Microsoft Licenses Adobe Flash Lite for Mobile

[MacRumors]

Adobe announced that Microsoft has licensed Adobe's Flash Lite software for use in their Internet Explorer Mobile browser and in future versions of Microsoft Windows Mobile phones. Microsoft has also licensed Adobe's PDF Reader software.

The Flash Lite 3.x browser plug-in for Internet Explorer Mobile on Windows Mobile will provide users with access to rich and interactive web content created using Adobe Flash technology. As the most popular and ubiquitous format on the Internet today, Adobe Flash powers many rich and engaging web sites, applications and animations. Adobe Reader LE will allow Windows Mobile users to easily and reliably view and navigate rich PDF content using innovative features developed to improve document readability on smaller screens.

The lack of Adobe Flash support on the iPhone has been a frequently mentioned criticism. Steve Jobs recently addressed this issue, claiming that Adobe's Flash Lite was not flexible/powerful enough, while full-fledged Flash would not perform well on the iPhone. Jobs claimed "there's this missing product in the middle" between Flash Lite and Flash.

A recent report, however, claims that the reason for no Flash support on the iPhone is not a technical one. Instead, Adobe reportedly is interested in Apple also adopting their PDF reader for the iPhone, but Apple won't concede. Apple is presently using their own PDF renderer in the iPhone.

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[Adokimus]

I'd like the choice to go with Adobe's software once the SDK is in full-swing.

[HaGG]

I'm sure we will see it eventually, maybe this will speed up the process?

[nsbio]

Adobe Reader is a crappy bloatware - it must be kept away from any devices, let alone the iPhone. The Reader is slow and its search function is ancient. Apple is right to be fighting this crap off.

[minik]

I didn't see that coming as Microsoft has silverlight.

Anyway, I don't really keen for a full-blown Flash support on the iPhone side. Flash is nice, but all the annoying ad banners are also in Flash format.

[Peace]

Originally Posted by minik

I didn't see that coming as Microsoft has silverlight.

Anyway, I don't really keen for a full-blown Flash support on the iPhone side. Flash is nice, but all the annoying ad banners are also in Flash format.

Silverlight simply isn't garnering the usage MS would like thus going with Flash Lite.

[cohibadad]

Microsoft has a mobile browser? I would have a hard time calling it that.

[gmon750]

Windows Mobile devices have terrible battery life anyways. Adding Flash to it won't do a thing to improve that.

Politics aside, I can see why Flash is not on the iPhone. I don't believe it's a technical issue as well however, it's a phone first. Battery life on the iPhone is just above acceptable for me and I wouldn't a small flash-session to drain the battery at an accelerated rate.

Perhaps this will motivate Apple/Adobe to seriously sit down together and design an efficient flash platform.

[typecase]

As a consumer, I'd like the choice to have Flash on my iPhone. So many sites depend on it, it's a little ridiculous it's not supported, especially given the iPhones "whole internet" theme. I wish Jobs would cede a teeny bit more control. Apple's paternalism is getting a bit heavy recently.

[stevearm]

Amazing how an article about Microsoft adding Flash to their smartphones gets the usual "well we don't want Flash anyway, MS is *****, blah blah" comments from the fanboys.

Flash is a huge missing feature on the iPhone. Even my N95 has flash.

[min_t]

I thought Apple licensed the pdf technology from Adobe so they could integrate it into the os. I appreciate the print to pdf function in os x. Saves paper.

I'm sick of these flash websites, anyway. I'm not missing flash on my iPhone.

[Buschmaster]

I have to say that flash is something I don't miss. In fact, I'm almost glad it isn't on there.

Any chance Adobe could just write an app using the SDK and release it for free that would play flash videos? You just put the address in and it plays it?

It'd be sloppy but it may help silence some of those who want it... right?

[joshysquashy]

Will Flash Lite be able to render all flash content then? I was under the impression it was a seperate platform, more akin to Java for mobile devices.

What is needed is a stripped down version of the flash plugin, that is not power hungry and yet somehow manages to render most content faithfully. Thats a tricky task though, I would think.

I'm not to fussed about flash content, as we have You tube, we will be getting games, developed expressly for the iPhone, and the rest is just annoying to navigate websites, and adverts!

[Melan]

It's 'concede'

[carfac]

Originally Posted by typecase

As a consumer, I'd like the choice to have Flash on my iPhone.

Sure- choice is good. Personally, I have no use for it, and do not want it at all on my phone. I hope I have that choice, too. But if you want it, I have no problem with you getting it, either. Choice is good!

The current PDF reader seems fine. Not sure if I have ever used it at all, though. But just about everything out of Adobe is bloated and overthought. Stay with the Apple version.

[geese]

Originally Posted by stevearm

Flash is a huge missing feature on the iPhone. Even my N95 has flash.

Flash Lite seems to be entirely pointless on my n95 (much like the GPS) - I've never used a website on it that renders the Flash applet at all.

[walnuts]

This article from Apple Insider seems to directly contrast the Gearlive article in the header. It details limitations in Flash lite and the demands of the full flash. According to it, the outlook is really bleak for Flash on the iPhone.

[guet]

Originally Posted by stevearm

Amazing how an article about Microsoft adding Flash to their smartphones gets the usual "well we don't want Flash anyway, MS is *****, blah blah" comments from the fanboys.

Flash is a huge missing feature on the iPhone. Even my N95 has flash.

1. This is Flash Lite, which doesn't even play lots of Flash content
2. Just because you don't want/need Flash doesn't mean you're a 'fanboy'.

If you feel you need Flash to get the most out of the internet, that's fine, but many people don't. I surf with it off and enable it when necessary for some content which *I* want to see, thus avoiding all the incredibly intrusive ads done in Flash. The only thing I'd miss is Flash games, which wouldn't work on a touchscreen anyway.

Not sure why anyone would want Acrobat reader, given that PDFs can already be displayed with no problems in the browser. It would be trivial to write an app to use the built in PDFKit to view PDFs outside the browser, and there's no reason to prefer Adobe's Acrobat to that.

[tYNS]

Adobe is simply the new Symantec of Design/Multimedia Software.
Very sad that the company lost their way.

Flash is a cpu hog. I will purposely go to a flash based website on my laptop just to warm myself up while sitting on the couch.

I have a weird feeling that Apple is working on a web browser/technologies that have some newer and interesting technologies that will surpass flash... Just a feeling...

[bobrik]

Originally Posted by min_t

I thought Apple licensed the pdf technology from Adobe so they could integrate it into the os. I appreciate the print to pdf function in os x. Saves paper.

Apple didn't license PDF. PDF is freely available standard. I even read they chose PDF instead of Display PostScript (which NeXT had already implemented and working) for the very fact that they did not have to pay anything to Adobe for using PDF while retaining the full feature set of Display PostScript.

[sunfast]

Originally Posted by Melan

It's 'concede'

Actually, it isn't

[GSMiller]

Originally Posted by nsbio

Adobe Reader is a crappy bloatware - it must be kept away from any devices, let alone the iPhone. The Reader is slow and its search function is ancient. Apple is right to be fighting this crap off.

I agree. I purchased an ebook and before I could open it had to have Reader installed as it had DRM.

[Quark108]

I believe Jobs mentioned at one point that Flash Lite was not good enough but the full version was too slow and that there needs to be a midrange version for the iPhone. While I may agree with Jobs on this point, I think they Lite should be used in the meantime. However, if they choose to use the Lite version then Adobe wouldn't be pressured into creating a midrange version. And, as most Apple products go, once a feature added, always a feature - you can't take it away.

[bobrik]

I think that if the speculation of Apple rejecting Adobe Reader as default PDF reader is true, the decision just makes sense. PDF is at the core of Mac OS X graphics, thus Apple has already their own implementation of PDF. Letting Adobe in with their separate implementation (I assume Adobe would not reuse PDFKit from Mac OS X) would simply increase memory usage. And I am sure (= I strongly guess ) that Apple did optimize PDFKit very hard for iPhone, and I am not sure Adobe would invest enough time to reach PDF performance parity with Apple's specifically-to-iPhone-tuned implementation. So apart from politics, adding Adobe Reader to iPhone as default PDF reader is non-sense.

[Avicdar]

Originally Posted by Melan

It's 'concede'

'Cede' means to give up or surrender something. Its a proper word in the context used.