Adobe Points Finger at Apple on 'Get Flash' Page for iPhone

MacRumors · Nov 2, 2009, 05:02 PM

GearDiary reports on a recent change to Adobe's "Get Flash" download page for Flash Player that appears when visited by iPhone users. iPhone users are linked to the page when attempting to load Flash video and have traditionally been greeted with a simple message informing them that Flash was not available for their platform.

The updated text clearly passes the blame for lack of Flash support on the iPhone to Apple, pointing to Apple's restrictions on the use of such technologies.

Quote:

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.

Adobe recently launched a Flash Player initiative to facilitate the integration of Flash across platforms, including smartphones. Apple, however, was been notably absent from the list of companies participating in the initiative.

Article Link: Adobe Points Finger at Apple on 'Get Flash' Page for iPhone

thegoldenmackid · Nov 2, 2009, 05:03 PM

Whine whine whine. That clearly makes Apple fix the problem.

Capt Underpants · Nov 2, 2009, 05:04 PM

Adobe is throwin' bows

Eddyisgreat · Nov 2, 2009, 05:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Capt Underpants

Adobe is throwin' bows

Agreed.

Owch! Damn. Just burned myself on that flame bait ADBE is casting out.

duke49er · Nov 2, 2009, 05:09 PM

Like Apple gives a rat's ass.

Took them like over 2 years to get something as basic as MMS on "the world's most advanced phone", why would they care about flash?

wackymacky · Nov 2, 2009, 05:13 PM

Putting aside the fact that Flash is crap, fair enough for Adobe for being so frank.

Shookster · Nov 2, 2009, 05:22 PM

Quote:

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.

People don't care about Flash Player itself, they just want the ability to play video in the browser, which the iPhone is perfectly capable of doing. So instead of lobbying Apple for Flash support we should be lobbying web developers for video tag support.

tundrabuggy · Nov 2, 2009, 05:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wackymacky

Putting aside the fact that Flash is crap, fair enough for Adobe for being so frank.

You are in such a HUGE minority of Flash bashers....learn to love it!.....cuz just like taxes, you're gettin' it on your iPhone pal.

MacFly123 · Nov 2, 2009, 05:29 PM

FLASH

Apple does not care to support flash on their devices because it is horribly inefficient and has been holding back progression of the internet for over a decade. Instead of using much more efficient open standards that the world wide web is founded upon, companies like Adobe and Microsoft are more interested in locking you into their inferior technologies in order to maintain revenue! Until Flash dies Apple will continue to support the progression of the internet using approved standards!

FLASH SUCKS! GO SUCK ONE ADOBE!

richardhunt · Nov 2, 2009, 05:32 PM

I disagree that people don't care about flash players. Plenty of sites out there use flash extensively and do not offer a non-flash version. Adding adobe flash capability to the iphone would make it that much better in my opinion. Just because apple doesn't want it, doesn't mean it's not useful. I for one believe that apple "sometimes" listens to it's users, and if enough people complain, apple will react. Think apps for the iphone (remember apple's stand, it's an ipod, not a computer), cut/paste and push service. Background apps seem to be the next barrier to be broken, why not flash?

As far as adobe and MS "holding back" web progression, the whole point of flash is that it is a tool that makes highly interactive media sites easier to accomplish.

DrewG5 · Nov 2, 2009, 05:32 PM

Yeah cuz I just want to see all the advertisements on every page on my iPhone... Flash is a joke at best, every laptop mac or not that I have had it on the simplest flash would get the fans running for lift off...

KT Walrus · Nov 2, 2009, 05:37 PM

Apple should bundle the ClickToFlash plug-in into Mobile Safari. It prevents flash from running unless you really want it to run. This should address, in part, Apple's stated reason for not allowing flash (battery drain and stability) as the user would only enable it for those parts of the web that they really want to see.

And, while they are at it, they should enable file uploads in Mobile Safari to upload photos and videos.

I hate only being able to use part of the internet on my iPhone when there is no technical reason I shouldn't be able to do both Flash on demand and file uploads.

doctoree · Nov 2, 2009, 05:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shookster

People don't care about Flash Player itself, they just want the ability to play video in the browser, which the iPhone is perfectly capable of doing. So instead of lobbying Apple for Flash support we should be lobbying web developers for video tag support.

Exactly! And not only video video tag support but the whole HTML5. Much faster and cleaner and ready to replace this flash crap. Good thing Apple is so large that they can actually transform whole markets.

supernaut · Nov 2, 2009, 05:39 PM

Who cares about Flash? Most of the time it's used, it's because the web designers are too dumb or lazy to get the page right without it, because they haven't kept out with what a modern browser is capable of.

Hemingray · Nov 2, 2009, 05:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by duke49er

Like Apple gives a rat's ass.

Took them like over 2 years to get something as basic as MMS on "the world's most advanced phone", why would they care about flash?

Do you think that was Apple's decision to hold off on MMS, or AT&T pressuring them to hold off because they were afraid it would bring their network even more to its knees? From what I've read, it sounded like MMS was already in the iPhoneOS, just disabled. I don't know for sure though, anyone else wanna chime in on this?

lowbatteries · Nov 2, 2009, 05:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by richardhunt

I disagree that people don't care about flash players. Plenty of sites out there use flash extensively and do not offer a non-flash version. Adding adobe flash capability to the iphone would make it that much better in my opinion. Just because apple doesn't want it, doesn't mean it's not useful. I for one believe that apple "sometimes" listens to it's users, and if enough people complain, apple will react. Think apps for the iphone (remember apple's stand, it's an ipod, not a computer), cut/paste and push service. Background apps seem to be the next barrier to be broken, why not flash?

As far as adobe and MS "holding back" web progression, the whole point of flash is that it is a tool that makes highly interactive media sites easier to accomplish.

Users don't care about flash, they care about websites. Some site developers seem to care more about Flash than about their users. Therefore, we get crappy Flash "websites" that don't work for the users. Who is at fault here? The developer. It's the developer's job to use technologies that will be future-proof and well, not suck.

MacUnixGuy · Nov 2, 2009, 05:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wackymacky

Putting aside the fact that Flash is crap ...

Yes, flash has issues, but there are several sites that I want to use from the iPhone that require it. It would be good for the iPhone to support it.

Also, there are several enterprise development shops rolling out custom enterprise applications for mobile phones. They don't want to write custom applications for the iPhone, so using Flash/Flex would definitely be attractive.

Quote:

Originally Posted by wackymacky

... fair enough for Adobe for being so frank.

Agreed. The best way for this to proceed forward is for the discussion to be more open. If the current lack of iPhone Flash support is not a technical limitation, but instead an Apple policy problem, then it is best for the community to know that and put pressure on Apple to move forward.

Don't underestimate the power that the community can have for seeing results from this.

sommls · Nov 2, 2009, 05:53 PM

This is almost Microsoft-like: at what point does the public simply become so sick of badly written software from an arrogant company that historically captured a large market share and is now doing everything possible to stifle innovation that it simply moves on?

locust76 · Nov 2, 2009, 05:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hemingray

Do you think that was Apple's decision to hold off on MMS, or AT&T pressuring them to hold off because they were afraid it would bring their network even more to its knees? From what I've read, it sounded like MMS was already in the iPhoneOS, just disabled. I don't know for sure though, anyone else wanna chime in on this?

Well, MMS wasn't available anywhere else in any other market worldwide on the iPhone until 3.0 came out, so no, I don't think it had anything to do with AT&T. That was just a case of Apple trying to tell everyone what makes an advanced mobile device.

Detlev · Nov 2, 2009, 05:56 PM

Hmm, support of the standards on one hand (see Adobe apps in the Itunes store) and criticism on the other.

The only thing they failed to do is provide a call to action. There is neither a link to Adobe or Apple. They are expecting that people actually care enough about the product that they will search out a way to provide feedback on the topic to the appropriate powers that be.

If they are serious about making it a cause then they need to do something radical. Pull all of their products from the store, even if it is only temporary. Otherwise, it's just talk.

SpinThis! · Nov 2, 2009, 06:03 PM

I bet Adobe got sick of all the support e-mails asking them "why doesn't flash download on the iPhone?!" Previously, on Adobe's website you could get all the way up downloading the file and mobile Safari would obviously say the file isn't supported. Adobe should have done this from the beginning.

Darkroom · 09:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sommls

This is almost Microsoft-like: at what point does the public simply become so sick of badly written software from an arrogant company that historically captured a large market share and is now doing everything possible to stifle innovation that it simply moves on?

WHAT are you talking about?! Adobe clearly isn't the one "stifling" innovation here.

*EDIT* wait, i think that's what you were saying. sorry.

ThunderSkunk · Nov 2, 2009, 06:10 PM

Apple needs to pull its head out on this one.

Flash eats battery! Ok, and? So does fieldrunners. Guess what? I can decide if I want to spend the power playing it!

Flash is full of archaic crap. Well dang. The web is full of archaic crap. Including a lot of flash. But it's still the web, and I still need to access it.

Flash isn't necessary, you can use Java, Wookie, etc... whatever. Ok, sure, I'll just write every website I need to visit to find my travel reservations and itinerary, and have them rewrite their page in a new format.

This stupid tug of war leaves the end users in the lurch. Adobe, clean up flash, Apple, encourage them and accept that it ain't gonna be perfect.

SpinThis! · Nov 2, 2009, 06:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shookster

People don't care about Flash Player itself, they just want the ability to play video in the browser, which the iPhone is perfectly capable of doing. So instead of lobbying Apple for Flash support we should be lobbying web developers for video tag support.

Developers aren't the problem. A lot of it is Internet Explorer and Microsoft not supporting standards. For one, IE doesn't do much html5. Microsoft will probably never support the svg-based "flash killer" canvas tag. Also, due to bickering on all browser makers, HTML5 doesn't specify a mandatory video format so you have Apple doing mpeg-4, Firefox and friends doing ogg, and IE supporting nothing. And let's not forget users who still run IE6.

Out of the box, most Windows machines don't know how to play MP4 files (unless a user has QuickTime) but most do play flash content. Mac OS X won't play ogg out of the box. So you're left with Flash. As a web developer, Flash is the easiest way to get multimedia, especially video, on your website and looking the same in all browsers. Unless you run a predominately Mac OS X website, HTML5 just isn't ready for prime time yet.

sbrhwkp3 · Nov 2, 2009, 06:19 PM

I actually really hate flash.

But I'd like it on my iPhone since seemingly every important web site utilizes it these days.

Nov 2, 2009, 05:03 PM	#2
thegoldenmackid macrumors Demi-God Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: Plano, TX/Winston-Salem, NC	Whine whine whine. That clearly makes Apple fix the problem. __________________ themacfeed.com KRK Powered peace[darfur Help my external hard drive guide.

Nov 2, 2009, 05:04 PM	#3
Capt Underpants macrumors 68020 Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Austin, Texas	Adobe is throwin' bows __________________ come on come on it's the end of the world

Nov 2, 2009, 05:29 PM	#9
MacFly123 macrumors 68000 Join Date: Dec 2006	FLASH Apple does not care to support flash on their devices because it is horribly inefficient and has been holding back progression of the internet for over a decade. Instead of using much more efficient open standards that the world wide web is founded upon, companies like Adobe and Microsoft are more interested in locking you into their inferior technologies in order to maintain revenue! Until Flash dies Apple will continue to support the progression of the internet using approved standards! FLASH SUCKS! GO SUCK ONE ADOBE! __________________ - Steve Jobs' best friend!

Nov 2, 2009, 05:32 PM	#11
DrewG5 macrumors Demi-God Join Date: Aug 2009	Yeah cuz I just want to see all the advertisements on every page on my iPhone... Flash is a joke at best, every laptop mac or not that I have had it on the simplest flash would get the fans running for lift off... __________________ PowerMac Dual 1.8, Macbook Pro 15", MacBookPro 13", iMac 24", iPhone3GS, iPhone3G.. Asus EeePc, HP MediaSmart Server, Q9300/nVidia 9800/500Gb SATAII/8 GIG DDR III

Nov 2, 2009, 06:10 PM	#23
ThunderSkunk macrumors regular Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: On the moon.	Good Apple needs to pull its head out on this one. Flash eats battery! Ok, and? So does fieldrunners. Guess what? I can decide if I want to spend the power playing it! Flash is full of archaic crap. Well dang. The web is full of archaic crap. Including a lot of flash. But it's still the web, and I still need to access it. Flash isn't necessary, you can use Java, Wookie, etc... whatever. Ok, sure, I'll just write every website I need to visit to find my travel reservations and itinerary, and have them rewrite their page in a new format. This stupid tug of war leaves the end users in the lurch. Adobe, clean up flash, Apple, encourage them and accept that it ain't gonna be perfect. __________________ Science and Philosophy, not Religion and Politics

Nov 2, 2009, 05:09 PM	#5
duke49er macrumors member Join Date: Jun 2005	Like Apple gives a rat's ass. Took them like over 2 years to get something as basic as MMS on "the world's most advanced phone", why would they care about flash?

Nov 2, 2009, 05:13 PM	#6
wackymacky macrumors 6502a Join Date: Sep 2007 Location: New Zealand	Putting aside the fact that Flash is crap, fair enough for Adobe for being so frank.

Nov 2, 2009, 05:32 PM	#10
richardhunt macrumors regular Join Date: Oct 2007	I disagree that people don't care about flash players. Plenty of sites out there use flash extensively and do not offer a non-flash version. Adding adobe flash capability to the iphone would make it that much better in my opinion. Just because apple doesn't want it, doesn't mean it's not useful. I for one believe that apple "sometimes" listens to it's users, and if enough people complain, apple will react. Think apps for the iphone (remember apple's stand, it's an ipod, not a computer), cut/paste and push service. Background apps seem to be the next barrier to be broken, why not flash? As far as adobe and MS "holding back" web progression, the whole point of flash is that it is a tool that makes highly interactive media sites easier to accomplish.

Nov 2, 2009, 05:37 PM	#12
KT Walrus macrumors newbie Join Date: Jul 2008	Apple should bundle the ClickToFlash plug-in into Mobile Safari. It prevents flash from running unless you really want it to run. This should address, in part, Apple's stated reason for not allowing flash (battery drain and stability) as the user would only enable it for those parts of the web that they really want to see. And, while they are at it, they should enable file uploads in Mobile Safari to upload photos and videos. I hate only being able to use part of the internet on my iPhone when there is no technical reason I shouldn't be able to do both Flash on demand and file uploads.

Nov 2, 2009, 05:39 PM	#14
supernaut macrumors newbie Join Date: Jul 2008	Who cares about Flash? Most of the time it's used, it's because the web designers are too dumb or lazy to get the page right without it, because they haven't kept out with what a modern browser is capable of.

Nov 2, 2009, 05:53 PM	#18
sommls macrumors member Join Date: Sep 2008	This is almost Microsoft-like: at what point does the public simply become so sick of badly written software from an arrogant company that historically captured a large market share and is now doing everything possible to stifle innovation that it simply moves on?

Nov 2, 2009, 05:56 PM	#20
Detlev macrumors 6502 Join Date: Sep 2003	Hmm, support of the standards on one hand (see Adobe apps in the Itunes store) and criticism on the other. The only thing they failed to do is provide a call to action. There is neither a link to Adobe or Apple. They are expecting that people actually care enough about the product that they will search out a way to provide feedback on the topic to the appropriate powers that be. If they are serious about making it a cause then they need to do something radical. Pull all of their products from the store, even if it is only temporary. Otherwise, it's just talk.

Nov 2, 2009, 06:03 PM	#21
SpinThis! macrumors regular Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Inside the Machine (Green Bay, WI)	I bet Adobe got sick of all the support e-mails asking them "why doesn't flash download on the iPhone?!" Previously, on Adobe's website you could get all the way up downloading the file and mobile Safari would obviously say the file isn't supported. Adobe should have done this from the beginning.

Nov 2, 2009, 06:19 PM	#25
sbrhwkp3 macrumors regular Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: Lake George, NY	I actually really hate flash. But I'd like it on my iPhone since seemingly every important web site utilizes it these days.

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