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Wednesday, March 05, 2008

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Apple Smacks Down Adobe Over Flash on the iPhone

- Warner Crocker

This is certainly disappointing news, but something tells me the story is just starting to get told. Steve Jobs, in a major slap at Adobe, has said that Adobe’s Flash Player just isn’t good enough for the iPhone.

Here’s the disappointing part. Apple has said since the hype days that the iPhone delivers the real Internet in its (and now iPod Touch) browser, staking out turf that sets it apart from other mobile operating systems. Because of all of the excitement about the iPhone, most folks kinda, sorta looked the other way, and I believe the assumption was that Flash would show up eventually (you know, unessential things like cut and paste). Well, unless Steve Jobs has something up his sleeve, I think we can say bye-bye to the “real Internet” thing for awhile now. It is a shame too. Using my iPod Touch, I’ve become quite attached to mobile web surfing on that device, and being able to view in Flash would only make it a better experience.

But in the high stakes game that Jobs is obviously playing with Adobe there could be other things in the works on the cusp of the eagerly anticipated release of the iPhone SDK. Could this be an opening for Microsoft and its Silverlight platform? Does, as Loren Heiny speculates, Steve Jobs have something else up his sleeve?

Who really knows, but I think a lot of users are feeling pretty bummed about this. I’m sure Adobe is as well.



Wednesday, March 05, 2008 9:54:13 AM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)
I remember when Palm announced that the most requested feature for their PDAs was a web browser, but they were not going to do one.
Wednesday, March 05, 2008 10:11:06 AM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)
Doess't surprise me. Flash is absolute crap. It's the #1 reason my browser crashes or takes up a significant CPU%.

It would be funny if Apple includes Microsoft Silverlight instead.
Wednesday, March 05, 2008 11:26:23 AM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)
I somewhat agree with Rod. Flash can work the hell out of my processor, but it depends on the implementation. It's unfortunate that the iPhone must disallow all Flash in order to block crappy and wasteful Flash, but so be it.

And I disagree about Flash being part of the "real Internet". It's proprietary and relies on a plug-in. It's not an integral element of the Internet.
Wednesday, March 05, 2008 12:06:42 PM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)
That's not what he said at all. Steve did not "slap" Adobe over Flash. He said the mobile version of Flash is crap, and he is right... it is several generations behind the computer based Flash player and not compatible with a lot of current flash content on the web.

He goes on to state that the computer based Flash player is too CPU intensive to use on the iPhone because of it's low processor speed. This is also correct. Have you seen what a couple of flash ads will do to the CPU usage of a lower spec single core laptop like a P1610?

I happen to agree with Jobs, there needs to be a middle ground product... a Flash player with today's level of compatibility, but rewritten for much more efficient CPU usage. I think even PCs and Macs could benefit from that!

Kevin
Wednesday, March 05, 2008 4:54:58 PM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)
the real internet right now is flash. it didn't used to be but for whatever reason, crap or not, it's a necessary piece of the real internet experience.
turning around and saying it isn't good enough, is absurd. of course the benefit of doing that is it's obviously not his fault it's crap. jobs is just 'throwing a teddy' out of his pram and scowling while everyone else runs around to give it back to him.
jpfx
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