why flash is 100% imperatve to success of iPod!

[vegas-steven]

dont know if anyone else has this happen to them.

I view sites all over the net. From text to flash. My main problem I am finding with my iPod touch (which I use the majority of the time now for browsing) is the total lack of clash support on the iPod touch and iPhone.

I like most of you here have applied the jailbreak to my iPod. This doesn't REALLY do much except allowm customized springboard and iPhone apps.

I still get stuck on sites like http://www.wwtdd.com which uses FLASH for all its video. In fact most sites now use flash for video however apple does not seem to take Note of this.

So what? Well the "what" is that apple advertised the iPhones web experience as the full web and not a watered down version like most other wap based devices.
Where is that web that I want to visit on my ipod touch?

I dont think that this has much to do with adobe. They java released flash for nearly every platform imaginable. No I think that this rests solely on apples shoulders. Apple closed the iPhone format.

But really, can apple compete with other wifi devices that deliver a real web experience? Time will tell. But
one thing is certain, mobile computing is a platform which has been aroung alot longer than apples touch/phone devices.

Whereas the iPod was the first real answer to mp3 players, they are newcomers in a market full of pocketpc and blackberry.

Just my opinion though

 

[verbalist]

i think flash would be little hard to get on a device like this or any mobile device im assuming u would need a decent processor and a lot of ram or else it would slow it down and i think it would eat at ur battery their isnt any mobile device with flash correct?

 

[Drumjim85]

i think flash would be little hard to get on a device like this or any mobile device im assuming u would need a decent processor and a lot of ram or else it would slow it down and i think it would eat at ur battery their isnt any mobile device with flash correct?

unless you consider a laptop mobile I think you're correct...

 

[vegas-steven]

i think flash would be little hard to get on a device like this or any mobile device im assuming u would need a decent processor and a lot of ram or else it would slow it down and i think it would eat at ur battery their isnt any mobile device with flash correct?

what is more resource hungry flash or mpeg4. Also consider you can change the quality of flash to run better on your platform. I can't recall bit I think the wii videogame console only has a 700mhz CPU and does flash. I installed a resource manager on this iPod touch that said it is running at 400mhz!! If thatnisnt enough for flash the what is?

Maybe apple I waiting for microsofts flash like player to see what works better for the devices.

 

[Chaszmyr]

their isnt any mobile device with flash correct?

Wrong. Flash Player 6 is available for Pocket PC.

 

[pacohaas]

what is more resource hungry flash or mpeg4. Also consider you can change the quality of flash to run better on your platform. I can't recall bit I think the wii videogame console only has a 700mhz CPU and does flash. I installed a resource manager on this iPod touch that said it is running at 400mhz!! If thatnisnt enough for flash the what is?

Maybe apple I waiting for microsofts flash like player to see what works better for the devices.

mpeg4 can be done in hardware, flash can't.

 

[TonyHoyle]

i think flash would be little hard to get on a device like this or any mobile device im assuming u would need a decent processor and a lot of ram or else it would slow it down and i think it would eat at ur battery their isnt any mobile device with flash correct?

Lots of the higher end mobile phones have flash.. albeit a slightly cut down version it works on most things (the latest one does youtube natively for example, which means it does other flash video sites as well). As for RAM - the iphone has at least double the memory of the last smartphone I used with flash on it, and a much better processor on it.

Heck, the iphone can run a passable GBA emulator.. that means it's definately got the horespower to do something like flash.

I agree with the OP though - Apple are advertising the 'full internet' but they can't deliver it at the moment. I expect they'll have flash at least (hopefully also java) in a future revision.

 

[The Phazer]

My three year old Dell Axim running Windows Mobile that I used before I bought my iPhone ran Flash, so yes, it should run fine hardware wise.

To be honest, I think we'll see it post SDK.

 

[Lord Sandwich]

Regardless of whether or not the iPhone and iPod Touch can/will run Flash, how is this crucial to their success? Except for a minority of users this is a fringe benefit at best, and certainly isn't a major selling point.

 

[mcdj]

Yup, Apple has only sold 1 million + iPhones without Flash. It's definitely doomed.

 

[TonyHoyle]

Yup, Apple has only sold 1 million + iPhones without Flash. It's definitely doomed.

You act like that's a big number.

Nokia sold 100 million phones in 3 months.

 

[mcdj]

You act like that's a big number.

Nokia sold 100 million phones in 3 months.

Fine, how much was the phone? $75?

Regardless, my point was simply that the iPhone is hardly a failure.

 

[plumbingandtech]

I consider the lack of flash a feature.

Plus, seeing sites now that are all flash just makes me laugh. I am no accessablity nut, but Flash just breaks the web. (And I am not talking about banners or games. i am talking about it being used where html would be better served if they just ditched the stupid animations the client THINKS they need with a much simple html (and fast) site.

 

[plumbingandtech]

I dont think that this has much to do with adobe. They java released flash for nearly every platform imaginable. No I think that this rests solely on apples shoulders. Apple closed the iPhone format.

Oh you know this huh?

 

[Unspeaked]

Oh you know this huh?

This is a good point.

Has Apple ever stated exactly why there's no Flash support? Has it been asked at many of the Jobs lead presentations to the media?

You'd think that if it were capable of it, Apple would have no reason not to make the iPhone flash compatible...

 

[Eric Lewis]

This is a good point.

Has Apple ever stated exactly why there's no Flash support? Has it been asked at many of the Jobs lead presentations to the media?

You'd think that if it were capable of it, Apple would have no reason not to make the iPhone flash compatible...

flash would kill battery!

 

[Unspeaked]

flash would kill battery!

Would it, really?

How is it implemented on these other devices mentioned above, and does it kill their batteries?

I'm guessing it's something that you'd rarely use, so I don't see what kind of battery impact it would have. If people can get by with no flash at all now, hitting a site with flash every once in a while shouldn't make too big a difference.

If you just sat on your iPhone and watched YouTube videos continuously, wouldn't that drain the battery, as well?

 

[zurie]

FYI... Flash Mobile is version 6 and there is a flash "lite" which is a stand alone app 2.x

do you know where the real flash for web is? 9.x +

in the small jump from 6 to 7 to 8 to 9 flash has rewritten its scripting language from Action script 1.0 to Action script 3.0 with XML animation support and a SLEW of other rediculously crazy features.. plus the flash "lite" has API's designed specifically for moblie phones..

sooooo

when you say... watered down internet... and then you say Flash mobile in the same sentance...

how would you feel logging into a website that has a Flash Video and you realize that flash lite or moblie flash can't even play the video you want to see?

or you want to check out a snazzy sweet animation on a intro for a website, but then you realize that since your using Flash Mobile 6, it doesn't even load/run EVEN though you have flash plugin and the website has flash..

because MOST if not all websites are REQUIRING flash 8 +

drop shadows, graphics, movies, XML scripting, action script 3.0

all flash 8+ flash 9+

I had flash lite on my Palm Tungsten T3 - which was a 400 mhz ARM processor and 64MB ram and YES YES YES it was SLOW...

i tried running a "tornado" particle simulator, which was very simple spinning particles that changed color and scale as they spiraled down to a point, and it was SLOW... so imagine a .png image scaling, changing colors, flying by, with sound, and a MPEG video stream...


just because your pocket PC had flash 6 - 5 years ago - doesn't mean you can run flash 9 on a mobile iphone "instantly" someone has to code it, and it takes some work... its not magic.. plus I think that adobe and apple will roll out flash lite 3 with safari plugin support etc..

read this here for a nice summary -

http://www.mercurious.com/wordpress/2007/08/29/iphone-and-flash/

 

[nickspohn]

You do get the full web experience. Flash is just a bonus to that.


The iPhone can't even handle large / heavy web pages as it is. Until they fix the crash bug, don't even think about flash for the iPhone.

 

[darngooddesign]

Its still remains that ADOBE, not Apple, has not ported Flash to the iPhone platform. Apple can close the platform to 3rd party development and still allow a Flash plugin.

 

[cwolves]

ARG...I wish people would stop comparing apples and oranges.

flash on other devices vs flash on iPhone / iPod touch
---------------------------------------------------
The flash source code is owned by Adobe. ONLY adobe can release a version that runs on the iPhone. It can run on other devices because adobe released versions that run on those devices - NOT because the device manufacturers did.

Adobe may very well release a version of flash for the iPhone but they probably need to see a base before they put the effort in. Think about it...Apple approaches adobe with a product that will have "millions of sales". Adobe has no guarantee of this so they're not going to invest $100,000 to port flash to the iPhone - yet. They may very well do so at some point down the line, they may even be doing it now - I don't know.

Also, as has been pointed out, flash runs slow on almost every hand-held device it's ever been on. And that's flash 6 usually. It might have just been a decision by apple to not put something on the iPhone that makes it look slow.

mpeg4/h264 vs flash:
--------------------
MPEG4/H264 decoding is done by a chip on the iPod, NOT by the iPod's main CPU. Don't believe me? SFTP into the touch, run "TOP" and then play a video - the CPU on a program called "mediaserve" jumps to ~5% CPU usage - it is basically just streaming the video from this chip.

What does this mean? The decoding chip takes up a constant amount of power. Flash can NOT be run off an external chip.

Why does this matter? Running the touch's CPU at 100% capacity would drain the battery in about 1-2 hours. MANY websites have embeded flash that you don't really care about: banners, etc that would just drain your battery because flash is VERY CPU intensive.

Nokia vs Apple:
--------------
Nokia sold 100 million phones - so what? This was world-wide on 20 different carriers with phones ranging from $0 to $400. Apple is selling ONE device that's $300-$600. You CAN'T get an iPhone for under $500 but you can get a nokia phone for FREE by signing a contract.

1 million is a very good number for 3 months for a $500 piece of consumer electronics.

 

[plinden]

I have no doubt that Apple chose not to support Flash in the iPhone, but I don't think that was such a bad decision. The desktop version is too heavyweight for the iPhone, and mobile Flash (Flash Lite) still isn't the "full web experience". The version available when the iPhone was in development was based on Flash 7 while the desktop is at Flash version 9. The latest version (Flash Lite 3, released Oct 1st) is based on Flash version 8. You still wouldn't be able to view all Flash web sites using it - ie. no ActionScript 3 support, no Flash 9 video.

What's more, Adobe still hasn't got Flash for OS X working well. Let them get the performance issues worked out on Macs first.

 

[maxrobertson]

I think the biggest problem is the shockingly awful implementation of flash on the Mac. It's god-awful slow, and takes up tons of processor power. It would really drain the battery of the iPhone, and I know apple doesn't want that. So I believe, if Adobe wanted to make the iPhone having flash more likely, they would make the OS X version of flash decent.

 

[72930]

I think the biggest problem is the shockingly awful implementation of flash on the Mac. It's god-awful slow, and takes up tons of processor power. It would really drain the battery of the iPhone, and I know apple doesn't want that. So I believe, if Adobe wanted to make the iPhone having flash more likely, they would make the OS X version of flash decent.

Now if only Apple bought Adobe

 

[vegas-steven]

Alot of good points made. One thing though: the wii opera browser uses a plugin equal to flash 7 and tjere are no problems with video. I can see that hd video needs tje newest version but not all flash need be super hq.