iPad Promotional Video and Images Show Properly-Displayed Flash Content

[jlseattle]

Apple needs to work with Adobe

I have read in the past Adobe has submitted dummied down versions of flash for the iPhone. Apple needs to figure out how to get on board with this.

 

[skellener]

If Apple wants to keep Flash out of the store, fine... but let Adobe put their own download on their own site and let users manually install it IF THEY WANT TO!

I agree. I am not a fan of Flash websites either. I do NOT miss them in the least with the iPhone. But I think they should allow users to do decide whether they want to install it or not.

 

[acidfast7]

The iPad is going to the the next Wii, mark my words...

Video game and handheld consoles
Manufacturer ↓ Platform ↓ Released ↓ sm=n Units sold ↓
Sony PlayStation 2 2000 138 million[1]
Nintendo Nintendo DS 2004 125.13 million[2]
Nintendo Game Boy and Game Boy Color[3] 1989 and 1998 118.69 million[4]
Sony PlayStation 1994 102.49 million (shipped)[5]
Nintendo Game Boy Advance 2001 81.47 million[6]
Nintendo Wii 2006 67.45 million[2]
Nintendo Nintendo Entertainment System 1983 61.91 million[4]
Sony PlayStation Portable 2004 55.9 million[7]
Nintendo Super Nintendo Entertainment System 1990 49.1 million[4][8][9]
Microsoft Xbox 360 2005 39 million[10]
Nintendo Nintendo 64 1996 32.93 million[4]
Atari Atari 2600 1977 30 million[11]
Sega Mega Drive/Genesis 1988 29 million[12]
Sony PlayStation 3 2006 27 million[13]

 

[R3tard]

Hulu is a big deal

Get over it. If they don't want Flash they don't want it. No reason to make a post such as that due to one piece of Software. What do you want Flash for anyway? Give me a specific reason... If you say Hulu... who cares about Hulu. Ever heard of Torrents. I would rather watch my movies and TV shows without commercials and interruption.

I really do want to watch Hulu on the iPad. I'm one of those people that want to use this to make life easier.

Yes I've heard of Torrents and last I heard, downloading TV shows from Torrents is illegal, no matter how you feel about it.

 

[rwilliams]

I'm just amazed that none of the hackers have figured out a way to incorporate Flash into the iPhone yet. They've managed to add all others kinds of cool features that Apple hasn't given us yet - why not Flash?

 

[Enuratique]

I really do want to watch Hulu on the iPad. I'm one of those people that want to use this to make life easier.

Yes I've heard of Torrents and last I heard, downloading TV shows from Torrents is illegal, no matter how you feel about it.

Then harangue Hulu to release the application they've supposedly developped for the iPhone... Not everything has to be done through the web, you know.

 

[paepcke]

I´m sure Apple has already some experimental flash support for this device. But with this support enabled during the Keynote, the iPad would be out of power before Steve where able find his final words.

So - yes I´m happy that this iPad has NO flash support. Surfing mobile with 3G Internet, on the road and without a local power source - with flash enabled - makes no sense. Thank you for Click-To-Flash! Internet surfing with 3G mobile makes sense again!

Yes, I would like to see optional flash on the iPad - but only optional hiding behind Click-To-Flash functionality. Nobody whats to pay with his 3G Dataplan for the overloaded big fat senseless Flash Ad´s.

Greetings,
MP

 

[sishaw]

It's just promo art. Adobe commented on the lack of flash in the iPad the other day:

http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/28/adobe-on-flash-and-the-ipad-apple-is-continuing-to-impose-rest/

This comment was in an Adobe blog, which simply said it "looks like" Flash is not present based on the same picture everyone else was looking at. I don't think this is the same an official statement from Adobe that the version of Safari used in the iPad doesn't support flash. (I'm not saying it does or doesn't, I don't know either).

Also, if Apple deliberately obscures the lack of Flash, doesn't that go beyond mere puffery into actually misleading advertising? If so, for a product this prominent, wouldn't the FTC say something? Any product liability lawyer types on here who would know?

 

[Shintocam]

Not to totally flog you but people like you are part of the problem... Relying on Flash because it's easy... Have you seen some of the animations that are possible with HTML5 + JavaScript? It's pretty damned advanced and tutorials make it easy....

While I get your point - I also think it is somewhat ironic. I mean half of what Apple is all about is making a product that is easy. Often times (most times perhaps) there is a more powerful more full featured way of doing the things that Apple's products (software in particular) do but people do not want to use them because they are just damn hard to use (even if there are a tonne of tutorials etc...).

Think iPhoto vs Adobe Bridge/Photoshop. The later can do a hell of a lot more than iPhoto, but iPhoto is elegant and easy.

Think iWeb vs hand coding or something like Dreamweaver. Sure you can do much much more in the later, but iWeb is easy.

Think Numbers vs Excel - Excel can do things Numbers cannot even come close to accomplishing. But again Numbers is easy and looks much nicer etc...

I'm saying this a someone who uses all of the products (Apple and non-apple alike). The thing is in terms of what Flash does, Flash and Silverlight are easy to use and so people want to use them. Photographers are artists not programmers.

 

[Clete2]

They did the same thing during the iPhone presentation.

 

[Enuratique]

I'm just amazed that none of the hackers have figured out a way to incorporate Flash into the iPhone yet. They've managed to add all others kinds of cool features that Apple hasn't given us yet - why not Flash?

Because Flash is compiled for the x86 architecture and iPhone OS runs on ARM? Not so simple without the source code.

 

[goosnarrggh]

And when you talk about other uses for Flash, you’re talking about serving as a software runtime, and whether you like it or not, Apple has a clearly stated opposition to third-party software runtimes for iPhone OS, and that policy seems to be working out pretty well for them."

Important point.

Indeed. My number reason for wanting Flash is specifically because of its ability to operate as a software runtime that will behave consistently so we don't have to tweak our Web Apps for every new web browser that comes along.

Writing a native app specifically for the iPhone OS, whilst supporting the rest of the world on Flash, would only serve to fragment our development efforts, spread our software developers too thin, and lead to different functionality for one platform than everybody else consistently gets on their various other platforms.

When every desktop class computer has a web browser that behaves exactly the same as Mobile Safari (not even Desktop Safari can claim that), we'll consider supporting the iPhone. Until then, we'll choose to leave iPhone OS users out in the cold, rather than having to make sacrifices that would degrade every other user's experience.

 

[jonesy16]

this device is aimed at 'families' who want to do light browsing on the couch/kitchen/garden, check emails, read some books and listen to music..

When they first announced the device that was exactly what I was thinking. And then I pondered how my wife and I would use the device in our house if we were given one. It was at that point that I realized how useless a device like this is to share. It doesn't support multiple user profiles so you're stuck with the primary user's calendar and email accounts. If my wife wanted access to her stuff as well, I'd have to set it up to do all of those accounts simultaneously and then you'd constantly be switching back and forth between outgoing email account preferences, signatures, etc. They didn't design a device like this to be shared.

 

[ipadsad]

Old People

Gizmodo says the market is old people (that need limited functionality as to not get confused, I supposed). This must be the target audience for this "thing." So, if you're old and need a remedial device, ignore my previous comments and feel free to spend your pension money. But, remember, you can't video conference with your grandkids But, then again, I guess apple either couldn't make a remedial program for you or they just figure you don't care about the little brats.

 

[zapblast]

So basically the iPad offers broken web browsing just like the iPhone. Oh yeah, I'm going to rush out to buy the iPad. I love browsing the broken web.

 

[lostinspace2011]

If you need flash wait a little while http://linux.slashdot.org/story/10/01/29/1448208/MSI-Will-Launch-iPad-Alternative

 

[johnpaul191]

So is it safe to say this won't support Netflix streaming?
Netflix stream on anything pre-intel CPU, so where does that leave this?

I got to be honest.... If I could watch Netflix etc, this device would be great when I am in a hotel for a few weeks on a job.

EDIT: Netflix doesn't seem inclined to make it happen.... http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2010/01/netflix-ceo-not-streaming-to-the-ipad-in-the-near-term.ars

 

[Jeaz]

While I find the whole non-flash situation almost a bit childish by Apple, I still consider Flash kind of a nuisance and rarely useful, and there's nothing HTML5 and AJAX can't do that Flash can, at least in the useful department.

That said, I think it should be up the customer if they want to use it or not. There's no doubt that the iPad can handle Flash performance wise.

 

[Tones2]

Why the heck doesn't Apple just TELL US if their already announced product supports Flash, like every other company would do. JEEZ - I HATE THIS COMPANY!!

Tony

 

[08380728]

Well, I guess you can just have crippled devices at work, and if so... a maxipad is perfect for you, because it is crippled. I expected a better product than my iphone 3gs, and instead, they took away the camera and still NO FLASH SUPPORT. FLASH DOES SUCK, but it it part of the internet, FACT. SO, the device is not a true internet device. IT'S ANOTHER CRIPPLED APPLE DEVICE.

DON'T BUY IT UNTIL THEY FIX IT. PLEASE.

The iPad is not crippled if a camera can't and won't be used.

I'll be buying 150 iPad's and probably one extra on your behalf ;-)

 

[P-Worm]

For those who say "what do you need Flash for anyway?" I can say this:
I'm a photographer, and most photographers build their websites in Flash. I myself did that because Flash is the only platform that allows such fluid animation interactivity. It is simple to program a website in Flash, and I'm not good at programming by the way, and I don't want to spend time learning it. However, I do want to build a complex and beautiful website alone, without having to pay someone. I can do this in Flash. I can't do it in HTML, or in any other language. Therefore, if I want to access many of the websites that interest me, including my own, I cannot do it on a device that doesn't have Flash. Not to mention that I love to watch Flash animations on various websites, that's also impossible. I don't really care about videos and YouTube, I actually want real Flash. I understand that keyboard input and mouse coordinates cannot be retrieved by Flash for a touchscreen device, but many things like button presses and text boxes have no reason not to work. I don't understand why it's so damn complicated, that no one has been able to make Flash work on the iPhone for so many years. I'm sure it's possible, it's only a matter of whether Apple wants to go on hating every other company and pretending they don't exist, and that users will never notice their absent support from Apple devices. Flash is an amazing technology and more an more websites are being built entirely in Flash.

Animations and such are available in HTML 5. They run better in HTML 5 and are open on all modern web browsers. I can sympathize that you want to save money by doing a site yourself (I'm a wedding videographer myself), but all you're really doing is starting to limit your target audience. There is a growing populations of web surfers that don't have Flash (the iPhone/iPod Touch and soon-to-be iPad owners) and when they come across your site that doesn't work properly, they won't blame Apple. Instead, they'll just move on to one of your competitor's sites that's coded in HTML.

P-Worm

 

[sishaw]

I'm just amazed that none of the hackers have figured out a way to incorporate Flash into the iPhone yet. They've managed to add all others kinds of cool features that Apple hasn't given us yet - why not Flash?

There is. From the Wiki article on iPhone OS: "Unofficially, some Flash video sites can be viewed by using a jailbroken iPhone with certain third-party applications.[56] However, it results on extremely low frame rate due to the lack of memory bandwidth and CPU speed for Flash JIT execution. Another reason is the general lack of optimization of Flash for the iPhone OS, which can be seen in several benchmarks of Flash in OS X."

 

[Ryon]

To provide stark contrast between the web version of the page and the app version.

This is one of the smartest things posted in this thread so far, along with the person who block-quoted John Gruber. Seriously, go read Gruber's article. He's actually thought this through; everyone else is just reacting.

 

[ipadsad]

So is it safe to say this won't support Netflix streaming?
Netflix stream on anything pre-intel CPU, so where does that leave this?

I got to be honest.... If I could watch Netflix etc, this device would be great when I am in a hotel for a few weeks on a job.

EDIT: Netflix doesn't seem inclined to make it happen.... http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2010/01/netflix-ceo-not-streaming-to-the-ipad-in-the-near-term.ars

It would need silverlight support... so no netflix for you either!!! CRIPPLED DEVICE. DON'T BUY IT.

 

[mudbug99]

die flash die

Almost everyone I know now (except kids) runs a flash blocker at all times. Flash is intrusive and clunky. Having a web page open with flash on it slows the whole computer down.

Unfortunately, just blocking flash doesn't fix it all, there's still those intrusive add boxes that pop up over content - they should have flash in them, but now they are just grey boxes. But, that may be more of a problem with intrusive ad designers than flash itself.

For the photographers that use flash, I recommend you look around. There are plenty of web pages out there now that do the sorts of things you are describing without flash. We are not talking programming wizardry either. And, there are a growing number of people who are avoiding pages with flash. Nobody goes to a page because it has flash. Think about that. I once specifically decided against a company for a large purchase, because some fool at that company had decided that flash was more important than information flow on their product pages. I got extremely angry waiting for the animations to get going, then having to search around them for the info I wanted. Then, their rep did a similarly overloaded presentation (see below). Interestingly, after I sent them a nasty letter about wasting my time, the flash was gone a few weeks later and the pages are now clean and easy to navigate. Too late for my purchase though.

The vast majority of flash pages do not look professional, they look like something that was designed to catch the attention of a child. Its like powerpoint overload, nothing ticks me off more than to see a supposedly professional presentation with crap flying off the edge of the screen and so on. I just assume that people are trying to distract me from a major hole in their content somewhere. Same goes for 95% of the flash stuff out there. If you have something to say, say it. If you want to make a game or a toy, do that, but still use something else that won't kill my battery.