FTC believed to be investigating Apple's anti-Flash stance - Page 8

It's not like Flash will replace apps already present there. If iOS apps are all so great, because we all know you need 1,000 flashlight apps and 10,000 fart apps to mean quality, then iOS will be more popular than Flash apps.

Let the market sort it out.

It's cool. He's just indicating his membership in Set A.

Except you leave out one detail, both of those platforms totally suck as to good performance, and with Apple it is all about superior performance.

I seriously doubt that at the end of the day h.264 royalty holders will ream everyone, would be like shooting themselves in the foot and stupid.

Besides that WebM shows to be as effective as h.264.

And the quality isn't bad: http://www.streamingmedia.com/Articl...red-67266.aspx h.264 still has the slight edge, but for most uses, the difference isn't noticeable, and that's before it's become a code that a ton of people are releasing and pouring over. If apple was truly for an open web, they'd at least support this codec in tandem with h.264 (as over a dozen companies are), but by refusing to acknowledge it, it's clear they're trying to paint the web the way they imagine it to be. Which can't be defined as open.

Apple's not about superior performance. They're about Controlling as much about a system as they can to get consistent performance. Yes, this generally means there things work rather well (I am a big fan of OSX) but if it comes down to adopting a working standard they can't control, or limiting themselves from all that standard offers to accept an inferior standard they CAN control, they'll take inferior any day of the week, especially if they have a vested interest in that codec being chosen. Steve Jobs said that they wanted to do away with flash because it was proprietary, so he picked up another proprietary code to replace it.


It doesn't matter what the h.264 royalty holders do or don't do. It's a closed standard, one that cannot be adopted by the number two browser in the world (larger than safari, chrome, and opera COMBINED) because it's closed source, even if it was "free" which it's not. It's something that requires licensing, royalty payments, etc, which will be a huge barrier to entry for the "open" web.

And those royalty holders WILL ream everyone. Because incase you missed it, they're some of the biggest voices against Flash, WebM, etc. So that when they bring out the hazing paddle, they'll be the only games in town. It's a bait and switch. Get everyone on board with the promise of a "universal codec" and then jack up the rates when those companies burn all other bridges.

They're not stupid. They know that once consumers get used to their content (and most consumers could care less about if HTML5, Flash, etc. get them their content, as long as they bet what they want) MPEG-LA knows that they can charge almost anything they want and companies will be forced to pay it. See, that's the beauty of licencing codecs like this. You jack rates through the roof, those websites try passing it on, and they are the villains and no one gives to shakes that it was the MPEG-LA that's actually raking in the profits instead of HULU or whatever the website is.

It's the same reason retail prices on cellphones are so insane. Companies know that the average consumer NEVER buys a phone at retail cost. To them phones range in price from Free to 299, period. Yet for even a basic flip phone on verizon, verizon's COST of those devices approaches 200. For smartphones, the cost can be close to $600 at the higher end. Yet to the consumer, they just see the contract price. This allows companies to charge a lot more for their products (especially at the lower end) than they might in a comparative market (for flip phones, just look at comparatively how much cheaper GSM flip phones are since they are sold to so many prepaid carriers.)

You really think MPEG-LA won't do the same thing once they have the chance?

^ I disagree, I just recently encoded videos in the three formats, Ogg sucks big time, WebM is okay but not great. H.264 is as crystal clear as the original with much less of a file size.

Apple is about control, but control of quality,which IS superior performance and because of that they stay on top. H.264 is no way as locked in as Flash, one is a codec (one of many used by the video tag) the other a whole platform. I work with both daily, I do know the difference.

I don't have a crystal ball to know the future, but I do trust Apple to not be a-holes, so far in the almost thirty years I have been using their products they haven't been. If h.264 creates a bru-ha-ha I feel they will do something to mediate that.

YMMV.

I see, you just read whatever you want into it. Well, now your posts make a lot more sense in that light.

Here we go again, someone confusing codecs, wrappers and platforms. HTML is the web platform. Why worry about another one, which needs its own plugin to be installed on top of a browser? Or, for a browser like Chrome to take effort to update support for it, whether built-in or otherwise?

Flash "gets around these codec issues" less well than QT, and other now defunct wrappers like Real -- it should support standard video encoding and decoding if it is used for video. Browsers and computers do that too. Either your browser or computer supports H.264 or it doesn't (yet). Video does not (and should not) require wrapping in Flash or QT or anything else. How is that a bad thing? Video should be like images on the web.

And of course IE sucks at HTML, they always have; MS is finally realizing it can't rely on de facto adoption and maintaining its own proprietary webplugins ala Flash (active X, Frontpage extensions, Silverlight, etc. etc.). People don't want them. Sure, they provide some wonderful functionality, and some developers may be really invested in using them. But it sucks to have proprietary systems on the web.

How is video support years away? It's here. YouTube offered a whole new set of video practically overnight. Lots of other sites have already followed. And one hundred million mobile devices with iOS do the vast majority of mobile browsing.

First, you need to get your terms straight. You seem to be confusing the meanings of "free" and "open", a common mistake. Confusing "open standard" and "open source" is another common mistake. It isn't free, and the implementations by various parties are not open source (but, there is reference code available), but it's not closed. H.264 is an open standard.

And, if Mozilla can't adopt it because of the GPL, then they need to dump GPL licensing. If they can't adopt it for ideological reasons, they need to dump their ideology. It's just as ridiculous that the web be held hostage by a bunch of guys working for Mozilla as it is that it be held hostage by a bunch of guys working for Adobe.

Of course, as I've mentioned before, WebM was put out their by Google jut to let Mozilla spin their ideological wheels on. If they want to be around in 5 years, they need to start making some smart, pragmatic choices and take off their ideological blinders.

I don't see the two as being related. There are a bunch of reasons why Flash isn't on these platforms... but none of them are that it is has been banned by the manufacturer.

Flash as a web plug-in and Flash as an IDE generating iOS applications are two different things.

The article is about iOS applications.

precisely. and apple should be free to not let their platform become beholden to the update cycle of middle-ware developed by 3rd parties such as Adobe, as they had to suffer with in the past.

And it just plain doesn't matter. FTC doesn't have any more right to regulate the applications Apple sells on its store than it does to regulate which plug-ins it supports.

In fact, the new Library of Congress decision that jailbreaking is fully legal weakens the argument for regulation even further. If you wan to run Flash apps on your phone, just jailbreak it. No need to force Apple to carry them.


Really? You know the reasons why Flash isn't on Symbian?

All we know is that Flash is not on a single mobile device other than one or two of the latest Froyo devices making up 0.1% of the mobile market. Punishing Apple for not having Flash on iOS is just plain absurd when Flash isn't on anything else (again, with a couple if miniscule exceptions) - and Apple's not the one who writes Flash code.


h.264 is an open standard. Apple is being completely consistent.

That doesn't mean that every open standard will always be free, as in free beer. Nor does it have to be. In case you missed it, we live in a capitalist society and companies that contributed to h.264 have chosen to be paid for it.

If you have a better codec that's free (as in free beer), go ahead and submit it for approval. Apple doesn't require h.264. If you get something 'free' approved, then html 5 will run it.

Of course it matters when they are two separate things. If a person says they think Apple shouldn't allow Flash iOS applications because it makes the web browser run slow they are talking nonsense.

People can argue for or against Flash iOS applications and/or the Flash web plug-in all they like but they need to understand the two are fundamentally different else they are in danger of their entire argument being irrelevant.

Adobe won't attempt (no would it be possible to) develop a mobile safari Flash plug-in without total consent and support from Apple. If you don't agree with that, fine... but I think you'd be wrong.

And again, why would Adobe waste time developing a plugin for jailbroken devices? It makes no sense.



Flash will run on any, I repeat, ANY phone running 2.2. This is over 50% of the android market once the updates go through. Flash is NOT tied to specific phones, it's tied to OS releases. The Droid, Droid Incredible, Droid x, LG ally, Evo, N1, My touch, my touch slide, all galaxy s phones, etc will ALL be able to run froyo. That's including phones with sub 600mhz processors.

Apple is the only company who said outright that they won't support flash. Blackberry, WebOS (at least before HP buyout), Android, Symbian, and Winmo are all working with Adobe to bring the plugin to their platform. So yes, people have every right to call Apple out on this.


One was offered. WebM. Apple is pretty much (again) the only company that hasn't stated they'll support it.

Apple has a VESTED interest in seeing h.264 succeed.

Right, mozilla should drop GPL so they can become more "open." Read why they have an issue with h.264.

Have you read the terms of h.264 licensing? How if you view a video that you bought/rented/streamed that was produced by someone without the right license, you've voided YOUR license, and you're subject to being fined/sued by MPEG-LA as well. Do you really think something that insanely constricted has any place in an "open web?" You'd be replacing one format you hate (flash) with a codec that is nearly as bad. It's still one group controlling content on the web. And no, it wouldn't be solved "if everyone adopted it" because everyone adopted flash, that didn't change that it was still one group (and if you want to talk about ideological blinders read Steve Jobs' thoughts on flash)

WebM wasn't put out there just for Mozilla. Watch the announcement again (or maybe for the first time).

You can't bash flash and praise h.264 at the same time. The same concepts that make flash "have no part" in the future of the web apply to h.264.

Sorry, I totally disagree, as it has been said H.264 is open source and Flash is not in any way shape or form. H.264 is a compression codec, Flash is a full blown graphic, animation and interaction system. What makes it unusable for the web is the way it works on the web. Talk about a walled garden! No search engines can interface with a Flash file, no screen readers and a lot of touch gestures are not recognized (depending on the programming) .

Action Script is Adobe's proprietary scripting code. It belongs to them alone.

Perhaps another video codec will be created, but Apple is supporting H.264 because they allow it be decoded in the hardware. They have their reasons for that. They may add support for other hardware decoding in the future we do not know. But it is only one component of the web, Flash takes over whole websites and does it badly.

When Apple said "no" to allowing a Flash plugin on their mobile devices Adobe thought they could do an end run around them by compiling what are essentially Flash files into a web app, so they are more related then one would think. I remember when this was being discussed last year because I had a number of slideshows/video players created in Flash with the Slideshow Pro component. I was thinking that someone could create an app so my Slideshows would run on the mobile devices, would save me a lot of work to not have to recreate all of them. So I was expecting to be able to compile my Flash files into an app format instead of a swf format, so I am not seeing how this is so very different as to not be a similar thing, based on what I was reading from Adobe before the axe fell.

And it is all well and good, I made the slideshows with javascript and put all of my video into html5. The slideshows work much better as the javascript is less intensive on system resources. The Slideshow Pro folks came up with a solution that will run Slideshows on the iDevices without using Flash, people are moving on from Flash and much faster than you think. And you know what, we don't miss it!

Not just Adobe tools. And it would only be anti-competitive if Apple were somehow able to prevent people from doing such activity on other operating systems or platform, by either having overwhelming market share or some other advantage.

They aren't and they don't, so all the anti-competative and monopoly talk is just that - talk.


Why? Why shouldn't Apple be able to? They have their stated reasons for doing so - and I happen to firmly agree with them. As a Mac user, it's obvious the vendors that meerly port an application to Mac OSX vs. writing native code.

Maybe your a Windows user so porting doesn't affect you as often, or maybe you don't mind mediocre software with inconsistent interface conventions - fine. I don't want mediocre software and Mac OSX is my primary platform. I want apps written to fully exploit it. I like the minimum standards that Apple is setting. It helps ensure that I won't have to hear more people drone on and on about the millions of fart apps instead of thousands of fart apps

If you don't agree, then knock yourself out with Android or some other system. The choice is yours.

I fail to see how Apple introducing a model that has never existed before in a widespread and widely supported manner is anti-competative or anti-choice. Funny how that no one in these threads who's anti iOS and want's Apple to "open up" addresses this.

Apple isn't the one being restrictive or limiting real choice.


Close sucks. Apple has stated that it's not good enough. For the critical parts of a program like the user interface, I don't want a port where some controls designed for a mouse environment are abstracted, poorly, into a touch world.

Your arguing for mediocrity. If you really want that, there are platforms like Android that own't prevent it - go knock yourself out. Apple has stated that they have minimum standards and that they are not interested in developers that aren't committed enough to their platform to write apps that will take 100% advantage of the platform.

As a user and not a developer, I find this a most welcome and refreshing change. If your a developer and don't like it - Apple isn't lobotomizing you so you can't program on some other platform - their saying that your want's just don't match theirs and your free to not play in their sandbox.

I find the hubris of people that think they have the RIGHT to force Apple to comply with their narrow minded vision simply breathtaking. It's Apple's platform - they could arbitrarily declare they will only accept programs from authors who's first name is Stan - except they haven't done that. They have (for the most part) clearly defined reasons for why they are doing what they do. No one is forcing anyone to write for the iOS, and Apple not accepting everything under the sun is perfectly fine.

Indeed, it's welcomed by me and others who want the choice of a platform that will function more like an appliance than the wild west that is general computing. Why so many are threatened that others may not want what they do is just fascinating to me. Apple doesn't want to play the same old game as everyone else - good for them!


Yes, and Apple has stated that not all porting is equal. Things like physics engines for games are not under the same scrutiny as a simple recompiling of a flash application to some abstraction layer. As with anything, it's a definite "it depends". If it doesn't impact the user experience and if the shared code enhances rather than homogenizes the end user experience, I sincerely doubt you are ever going to have to worry about anything from Apple.

People who fail to acknowledge this or try to paint Apple as being hypocritical in these "exceptions" are being disingenuous or missing the point (ignorant). A physics engine is low level code that is not directly exposed to the end user. The rest of the application - the user interface in particular - is still coded in native tools to take full advantage of the UI and other platform specific features. Unlike the simple wholesale ports like Adobe was pushing with their flash compiler.

Look at it from Apples perspective - they have put lots of time in crafting APIs to allow developers to do lots of cool things to really exploit and show off their platform (which they have also spent lots of time crafting). The best way to encourage people to take advantage of those cool things is to not allow porting with abstraction layers like Adobe was peddling. All that does is ensure bland applications that exploit the "lease common denominator" of features between platforms the programmer targets.

How is that a win for Apple or it's customers? It's not. Those are developers Apple doesn't care about loosing - they add nothing to the platform, instead they cheapen and blunt the overall user experience. They are actually detrimental to the long term success of Apple's platform since rather than showing off the assets of the environment, they carry over the bare minimum. If you care about your platform, you won't want tools like Adobe's generic porting tools either!

Either way, as a non-windows user Flash is a crap experience.

That's all that's relevant to me \

If only Adobe would spend all this money fixing all the bugs in their software.

One can dream.

Care to wager on just how little comes of this "investigation"?

And how is Apple pulling a fast one here? They aren't exactly hiding the lack of flash, and all the overhyped fussing by people such as yourself hasn't exactly made it a stealth issue either.

And yet Apple still sells millions upon millions of iOS devices. So perhaps Apple isn't so stupid, arbitrary or capricious at all?


First, Adobe would have to demonstrate that they could be trusted with that direct access - that they wouldn't bring down the whole device with their poor programming.

Second, Adobe would have to demonstrate they could deliver. So far Flash is a piece of crap on every other platform other than Windows - and it's not so hot overall on Windows either. And SJ has left the door open on multiple occasions. It's up to Adobe. I think Adobe was hoping they could whip up enough people like you that they could force Apple to accept their mediocre platform as it is. That's not working nor is it going to work. If they clean it up, Apple has said they are open.


Yup. That's why I'm an Apple user. Apple has minimum standards, a user focus and the ability to cut crap when it's going to negatively affect the user experience. What other company in this industry would be willing (or able) to do so?

At least there is one.

The ability to prioritize the user experience above all else is a good thing to most people. Again, I refer to the millions and millions of continued sales. If you don't like it, there are pleanty of alternative platforms. Have fun!

[quoteIf SJ was honest about his claims about Flash's inferiority, he'd have banned it from OS X long ago. [/quote]

Apples to oranges. It's much harder to ban something that has existed for years than exclude it from a new platform from the start. It's also not the philosophy of Mac OSX. Mac OSX and the iOS serve two different purposes.

Also, Apple doesn't have to -there are plenty of tools on Mac OSX for users to manage Flash and prevent it from killing our computing experience - tools that wouldn't be practical in the iOS environment.


Some one is full of it all right...

If Apple and SJ is so "full of it" why are you here exactly?

Microsoft can't because they are a convicted monopolist and operate under a consent decree that prevents this kind of behavior.


For years they basically did that by only offering memory stick. Memory stick never did take off and you can now finally get Sony products with interfaces other than memory stick. That didn't take government interference to happen, either


GM could say that if you use non-GM wiper replacements and it damages the windshield or anything else in the wiper system we won't cover it. Then again, that's assuming GM offers some extra warranty with their brand wiper blades (pretty doubtful). So all you have done is pretty much describe the way warranties work today anyway

So far you have failed to draw any meaningful analogy between your examples and Apples situation. You got the closest with Microsoft, but they are already a convicted monopolist and Apple is no where near that so you might as well claim they are a little bit pregnant...


Meh - while it might be an interesting secondary topic, it's largely irrelevant to this thread.

Via a third party plug in


Huh? Why would Apple have to, when just like with the third party plug in on Firefox, there are third party plugins like http://clicktoflash.com/ that do the same thing?

Why is this Apple's problem? Why do people keep throwing up lame straw men comparing Mac OSX to iOS? They are different platforms, different philosophies. One is curated, the other is not. If you don't want a curated experience, don't use the iOS!

Pretty flipping simple and yet it sails completely over the heads of the haters. Why hate? Just move on and use something else! No one is forcing you to buy an iOS device.

Zing

Perhaps Apple isn't as full of crap with their quality and user experience focus as the techies are loath to admit?

Quality doesn't just sell, it's profitable.

I honestly think Apple couldn't care less about Android and Android's sales numbers. As long as they and their App store programmers continue to handily spank them in profit, who cares about sales numbers?

That's why Apple probably never considered notebooks a real threat, and instead probably was amused and even supportive of them. Talk about a resource-sucking barely break-even proposition - honestly, why would a sane company want to compete in that space? It's a no-win situation. Acer, HP, Asus - they aren't exactly lighting up the stock market with their massive profits from their millions of netbook sales. Neither is Microsoft from their Windows 7 essentials or whatever the low end version of Win 7 is - instead they have their OS running on sub-par hardware that causes people to further loathe the Microsoft experience. Microsoft's only fault was being suckered to compete in the netbook space in the first place.

Being able to say no - especially at the right time - is a very valuable skill. There is nothing wrong with saying no, if it's appropriate - even if it ticks off some potential customers. Not all customers are worth having. "The customer is always right" is a bunch of crap. "Valuable/Meaningful/Profitable customers are always right" is a much more accurate statement.

No less than flash on mobile OS's.

Quote:
Originally Posted by mstone
Flash cannot run on iPhone - WRONG Flash 1 can using Gordon.js



Your other comments are a matter of opinion which you are entitled to, however, the bit about Gordon.js is mistaken. Since you possibly are not understanding how it works let me offer an explanation.

Gordon is a javascript library that allows SWF files created with Flash ( or any other program that can export to SWF ) to run in Safari on iPhone. Although there is no Flash plugin, the Flash files do indeed run exactly as they would on any other device that has a Flash plugin installed. The only limitation is that it can only read SWF version 1. For most developers the absence of Actionscript is a deal breaker hence people are still talking about the desire, or lack there of, to include, or exclude, the real Flash plugin for iOS.

So says Adobe. Yet there are plenty of things like VLC that work just fine without secrete access via Apple.


Huh? I thought by definition open source was, well, OPEN! All the source code is there.

It's not impossible, it's either impractical or Adobe is unwilling. But it's far from impossible since all the source code is out there in plain view. It's also silly to say "we can't make it work with all so we give up" - well, they could but that would just support the Adobe only cares about Windows argument.

There is nothing from stopping Adobe from picking at least one distribution - say a really popular variant of Ubuntu - and making Flash work in a stellar manner there. Then they can do the open source thing and say "here is what you need to look at to make it work on other platforms". But they can't even bother to do that.

That's why their talk about multi-platform support really ring hollow. They have a demonstrated history of being full of it.

*Emphasis Mine.

Are you sure you are allowed to inject fact into an AI thread?

Excellent post and stated more succinctly than I would have been able to.

It's not been proven to be un-encombered by patents. What's to say that as it gets more popular that it won't be challenged?

At least with h.264 you know where you stand.


MS is still the 800lb gorilla with IE, and if they support h.264 (and they are) then the whole market share issue is moot. Critical mass will be maintained.


And it if they are stupid enough to do so, it will have no more an impact than when Unisys pulled the GIF patent crap.

Been there, got the t-shirt, the world moved on.

Much ado about nothing. Which is precisely why the royalty holders won't do anything as stupid as what you are advocating.


Really? Why are they "insane"?

There's obviously the cost of parts, and that's where sites like iSupply generally stop but what about other costs:

Design?
Software?
Manufacturing tool-up?
Support?
Marketing?

and all the other overhead involved in product design? Only the blissfully ignorant or disingenuous casually throw out unfounded statements like this.

Go look at cell phones from 10 years ago, and compare them to what we are getting now for the equivalent dollars - it's no comparison. If you think smart phones are insane, then get a dumb feature phone that will still have more functionality than cell phones from 10 years ago - and they will be under $50. Heck, you can get disposable phones these days for well under $50!


Yes, because if you are smart you never give people a real reason to hate you and actively want to ditch your platform. If people no longer use it, you aren't gong to gather licensing for it - pretty simple, really. Make the terms of the deal bad enough and people will seek a better deal elsewhere. MPEG-LA has so far demonstrated that they aren't that stupid.

No need for conspiracy theories or whacky what-if scenarios that will never happen...

To prove they are truly serious about being cross platform above all else?

I mean, this is the real reason, right? Isn't this about Apple preventing the benevolent Adobe from being all things to all platforms?


Why need to "call them out"? If it's such a big deal, Apple will loose sale and the market will correct itself - right?

Or are all the pro-flash people (who probably have vested interests in the platform) really concerned that Apple is right, people won't care and flash will slip further into obscurity?

I suspect more the later than former.


Microsoft isn't directly supporting it, only indirectly:

http://arstechnica.com/web/news/2010...-with-webm.ars

And if it takes off, there is nothing holding Apple from supporting it as it's primary selling point is supposedly it's openness

And I wouldn't make the assumption that the author of that article makes in giving Google credit for doing research about patent encumbrances. All you have to do is look at the whole Google Books fiasco to see just how well Google takes legal subtext into account when doing things


Sure they do. Probably the biggest reason is it's still better than webm. They have other reasons as well, but it's a safe assumption that performance and functionality are the primary motivator.

The "only limitation"?!? Then it's not flash.

It's a sub set of flash, or an older version of flash, but it's not flash.


How about this - people are still looking for flash because gordon.js isn't flash? It's an older subset, but it's still not todays flash.

Sheesh - I'm almost descending into "surfing all the Internet" territory here. Look, you can split the head of a pin all you want - if it was "flash" then why are people looking for (your words) "the real Flash plugin"?

Again I am wondering why is it really this hard?

I guess it is just a different perspective. Flash = ? In my opinion, the only important part of Flash is the content, the creative programming, the output that is displayed to the user. What allows it to display is irrelevant. I can run an SWF file in other applications as well. Does that mean that it is no longer Flash?

I designed something in the Flash development studio and exported it as a SWF and played it in a browser. To me that is Flash on an iPhone. If you contend that since the Flash plugin did not play the SWF file, by definition it was not Flash, that is simply your interpretation, but I don't think you can logically deny that Flash created an SWF file that plays on an iPhone.

That was the very first thing I tried since I didn't want to reformat all of my Flash files at no charge to my clients. I was PAINFULLY slow just rendering a very simple vector graphic, I didn't even try something more elaborate.

It was then that I decided to change over to javascript, I only have so many hours to learn new stuff and Flash has never been my favorite scripting platform to begin with.

If any of the H.264 originators, including Apple, can be believed, WebM is in patent trouble. Just those statements are probably enough to keep MS and Apple from implementing it. Google will put it in Chrome, let Mozilla put it in FF and then pull the plug on the Google $5mil+ a year to Mozilla to develop FF to let Mozilla twist in the legal winds without a White Knight to bail out their legal biills. All so they can promote Chrome as the only relevant "Open" browser. Just wait... WebM is a perfectly developed indirect-fire Trojan Horse.

yup, it's coming, and very soon. It's already being rolled out on more phones OTA as we speak, Nokia has had flash on it for a long time now, so the nokia platform is a no brainer.

I think nokia has a lot of phones out there I'm not sure.


the win7 phones will support flash there's no doubt as it will support silverlight.

You would have to completely redesign all of your Flash anyway since nobody programs in Flash to target version 1. That said, I did not see any speed issues on the files that I specifically designed for v1. It was very snappy. You just couldn't get any Actionscript going which kills it for advertising purposes.


Well you will certainly have your hands full trying to code in JS, Canvas and SVG to a level where it could be a replacement for Flash. The learning curve is REALLY, REALLY steep. In addition there are still no website deployments available for HTML5/JS in the mainstream advertising media distribution channels.

Then what's their excuse for not having a version that runs on Blackberry or Symbian or PalmOS? Or a version that runs on Android phones running less than 800 MHz (like all the earlier iPhones that they insisted Apple should put Flash on?


I love the way people talk out of both sides of their mouth. They claim that a large percentage of iPhones are jailbroken, but when it comes to justification for Flash, they say there aren't many.

But have it your way. Forget iPhones. There are more Blackberry phones than iPhones out there. Why doesn't Flash run on Blackberry? I suppose in your crazy "let's hate Apple for any irrational reason our minds can dream up" world, that's Apple's fault.

Why doesn't Flash run on Symbian? PalmOS? Or any of the other choices? Is that Apple's fault, too?


ONCE THE UPDATES GO THROUGH. That's probably about 1% of Android phones TODAY. And about 0.1% of all phones.

My daughter has a Motorola Backflip. Brand new and it shipped with Android 1.5 or 1.6 (I forget which). They said that eventually, it would be possible to upgrade to 2.1, but there's still no sign of an upgrade. They're not even talking about 2.2. Only a tiny percentage of Android phones are using Froyo.

Face it, for all intents and purposes, Flash doesn't exist on mobile devices. ANY mobile devices (with that one minor exception). How is that Apple's fault?

You've been told multiple times, by multiple people, that the new plugin just out in public beta very recently. You've also been told that froyo is the first one to have it included publicly, and even that, was in beta, and is being rolled out on a limited basis. Recently more ohones have now been added to get the OTA updates. Nokia ohones have had flash for a long time already, so it's a no brainer that they'll all have the new flash on it. We all know if M$ finally gets it's win7 phones out, it will indeed, have flash on it. And I know RIM will have it. It's widely known the rollout will be spread out over this year, so, I'm not sure of the need to look smart and continually keep screaming about what, we don't know.

No one knows for 100%sure how this will play out though a small clique seem to think their crystal balls are astounding.

Just save it and let someone who actually knows something about it or can say something somewhat balanced without the nonsense shrieking reiterating the same... damn... thing, over and over.

Go find some tall mountain somewhere and scream you hate flash and flash will die til yer hoarse, at east like, a thousand miles from here thanks.

For someone who seems to be all up in arms and ready to lay down smack you seem to be startling ill-informed.

I don't know what version of "Flash" you think that Nokia phones have "had for a long time now" but here's a hint: Flash Lite is not the Flash we're talking about.

And what we in fact "all know" is that the initial release of Windows Mobile 7 phones will not have Flash, because both Adobe and MS have said so.

Android and Adobe have managed to put together a beta of some software that requires the latest, highly specced phones to even run and by all accounts does grim things to battery life and browsing speed. Where are all these phones that are getting OTA Froyo updates and merrily running real Flash even as we speak? Maybe when we have some actual phones to consider we can make some judgements about how useful this version of Flash actually is.

brilliant. SOmeone has brain cells.

Glad you researched and saw the nokia phones had flash lite. I only said that a 100 times in previous 'flash threads'.

And yes, we knew that the initial release of win7 will likely not include the new flash player, but we know it -will- have it. Very old news. Congrats.

And don't believe the horseshit videos, flash is running rather well on froyo, the nonsense is just tiring. Oh I know, there'll be a link war of apparent videos. Really now, how many videos are out there showing iphones running like a dog? It takes 5 brain cells to make one. Hell one could make one without thinking certainly with a 3G iphone with iOS 4 couldn't we now?

I'm well aware of adobe's mis steps, and the knuckle dragging. But there's no reason to act like moron screeching the same over done crap patting ourselves on the back what great disciples we are.

As I said, it's hard to know how this will turn out, but anyone who thinks this is a done deal, is in for some surprises on a number of levels. The "down smack" isn't about flash will survive and is great, it's cut the crap.