Flash Plug-in For iPhone Coming Soon?

[MacRumors]

Walt Mossberg answers a number of common iPhone questions but also suggests that a Flash plug-in will be coming soon from Apple.

At launch, the iPhone version of the Safari browser is missing some plug-ins needed for playing common types of Web videos. The most important of these is the plug-in for Adobe’s Flash technology. Apple says it plans to add that plug-in through an early software update, which I am guessing will occur within the next couple of months.

Adobe's Flash plug-in is required to play Flash content which is commonly used in certain aspects of web design and web-hosted videos. Apple managed to get around this requirement with Youtube by converting Youtube content into h.264, which the iPhone supports natively.

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[Yankees 4 Life]

This would be awesome, now i cna actually watch my espn movies and such. Now if they could add a windows media player add on, that would be truly amazing because i cant listen to internet radio...

[mrkramer]

That would be great, I hope that they can do it without majorly affecting the battery life.

[Yankees 4 Life]

Originally Posted by mrkramer

That would be great, I hope that they can do it without majorly affecting the battery life.

oh yea, i never even thought of that.. lol

[dr_lha]

Originally Posted by mrkramer

That would be great, I hope that they can do it without majorly affecting the battery life.

Unless Apple themselves are working on a super optimised version of Flash for the iPhone I doubt it. Full Flash is pretty bad at eating CPU cycles, especially if your CPU is <1Ghz.

[Fwink!]

Wait, so it was a better plan to get YouTube to re-encode it's whole library, than for Apple to get a flash plug-in working in the first place?

I will venture a guess that this is mostly to enable small beans developers to get into the game. Flash is a lot easier to work with than WEB 2.0. Especially for simple games and such.

[Rojo]

While cool, it seems odd they would suddenly do this. Apple seemed adamant that Flash was a drain on battery life, and they went out of their way to get YouTube to recode all their videos to not be Flash.

So why suddenly add Flash now? Why not have it there all along?
Something doesn't seem right with this rumor -- unless they're just caving in to all the complaints of the iPhone not supporting Flash. But Apple doesn't seem like the kind of company to cave in...

[slffl]

Apple wasn't trying to 'get around' having a flash plugin. It's the fact that h.264 looks A LOT better than flash video!

[Yankees 4 Life]

Originally Posted by Rojo

While cool, it seems odd they would suddenly do this. Apple seemed adamant that Flash was a drain on battery life, and they went out of their way to get YouTube to recode all their videos to not be Flash.

So why suddenly add Flash now? Why not have it there all along?
Something doesn't seem right with this rumor -- unless they're just caving in to all the complaints of the iPhone not supporting Flash. But Apple doesn't seem like the kind of company to cave in...

i agree, normally they cave in to nothing, but i think they make a special exemption because people complain too much...

HOWEVER LOOK AT MY APPL STOCK SHOOT THROUGH THE ROOF!!!

I love

[ciaw525]

Getting YouTube to convert to H.264 was more about the video quality on TV.

[joelk]

Originally Posted by Rojo

While cool, it seems odd they would suddenly do this. Apple seemed adamant that Flash was a drain on battery life, and they went out of their way to get YouTube to recode all their videos to not be Flash.

So why suddenly add Flash now? Why not have it there all along?
Something doesn't seem right with this rumor -- unless they're just caving in to all the complaints of the iPhone not supporting Flash. But Apple doesn't seem like the kind of company to cave in...

or perhaps a revamped leaner flash wasn't ready for production at the time

[crees!]

Originally Posted by Fwink!

Wait, so it was a better plan to get YouTube to re-encode it's whole library, than for Apple to get a flash plug-in working in the first place?

I will venture a guess that this is mostly to enable small beans developers to get into the game. Flash is a lot easier to work with than WEB 2.0. Especially for simple games and such.

Flash uses software/cpu to run. h.264 is hardware-based and consumes less power.

Originally Posted by slffl

Apple wasn't trying to 'get around' having a flash plugin. It's the fact that h.264 looks A LOT better than flash video!

For video, yes, but for interaction and programming, no.

[Fwink!]

Originally Posted by crees!

Flash uses software/cpu to run. h.264 is hardware-based and consumes less power.

Well, I still think this is about 2 issues.
1. Ad's not rendering on web pages.
2. Games

And not so much about video, we all know h.264 is high Q.

[Yankees 4 Life]

Originally Posted by crees!

Flash uses software/cpu to run. h.264 is hardware-based and consumes less power.

do you know of a less powe consuming version of flash?

[dicklacara]

I hope that Apple and Adobe work together to implement an efficient Safari/Flash plugin tailored to the iPhone... it would be to the advantage of both...

I did some measurements, a while back, and the Flash plugin for Safari sucked from a performance standpoint-- often using over 10% CPU while doing nothing, and in the 60% CPU range doing simple tasks (on an iMac G5 2.1 GHz).

It was so bad that I suggested that they (then MacroMedia) change their Flash promotional from "Rich and Reach" to "Rich, Reach and Retch"

[michelle21]

yes this is what I suspected, if you read the flash player licensing agreement there is specific language on what platforms require additional licensing.

When I saw the safari limitation I suspected Apple was negotiating with adobe but would not have it in time for the release.

Here's some other stuff I would not be surprised/hoping to see..

rstp streaming

native itunes client

Bonjour support

[Digitalclips]

Originally Posted by Fwink!

Wait, so it was a better plan to get YouTube to re-encode it's whole library, than for Apple to get a flash plug-in working in the first place?

I guess the answer is, um ... er ... YES! I think Apple know exactly what they are doing every step of the way.

[Yankees 4 Life]

Originally Posted by Fwink!

Well, I still think this is about 2 issues.
1. Ad's not rendering on web pages.
2. Games

And not so much about video, we all know h.264 is high Q.

hey dont forget popups... those popups are mostly flash/java based..

[Peace]

Originally Posted by Yankees 4 Life

do you know of a less powe consuming version of flash?

Yes.The version coming out in a couple of weeks.

[NightStorm]

A lot of people aren't realizing that it isn't as simple as using the existing Safari Flash plug-in; the iPhone uses an ARM CPU that would require Adobe to port their code to run properly, and Apple ensuring that it does so with as little impact on battery life as possible.

It'll happen eventually, I'm pretty sure of that, but it isn't something that can happen overnight.

[iStrat]

The quote says they are expecting it in an early update within the next couple of months. I wouldn't get too excited just yet. It might be a long way off. At least that gives them plenty of time to perfect the implementation.

[SirOmega]

Yea, I'm not entirely sure I want a flash plugin.

I've seen newegg banner ads that suck up 100% of my CPU because they're flash and done poorly. Why bother run my battery down because some jerk cant use flash.

[iSee]

Originally Posted by Rojo

While cool, it seems odd they would suddenly do this. Apple seemed adamant that Flash was a drain on battery life, and they went out of their way to get YouTube to recode all their videos to not be Flash.

So why suddenly add Flash now? Why not have it there all along?
Something doesn't seem right with this rumor -- unless they're just caving in to all the complaints of the iPhone not supporting Flash. But Apple doesn't seem like the kind of company to cave in...

I think Apple was playing a game of chicken with Adobe over the flash player licensing fee. Adobe wants a pretty penny for the player on embedded devices.

[Dramatic reenactment]
ADOBE: So, you want the flash player on your new phone, eh?
STEVE: Yep.
ADOBE: OK, that'll be 5% of retail sales.
STEVE: Ah, no
ADOBE: OK, 2.5%, bottom line.
STEVE: Look, we can release this device without the Flash player at all.
ADOBE: No way, we rule dynamic content on the web--if you want to give people the "real web" you've got to play ball.
STEVE [to the public]: Develop using Web 2.0, Flash Player will suck your battery so it's really better that you don't have FP. [applies RDF effect].
PUBLIC: [Buys 100,000 x ? phones in the first week]
ADOBE: Ah, Steve? Steve? Are you there?
STEVE: Hmm, oh it's you. Can I help you with something?
ADOBE: Ah, how's about 5$/unit.
STEVE [Applying RDF]: you think it would be strategic to offer the Flash Player for free on the iPhone.
ADOBE: Ah... We've decided it would be strategic to offer the player for free on iPhones... [blinks a few times, regains focus] But you've got to pay for the development and maintenance.
STEVE: Already done.

[Hattig]

Flash will come, but it won't have Flash video support.

The CPU in the iPhone simply isn't powerful enough to decode it on its own ... although it does have a vector floating point unit that might help. The iPhone is optimised for decoding H.264 without eating battery too quickly, and flash video simply wouldn't be able to do that. Maybe if the decoder was rewritten specifically for the hardware in the iPhone...

The flash plugin will do all of the classic flash stuff though - the games, adverts, etc.

[iSee]

Originally Posted by SirOmega

Yea, I'm not entirely sure I want a flash plugin.

I've seen newegg banner ads that suck up 100% of my CPU because they're flash and done poorly. Why bother run my battery down because some jerk cant use flash.

Yeah, Ideally, the player would not be active on a page until you the user taps the flash movies area. And perhaps it could stop when you tap elsewhere or maybe it's paused even if its just scrolled off screen.