to the lack of support for two ubiquitously popular 3rd party plugins: Flash and Java. We've previously covered the will they/won't they drama surrounding development and deployment of Flash and Java pretty much ad nauseum infinitum, as well as some seldom discussed yet surprisingly frightening concerns about Flash and its downright sneaky use of 3rd party advertising cookies.

More recently, however, another issue has come to light. Primarily concerned with Windows Vista security and how it can be circumvented, this issue throws a renewed focus on the danger of 3rd party plugins like Flash and Java, on how they interpret and run code on our machines, and how they provide an increasingly popular attack vector for bad guys (hackers, malware authors, identity thieves, etc.)

How does this all relate to the iPhone, and what about ZOMG! Can has my Flash vidz? Read on to find out!

Before we begin, I'll just mention again that I'm a long time (10+ years) web developer who works quite a bit with Flash. I'll also add that some coverage of the issues I'm about to get into has tended towards the sensationalistic. The sky is not falling. We're not doomed. Or, at least, not because of anything to do with Flash, Java, or the iPhone.

Caveat'd enough? Good.

Back in early August at the Black Hat conference, Alexander Sotirov and Mark Dowd presented a paper amusingly titled How to Impress Girls with Browser Memory Protection Bypasses. While Vista security proper is beyond the scope of this blog, as Operating Systems like OS X on the iPhone become increasingly hardened against security exploits, the web browser becomes the path of least resistance for hackers to get at us and our stuff.

The iPhone's browser, MobileSafari is currently the closest thing to a desktop-class rendering engine as can be found on a handset. It's based on the same WebKit core as Safari for Mac and Windows, and so it's not unreasonable to imagine it shares the same advantages (real HTML, CSS, and AJAX) and risks (can be exploited). This could potentially include buffer overruns, cross site scripts, and -- yes -- plugin vulnerabilities.

On a recent episode of the TWiT network's popular Security Now! podcast, Steve Gibson summed up the problems with Flash and Java:

Their technologies, especially in the case of Java, Java has, deliberately has readable, writable, and executable memory because of the way it operates. o it's a big target. And so many of these third-party things, which you could pretty much depend upon, you know, Flash player is installed in the high 90 percentile of Windows machines so you can count on it being there.

And what if we could likewise count on their being on the iPhone? What potential problem could that expose?

Certainly after this paper has come out where these guys demonstrate clearly the exploitability of Flash, which is not [Data Execution Prevention] compatible, it's like, okay, Adobe, if you want your code in my machine, you make it safe. Because we've seen a bunch of Flash exploits here in the last few months. And, you know, this wouldn't be possible if Adobe would do the work. I don't care how hard it is, it's certainly possible to code around this [...] Basically this is laziness. In this day and age, for Flash still not to be marked as DEP friendly when it is in a highly vulnerable environment, it's not like it's something down on your tray, it's in your browser. And we know what a target browsers are just by their very nature. I mean, in fact, the whole focus of this paper was specifically browser vulnerability. [...] It is very common applications like Silverlight, like Flash, commonly used components, or even Media Player, that are invokable by the browser and still not yet safe, that is really now the main target of exploitation.

We've already seen MobileSafari exploits in the wild (indeed, a TIFF-based vulnerability was one of the first ways people found to jailbreak the iPhone 1.1.1 -- just by entering a URL in the browser!)

Again, this is not breakworld stuff. No need to panic and lock your handset in a lead box. Future versions of Flash and Java (and similar plugins) will likely address these issues.

Just remember, for now, that the iPhone is tremendously popular, and thus will be a tremendously popular target for hackers. Apple already has to worry about securing the HTML, CSS, AJAX (Javascript), and Quicktime (which they own and can therefore rapidly address) components of Mobile Safari. Add to that the complications of 3rd party code interpreters with a very real history of not only exploits, but (in the case of Flash) for being bloated and buggy on the Mac (another thing Adobe has chosen not yet to prioritize fixing), and it begins to make more sense why we haven't seen Flash or Java on the iPhone, a device that knows who we are (all our date) and where we are (3G aGPS).

But wait, other smartphones run versions of Flash and Java, though, don't they? Sure, but I'd argue that the iPhone isn't really a smartphone, it's a mobile computer. Full darwin kernal, BSD networking -- pretty much a UNIX box in your pocket. To me, that's a far bigger target than Palm OS, the Java Micro Edition inside a Blackberry, and even Windows Mobile (which, despite the name, is a very different animal under the covers than Microsoft's desktop OS).

And isn't there a battle going on for the Rich Internet Application (RIA, aka WebApp) space? You betcha. Google didn't just drop Chrome for no reason. SproutCore, Flash/Air, Silverlight/.Net, Prism, Safari, Java, etc. all want to own what's likely the next major computing platform (the web "cloud").

Bottom-line: Both for Apple and for consumers, the advantages for Flash and Java currently do not outweigh the drawbacks, especially as standard web technologies continue to decrease the gap between proprietary plugin capabilities and the open internet (HTML, CSS, AJAX).

That's my opinion, at least. What's yours?

Casey already told us about how an iPhone ad was banned in the UK for "misleading consumers" about providing "just the internet", and based on how many ZOMG! No Flash Vidz! comments we get, I'm going to go out on a limb and say most people probably share the belief that MobileSafari - ( Flash + Java) != the internet.

Fine.

But allow me to retort. As a long time web (and Flash) developer, however, I'm calling shenanigans on that, and on the UK Advertising Standards Authority. Flash and Java are factually and empirically NOT part of the open, standards based Internet (i.e. HTML, CSS, Javascript/AJAX). Flash and Java, along with things like SilverLight, Real, ActiveX, and a host of other proprietary add-ons are plugins, extensions, and otherwise additions to the Internet -- with all the benefits and drawbacks that go along with that.

Like what? Read on after the break!

Okay, so Flash, Java, et. al. allow for some neat multi-media effects and interactivity (though HTML 5 and CSS are catching up), and some measure of portability (though never as much as they claim), but they bring in additional security and cross-platform problems as well.

The web is supposed to be a structured container (CSS) through which content flows (HTML), which is why MobileSafari can subtly reformat font sizes, line wraps, and other elements to suit the smaller screen and multi-touch interface. As an open standard, Apple can also integrate their own containers and attributes to, for example, define the screen size for rendering.

Flash? Kinda sorta sometimes if the developer puts the effort in. Being proprietary (even "open" proprietary), however, Apple can't exactly make changes to the source to, you know, make a version that's not as bloated and greedy as Adobe has long allowed the Mac OS X version of Flash to remain. To prove that point, Apple has significantly developed the plugin they do own, Quicktime, creating Quicktime X to better fit their mobile vision of the future.

All this to say that there are several very good reasons why the iPhone doesn't support Flash, Java, and the other plugins. They may be reasons that can eventually be overcome with newer/better technology, or reasons some people may even disagree with, but for the UK to randomly pick those two plugins as being "the internet" just because they happen to be ubiquitous (compared the aforementioned Silverlight, for example) is as capricious as it is wrong headed.

Apple, as they themselves rightly point out, is delivering the full standards-based Internet to the iPhone. Any site coded to conform to those standards will work just fine on the iPhone. Any site deviating, or depending on plugin extensions won't (as anyone whose ever tried to get a secure installation to "just add this Java widget" or "just download this ActiveX control" to enable some web conferencing or like utility will all too readily tell you).

Bottom-line, the UK is showing ignorance of the real web. Sure, I wants my vidz as much as the next Viddler, but I understand the issues behind these technologies, which is something the Advertising Standards Authority might want to do before banning commercials, right?

Here at TiPB we've covered the heck out of the Flash on the iPhone debacle. Will it, won't it, can it, should it, omgvidz!1 and privacy nightmares. But it just won't stop. Current case in point, Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen was once again let near a live mic:

We have a version [of (Mobile?) Flash] that’s working on the emulation. This is still on the computer and you know, we have to continue to move it from a test environment onto the device and continue to make it work. So we are pleased with the internal progress that we’ve made to date.

Great. Only Flash for OS X was never fully optimized by Adobe, making it a resource hog and increasing the bugginess of browsers (any guesses on how it will run on the iPhone?). Also, Apple hasn't approached Adobe to do a MobileSafari plugin anyway, (though iPhone 2.0 seems to include a YouTube plugin...), and the iPhone SDK end user license still seems to disallow something like Flash (or Java) from running their own code. So, this means precisely what, exactly?

For those hoping to get Flex apps up on the iPhone, Apple already has an SDK and won't allow a "competitive" dev environment to murky up their Cocoa Touch and SproutCore plans. From a dev point of view, sure it may limit apps from people already familiar with Flex, the same way it limits those already familiar with Java. While this may sacrifice the ability to leverage code from other platforms, most SDK demos rave about how fast porting has been, and really keen devs will just pick up the aforementioned Cocoa Touch environment and run with it anyway.

For those who just want them their vidz, Apple seems to be banking on YouTube via H.264 app and plugin being enough to stop a general revolt while they establish their "next big thing" mobile platform without Adobe's tech being invited to the party. Will that be enough? Depends on how much people want everything beyond YouTube, from Hulu to pr0n. (And the obnoxious banner adds that will inevitably come with it).

Apple and Adobe need each other but also don't seem to have the best of relationships. They're both gambling big time, with huge stakes. Adobe has a more flexible hand (no pun intended) but Apple has a poker face that makes a mannequin look overly emotive.

My guess? No Flash for the iPhone remains the status quo. What's yours?

UPDATE:

Iconfactory and Twitteriffic luminary Craig Hockenberry posts the funniest Flash on iPhone tweet ever on Twitter:

Hoping that Adobe will use a flash:// URL scheme. Would make it very easy to avoid on both the iPhone AND desktop.

Meanwhile, Adobe responds on their blog.

UPDATE 2:

Kontra ponders if this is all really a fight over the future of user interfaces, with Adobe trying to set their own cross-device conventions.

And Gruber points out even Apple's own Quicktime content doesn't run in-line in Mobile Safari, but launches a [Quicktime X?] player.

Which raises an interesting point: How would running video be handled in MobileSafari anyway? If you tried to swipe, scroll, pinch zoom, double-tap, etc., wouldn't it create enormous resource demands on what's still a small, mobile chipset? And if they lock the multi-touch down anytime Flash content (including ads) pop up, it makes the browser otherwise useless. Seems this would almost guarantee the need for an external player. (Or do the video game demos show that it could handle this well enough?)

Read

If the next great future of computing in the Cloud, as many pundits -- not to mention Google -- think, then the next great race is delivering that future via Rich Internet Applications. Right now, there are two major ways of doing this. The first involves using a proprietary, locked in technology (admittedly with increasing "openness") like Adobe's Air/Flex/Flash trifecta, or Microsoft's .Net/Silverlight double team. The second is with truly open standards such as HTML, CSS, and AJAX (Asynchronous Javascript and XML) like Google, Yahoo, and many others use.

With the iPhone Apple has squarely planted itself in the second category. They even promoted them as a pseudo-SDK for a time! (And maybe gave up too soon?)

Flash-free, Silverlight-less, but full of interactivity and cloud-based applications, Apple just unleashed .Mac upgrade MobileMe complete with "desktop class" mail, calendar, contacts, and photo gallery web apps.

And according to this year's WWDC buzz, they used SproutCore's Javascript frameworks to do it? Why?

SproutCore not only makes it easy to build real applications for the web using menus, toolbars, drag and drop support, and foreign language localization, but it also provides a full Model View Controller application stack like Rails (and Cocoa), with bindings, key value observing, and view controls. It also exposes the latent features of JavaScript, including late binding, closures, and lambda functions. Developers will also appreciate tools for code documentation generation, fixtures, and unit testing. A key component of its clean MVC philosophy that roots SproutCore into Cocoa goodness is bindings, which allows developers to write JavaScript that automatically runs any time a property value changes. With bindings, very complex applications with highly consistent behavior can be created with very little “glue” code.

Check out the read link for more on Apple's use of SproutCore, and how it might just be part of a growing trend for open standards-based web interactivity.

Read

Honestly, its like one of those TV cop shows where the tip lines are finally thrown wide open and everyone and their alien-proof tinfoil hat starts flooding with the calls...

First up is Engadget bringing word that the Australian NDA box and the Gizmodo iPhone (Red) and related images mentioned previously are, to quote Elaine from Seinfeld: "Fake, fake, fake... fake..."

Next up both DaringFireball and the Macalope heckle the comedy stylings of the CNN/Dow Jones-come-lately Apple pundits and their... er... seeming total lack of anything approximating industry-required knowledge:

Apple appears to be making room on the iPhone for flash memory, which means an end to Apple’s standoff with Adobe that’s kept iPhones from easily viewing a plethora of Internet videos. Apple has said that Adobe’s flash media player, which is on hundreds of other phones, doesn’t perform up to Apple’s standards for the iPhone.

Confusing NAND flash-memory storage with Adobe Flash video, eh? Gruber hits with some "flash bulb" mockage, while the 'lope gets closer to my heart with some Barry Allen and Gordon style "Flash" comic reference. Luckily, no one went with the sleazier, if more obvious, trench-coat and goulashes-style "Flasher"...

Lastly, Apple Inside claims Apple is pushing developers to charge for what the developers want to offer as free applications, if not now than sometime in the future. Some suggest this is an effort by Apple to cover the bandwidth and transaction costs of the App Store. I don't buy it. They give away tons of free, bandwidth intensive content on iTunes already like HD video podcasts.

The rumor seems to say Apple is pushing for dual versions, limited-functionality free versions as demos, with full versions as commercial -- paid for -- apps.

Uh... That's pretty much the share-ware model already...

Like a moth to a flame or a Blackberry addict to email, I am drawn once again into the train wreck that is Flash on the iPhone. This time it's courtesy one Robert X. Cringely, and it's a brain bender!

Cringely says:

It seems obvious to me, however, that there is only one real reason why [rumors circulating the National Association of Broadcasters show suggested] Apple would sell off its professional applications [like Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, Shake, and Aperture] and that’s to avoid antitrust problems when/if Apple buys Adobe Systems as I predicted at the beginning of the year.

Gruber responds:

I Think Cringely Is Off His Meds Again

Daring Fireball's John Gruber goes on to say that while Apple may (or may not) sell off its Pro Apps, it would only do so to downsize and maintain focus, something buying Adobe would pretty much be the opposite of.

Personally, I think Apple stands to benefit immensely one day from controlling the media pipe end-to-end, and part of that control is the high end content creation tools, the Pro Apps. That's Apple end game, the media hub and all its satellites. And if you want that, you don't go selling off your launch vehicles.

What do you think?

Confession: I'm suffering from extreme PFSD (Posting about Flash Stress Disorder). All this "will it" "won't it" "please don't let it" blog-pong has me cowering beneath my laptop. But I believe in facing my fears, real and absurd, so let's see what Ars Technica has to report:

Adobe has announced a new initiative called Open Screen, which aims to make the company's Flash multimedia technology ubiquitous on mobile and embedded devices. Adobe plans to eliminate the licensing fees required to distribute its own Flash player and AIR runtime implementations on mobile devices and will also remove licensing restrictions on the specifications for the FLV and SWF formats so that developers can create fully-compatible independent Flash player implementations.

FLV is big. Previously, 3rd parties had fairly open access to the rendered SWF format, but not the source FLV (in Flash, you build in FLV and export "movies" in SWF). Now, while Adobe won't be opening up the source to their own Flash kit, they will be removing restrictions against competitive (video player, plugin, etc.) implementations. In other words, Adobe isn't giving away the keys to the Flash kingdom, but they're letting developers build a little village just outside the gates.

"Open as in Microsoft" more than "open as in GNU/Linux" to be sure, but this does take steps to remove one of the greatest criticism levied against Flash on the web: proprietary technology lock-in. (Which is unlike HTML, CSS, and AJaX -- open, standards based technologies, that no one company could suddenly demand huge payments for, roll-in unwanted "features" like DRM, or simply choose to shut down one day, leaving developers stranded).

This is no doubt Adobe's motivation for their increasing openness. They want to drive even more developer adoption towards their Flex and Air platforms, stave off competition from Microsoft's Silverlight technology (which, ironically, has been trying to compete with Flash by offering up unprecedented openness -- from Microsoft!), and keep pace with HTML5's video tag and CSS-based animation.

But what does this all mean for Flash on the iPhone?

A more open, accessible license may let Apple build their own implementation, one they're more comfortable with, and one that fills that missing middle slot between Flash Lite and Flash (desktop) that Steve Jobs feigned interest in.

Or it may just let Adobe or some 3rd party unleash another Flashenstein Monster a la Sony Ericsson.

Personally, I'll be stockpiling torches and pitchforks (soon as I can stop cowering, that is). What do you think?

We've covered the iPhone Flash saga ad nauseam here, but in an interesting post involving the technology itself, NetNewsWire developer Brent Simmons (via DaringFireball) shares some interesting error/crash logs highlighting the instability-adding benefits of Flash, and the rapid catchup of Microsoft's copycat, Silverlight:

I’ve said it before — one of my favorite things about the iPhone is no Flash. I will now add and no SilverlightPlugin.

As a web developer who uses Flash routinely, I've also come to enjoy its absence on the iPhone (and the absence of like technologies, and even prehistoric kin like animated GIFs), and the amazing increase that absence give to the information over noise ratio. It's led me closer towards "Web 2.0"-style AJaX for interactivity, and away from the proprietary, and often overkill, that is plugin technology.

What do you think?

Yup. Just when ya thought it was safe to read the interwebs again, Gizmodo (via BGR) brings word that -- you guessed it! -- Flash is coming to the iPhone!

"You heard it here first, people! The latest version of the iPhone 2.0 firmware that was just seeded to developers has a YouTube plugin for MobileSafari.app"

Well, forgive me if I go looking for my iHulk Smash Puny Rumor graphic like immediately, b'okay?

Rumor gets reported there will be Flash on the iPhone. Rumor gets smashed. Rumor gets reported there will be unlimited music on the iPhone. Rumor gets smashed. Rinse and repeat.

What's going on? Why aren't we getting these stories straight?

Turns out maybe these stories weren't meant to be gotten. Turns out maybe these stories were meant to get us.

There was a time when media really was the fourth estate, when it reported the news. In something akin to the scientific method, media observed what was going on in the grand experiment that is society, looked for pattern and flaw, then contextualized it, gave it form and flavor, and broadcast it by mule and truck and cable and fiber to those who wanted or needed to know.

Now media is entertainment and is competing with itself and other forms of entertainment for your attention and your dollar. One of the ways to compete is to get mysterious "un-named sources" to give you the highly prized "sensational headline". And instead of digging for these sources and convincing them to come forward, the anonymous sources now trip and push past each other to get to the reporters first. Why? Because controlling the story is important. Information is power and spin is leverage.

Okay, soap-box, what does this have to do with the iPhone? Two interesting and very similar blog posts emerged recently shedding new light on both the Flash and unlimited music stories that have been all over the web lately. Let's take a look:

Flash first. GearLive heard it was good to go. Adobe said they didn't know. Steve Jobs said not so much. Adobe's CEO said the SDK would allow it. Then Adobe contradicted their own CEO. Is there really so much confusion? Is Adobe's CEO really that tech un-savvy? Is El Jobso?

Robert Scoble (via Fake Steve) calls shenanigans on all of them:

Today I got a note from someone I know who works closely with Adobe and Apple. [...] He says that he’s seen Flash running on an iPhone in a lab and that it’s been running for quite a while and that it’s not a technical issue that caused Steve Jobs to go public about not putting Adobe’s Flash on the iPhone. [...] So, what’s the reason, according to my source? Adobe is playing hardball with Apple over their PDF renderer. “Adobe wants Apple to use the Adobe PDF renderer.” His thesis? Steve Jobs is playing hard to get to get Adobe to give up this demand.

Unlimited music next. The Financial Times reported that Apple, long hating on the subscription model, was doing an about-face and embracing unlimited music, only to have Business Week report the exact opposite the very next day. Both cited high placed sources. Both can't be right, can they?

Matt Buchanan over at Gizmodo believes they can -- if only by virtue of opposing manipulations:

The labels, particularly Universal, are known to be hot on a subscription deal, since it'd provide more reliable revenue from iPods [...] Apple, on the other hand, is already [earning revenue] with iTunes just the way it is. [...] Since the labels really want a subscription model, it makes sense that label sources would play it up to the press, giving them more leverage at the negotiating table by showing the heavy buzz/demand the rumor is generating. Apple-side sources would spin the opposite way, since—if they really were considering a subscription model—it would give them weight to push down the price, both what they'd give labels and what they'd charge us. And as both the FT and NYT have noted, price is likely to be the major sticking point.

Nate Anderson coverage on Ars Technica also reminds us that the manipulations aren't just limited to Apple, Adobe, and the recording industry -- iTunes competitors aren't going to miss a chance to rattle the "monopoly" saber either:

The argument is a simple one. "Apple has a monopoly," [eMusic CEO David] Pakman told me Friday, citing their US market share at 80 percent. Companies in that situation have to play by a "different standard," especially when it comes to anything that could be construed as "tying" (recall that Microsoft was accused of exactly this sort of tying when it rolled new "features" like Internet Explorer into Windows and then had to deal with years of litigation). If every iPod comes with [the hypothetical service], that's tying," Pakman said. eMusic and others would certainly bring the matter to regulators' attention.

Could they be right? Is whether or not the iPhone can run Flash academic? Is whether or not some consumers might want the subscription model just as irrelevant? Are Adobe, Apple, and Big Media just playing games? Are would-be competitors playing along to send a message? Are reporters, desperate to fill column inches and make post counts, playing along? And are consumers -- the people to whom these issues matter most -- providing very loud, very public reactions, only to get played by all sides?

If so, this means iPhone users won't get Flash or unlimited music -- even if we want it, even if big business would make money and increase market share by giving it to us -- until "those who sit above in shadow" decide they've leveraged and manipulated every last little bit they can from us and from each other.

And we should know that by now, shouldn't we?