Should I return my new iPad 64 GB?

If you want to play Farmville, there's an app for that.

If you want to play Pet Society or something, you're right. You'd better return the iPad. It's not Apple's fault, though. Flash simply does not work for mobile devices. You won't be able to play Pet Society on an Android tablet, either.

So return it and go away. If you're not intelligent enough to research a $900 purchase before making it, you deserve to have this happen.

What did you think? That Apple's stance on Flash was just for show and the iPad would actually be able to use Flash anyway? I mean, honestly.


Quite a bit, yes.


Returning it and buying something that actually does what you think you want to do.


No, but you've let down rationality.

I'm not entirely sure this wasn't just a troll post.

Lack of Flash was one of the biggest deals made of the iPad's perceived shortcomings. How on earth did you miss that? That alone makes me doubt the sincerity of your initial post. You seem to have made a $900 impulse purchase with no forethought at all. With no idea of the device's capabilities you dove in and picked up the top of the line model.

As was mentioned above, there are app equivalents for some of the Flash games people play on facebook (some from the same companies featured on facebook like Zynga). If that's your thing then your thing I'd check them out. They'll likely be optimized for use on the iPad and offer a better experience than the facebook hosted equivalent. Check out appshopper.com for an easier to search alternative to the iTunes app store. Before deciding that the iPad can't do what you want, see if there might be an app that does.

The iPad's a great device. It'll get better over time. That doesn't mean it's for everyone. If you, or your wife aren't happy then return it. You'll probably get hit for a restock fee but that's probably better than buyer's remorse.

Curious that you allegedly didn't know about the absence of Flash on the iPad and yet you seem to be aware of the usual anti-Apple talking points.

If you can't do five seconds of research about a product before you spend nearly $1,000 on it, don't waste our time whining on our forums when you find out that it can't do something it was never designed to do.

I guess I must be missing something. Not much of a social networking kind of guy, but I do follow Facebook. What kind of non-game apps are there for facebook?

I am also a non-apple sort of guy; previously I was mostly in the camp of the apple mockers. iPad has definitely won me over... we have two in my house now, otherwise I would never get to touch my iPad, as my kids would monopolize it.

Last winter when I travelled, the only thing I took with me was a Dell mini 9 net book. This time around, it was the Dell plus two ipad's. Needed the Dell still for Microsoft office products. Made actually for a heavy carry-on. An iPad replacement for Microsoft office products would be great, but without the ability to mulit-task it isn't the same... Ie, pull up excel and word side by side so you can drag selections back and forth. So far, nothing on the iPad is that versatile.

Missing flash? Almost not at all. The only place that has ever bothered me was at vanguard's site, where mutual fund performance graphs are flash based.

If you think the iPad will get Flash anytime soon, or any time at all, basically, I think you're in for some more disappointment.

There are a few Flash-based apps on Facebook that I use that are not games. There's an iPhone app for Are You Interested? (though I dumped it because they removed almost all functionality for non-subscribers). But Voomaxer is great for my swimming record. And I love to share my books and organize my reading library with weRead.

But the thing is, I can use apps for iPhone instead, or just wait until I get home and use these apps on my laptop.

Somehow this whole thread didn't quite gel into a reasonable argument for the lack of Flash. One thing about Flash for mobile devices, not just the iPad, is that it literally just came out in the last month or so.

Adobe have taken over 3 years to bring this technology to the market so nobody is on the ball yet. Apple just declared their stance because their devices were popular and people were noticing the missing functionality.

The decision not to support Flash is a sensible one because why should every single company in the world depend on Adobe to step up and get a working Flash player on every platform and have it work properly with stability, security and good performance along with an update mechanism when a flaw is found? That is the epitome of a monopoly and shouldn't be supported when it comes to the web, not when 75%+ of the media content is authored with it.

Flash needs to be eradicated from the web for good. If it's absolutely essential to use in the odd case, you can use a VNC app like iTeleport to connect to a PC and just control it from the iPad. If a company offered this as a network service, it would probably work quite well but they'd want to charge a monthly rate.

There's also the issue of getting the Flash movie to work properly as they are generally designed for touch, emulating a right-click, scroll-wheel, keyboard keys etc is going to be tricky no matter how they implement it so it's far better getting iOS optimised apps. For one thing, they should load faster because you aren't having to download the binary every time you play.

Unfortunately, a number of companies want to cling onto the old way of doing things with Flash because it's the easy/lazy option but sooner or later they are going to realise the size of the market they are missing out on.

"That's a shame. I know Apple is a different world than PC, but I'd sure hope they'd share at least some technologies."

Flash isn't a part of the PC/Mac wars. Flash works on the Mac just as it does on the PC. Where Flash does not work is on the iOS devices like the iPhone and iPad. Google and the anti-Apple community has jumped on this as a major failing of the iPad. But as Marvin says, it wasn't until last month that Adobe got Flash to work on any tablet device. And based on comments from the Android crowd it looks like Apple made the right decision. Flash is getting some bad reviews on the Android platform.

If Flash is a deal breaker, then by all means get a Netbook. But for most of us the lack of Flash is not an issue.

The anti-Flash crowd is pushing HTML 5. HTML 5 works fine on the iPad.

Shut up. Guy's pissed off, it's his right.

I'm still trying to figure out how the original post tied Facebook to PRODUCTIVITY !

Perhaps I'm missing something on Facebook, but isn't time spent using Facebook the exact opposite of being productive?

Who's to know? Maybe "Mama" is a professional poker player.

Not when it stems from a lack of intelligence, it isn't.

The iOS devices are all about apps. Thankfully many of them are cheap enough that you can try them out at will.

Interesting, I've never been able to grasp FaceBook and have an account that I never use. The question I have to ask is how can anybody be productive on Facebook as it seems to be a waste of time more than anything.

That is one way to look at it but you won't likely get a lot of support for that position on this forum. To put it politely as I can Flash sucks on mobile devices and has never been supported well by Adobe. It isn't likely that Adobe will ever be able to get Flash to run well on current hardware found in cell phones and tablets. It isn't possible currently to put enough CPU power into battery powered devices of this sort. That isn't to say the future might not be different, as integration continues to go up and feature size down, we will find ourselves with some extremely powerful hand held devices. That is not the case at the moment though.

Depending on your needs a notebook (it doesn't have to be PC based) might have been a better choice. iPad is designed around the idea of consuming information instead of creating it.

Yep I'd say so. The world has changed a lot and Flash has pretty much run its course of acceptability.

In many cases apps. App store is huge, I'd look there if for things that fit your needs.

Not at all Apple has fully disclosed their position on Flash very publicly and it is well known in the industry. Even if Adobe did offer up Flash for iPad the performance would be pretty terrible as can be seen on with their Android offering.

Yeah a couple.

One; is that you might actually sell it for more than it is worth, at least you could a few weeks ago.

Second; it looks like you haven't taken the time to grasp just what iOS devices are and how they are maturing technology wise. I don't have one at the moment but likely will when they come out with one with more RAM, but the device is extremely impressive when you grasp what some of its capabilities are. The long battery life and almost instant usability can be extremely handy traveling. It goes deeper than that but I wouldn't dismiss iPad just because it doesn't do Flash, that in my opinion is a very good thing.

Third; One of the things I love about iPhone is the way it is integrated into or ties together so well with my laptop and my Mobile Me account. While still young and improving the syncing capability is fantastic. Frankly I've never tried with any PC devices so I'm not sure if this will apply to your situation but the fact that I can tap in an address in the field somewhere and have it show up in my Mobile Me account an on my laptop address book is extremely liberating. Many other things sync well also. Once you get use to it this capability is just the nuts and makes Apples handheld devices more useful than you might think.

Fourth; Maybe iPad isn't perfect for your needs, I'm a big iPhone user so you might want to consider that you have the wrong device or that it should be supplemented with something better. In my opinion Apples iOS devices really come into their own when used in conjunction with other PC's be they Macs or Windows machines. Some will object to this idea and admittedly the iPad can function all by itself pretty darn good, but the fact remains that an iPad or iPhone can be seen as peripheral to your main machine. A very powerful one at that, that doesn't require lugging around.

Fifth; if you move to Mac hardware the integration with iPad is even better than that seen with a PC.


It is up to you in the end to keep or dispose of but realize that the device is not a laptop replacement by any means. Rather it is a different approach to mobile computing. It will either work for you or not.

About possible reasons you should probably ask yourself. The iPad offers great functionality for many people, even for some professionals, so you have to carefuly think about its possible uses in your own setup.

And by the way, I propose you to read this open letter from S. Jobs himself about Flash:

Thoughts on Flash.

dbpropp, as others are starting to say this isn't an "Apple vs. PC" kind of situation you are running into. More accurately, this is a "lightweight internet device vs. mainstream computer" issue that has you flustered. Lightweight internet devices, whether from Apple or others, aren't designed to be full-blown computer replacements. As it relates to Flash, the jury is still out whether any version of Flash, including this stripped down one that just came out for tablets, will be capable of meeting the needs and desires of internet device owners. The early returns from some Android users (who also aren't on PCs, per se) are not all that encouraging.

My advice is to look at your needs first. If a true computer is what is needed to accomplish all of the tasks you want from a machine, then maybe that is where to look first. Apple has some options along this line including the MacBook and the MacBook Air -- both of which support Flash. If what you want is something ultra-portable as primarily an information gathering device, the iPad is a revolutionary product.

Lastly, for those that throw out the "do your research first" statement, let me point out that Apple doesn't make much of an effort to warn people about the lack of Flash capability on the iPad. When you walk into the Apple Store and pick up an iPad on display, the sign next to it most certainly doesn't have the line "Doesn't support Adobe Flash" listed along with the other features.

Nobody advertises what their product "won't" do. That's why it's important to do the research (and no, just reading what it says on Apple's site isn't research). This holds true for *any* product. The bit about Flash was widely publicized as well so it would be exceedingly difficult to find any article/news report about the iPad which didn't at least mention it in passing.

No it doesn't. But when you walk into an Apple store and pick up an iPad... and apparently Facebook is your most important "productivity" tool.... then you bloody well try.... Facebook!

I dare say a majority of iPad buyers may not have researched their purchase well enough to specifically identify the lack of Flash support. Apple's mantra has always been their products "just work" which I think leads people to feel less need to investigate everything about their purchase. When you couple that mentality with the pervasiveness of Flash on the internet, I can see why this probably has taken some people by surprise. I'm not disagreeing with Apple's stance on Flash... just their lack of proactive notification to potential buyers.

Not everyone can be so supreme, like you.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but being an Apple fanboy doesn't make people more mature. There may be a causal relationship between Apple product owners and maturity, but that's not it.

As for Flash, I have yet to notice aside from coming across the occasional website that doesn't work... and invariably I simply don't care. If it is a big deal to you, however, then the iPad isn't for you. Yet.

Be careful how you assign blame for this though. Flash is a pile of crap that Adobe has been dumping on us for a long time, and it long overdue to be binned like it should have been long ago (please note that this is an independently formed opinion of an experienced software developer [well, many of them really], not just a line repeated by rote). Its about time that Apple and others put forward a usable standards-based replacement (HTML5), and a migration away from Flash begins to happen. Putting Flash on iOS (and any mobile device) wouldn't make it better, it would make it horrible and wouldn't begin the push toward a Flash-free Internet. As that migration happens this issue will become less and less of a problem.

what's with this?? I had a friend SELL his earlier today. He complained about it for the past two months he's owned it. While I don't own one, I do enjoy using them.

No device is perfect for everyone. Don't let anecdotal evidence convince you that its a trend though... I know quite a few people that have 'em and love 'em. Including myself.