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Flash for iPhone/iPod touch imminent?

updated 10:25 am EST, Tue February 12, 2008

Flash for iPhone soon?

Flash for the iPhone and the iPod touch may be "just around the corner," a new report suggests. The web technology has been in high demand since the iPhone was released in June, not simply for its use in video and animation on many pages, but also for the potential in developing applications and games. Apple has yet to make much public comment on the matter; it is typically said that the obstacle has been battery life, since high activity in the display and processor rapidly consumes energy.

According to the report's source though, the real issue has been "business negotiations," and Flash should thus become available in the very near future. One possibility is that it may be announced alongside the release of the iPhone SDK, which is due later this month. This would give developers much greater flexibility.

The site making the claims is the same that first leaked the v1.1.3 iPhone firmware, demonstrating features such as icon rearrangement and the Google Maps location-finder. The official Apple release proved to be identical.

 
Previous Comments

who cares...

02/12, 10:39am reply

...about the battery life - the whole damned thing is a graphical interface - wth animations and all sorts of things to fuel battery consumption_

Give us a Flash Plugin option_

UberFu

Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Oct 2002

0

apple claims...

02/12, 10:40am reply

that the iPhone is running a full desktop OS - and that the version of Safari running on the iPhone is also a full desktop browser - but not really - without being able to support Flash/ Shockwave - it's not_

UberFu

Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Oct 2002

0

not essential, but nice

02/12, 10:59am reply

Flash is a great way to view media (movies, music, radio stations), it will certainly be a nice addition to the iPhone. Hopefully it will soon be available.

AT&cheap won't like it, since it will be more data access

dynsight

Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: May 2005

+2

is it me...

02/12, 11:15am reply

... or is about 95% of Flash on the internet goes for ad banners? Yes, there are some sites that require Flash support, but they are few. All the rest is just abusing Flash to bug visitors with blinking, jumping, swaying and ...ehh... flashing commercials? Do people really need this?

ViktorCode

Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Jan 2006

-2

Why so long?

02/12, 11:32am reply

Essentially the ability for flash on iPhone is evident with the youtube support ... if people are worried about battery life, just give the ability to turn off flash support in Safari ... no different than Javascript switch?

I can't wait.

trevc

Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Mar 2000

-2

no flash

02/12, 11:55am reply

Users need to be able to block flash if they want to - those internet ads are horrible. I hope someone comes up with Flashblock for Safari, like Firefox and Camino have. It's great - it puts a button wherever there's flash content, and the user chooses whether to play it or not.

elroth

Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Jul 2006

0

Flash

02/12, 12:14pm reply

Flash is a necessary web technology used in many sites, and not just for ads. With Adobe's new AIR technology Flash development is likely to increase. If you don't want Flash content just remove the plugin, or write Applescript that moves them to the disabled plugins folder. /Library/Internet Plug-Ins/Disabled Plug-Ins/

ClevelandAdv

Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Jul 2004

0

No!

02/12, 12:20pm reply

Flash is completely useless... and a sign of lazy web coders.

Aside from the fact that Flash has been abused by the banner ad community for the longest time, with very few exceptions, Flash sites are mostly c*** - and those sites where Flash might be complementary, the same can be achieved with Ajax and Javascript. This is mostly menu enhancements, cross-fading slideshows, and such.

As for video content - Apple's implementation of YouTube has shown that quicktime works better, and which is why YouTube has been converting their entire library to H.264 -- H.264 content looks better, is smaller, downloads faster, and costs less bandwidth.

Lastly, Adobe has still failed to deliver an efficient version of Flash - for the most part if seriously slows down your browser, when you have more than one Flash element on screen -- if it does that to dual 2GHz Macs, imagine how iPhone running at 600MHz would be affected.

Don't provide it, stay away from it.

ZinkDifferent

Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Jan 2005

-2

Flash on the iPod Touch

02/12, 03:04pm reply

We have been clamoring for a Flash plug-in since day one and now that the developer kit is being released by the end of February it is about time. People are using Flash for their websites and video outside of Youtube and other popular outlets. Sure you can use scripts embedded in HTML but they have their limitations. Even CSS was created to enhance HTML and make it more like WYSIWYG. Quicktime is a great format and more superior to Flash but that does not mean it is used by everybody. DiVX is another format that is not astounding but it gets the job done.

No Flash support would just create more unruly customers not willing to buy the iPod Touch because of that limitation.

ApeInTheShell

Senior User

Joined: Nov 2002

0

games games games

02/12, 09:07pm reply

Who cares about video? I want access to all of the Flash GAMES.

OkieDoc

Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Aug 2001

0

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