Iphone hates the Flash player ( a series of complex iphone issues )
Yesterday I was proud to announce that the iphone would finally support the flash player. This seemed like some good news but after only 1 day it has turned into the same old frustrating illusion that it was before. Iphone and the flash player are a no go apparently. First Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen announced that they were working on Flash for the iPhone, now Adobe clarifies that no, they’re actually not. Personally I think they are messing with all the people who want a decent internet experience on their iphone. And for developers like me it is also a pain in the ass that we can’t reach the large number of iphone users. If apple would like to present the iphone as ”the smartphone” then my guess is that not implementing the flash player is not that smart.
Even though Steve Jobs explained his reasons why Flash is not available for the iPhone (Jobs claimed that Flash Lite for mobile was not full featured enough, while the full version of Flash would not run well on the iPhone ) I think not providing a flash player is even less featured!
Just like aral I’m shutting my ears now!
Thomas Joos | mobile application developer 
The truth is that it’s not in Apple’s plans to promote any propietary web technology. Flash, silverlight and Java therefore do not fit in their plans… As somebody elsewhere has already pointed out, the functionality incorporated in the last version of WebKit shows their standars-compliant non-propietary vision of how RIAs and/or the web 2.0 should be deployed instead. A (silent) war is taking place on the internet front, altough most people seem not to be aware of it.
Jorge Chamorro B.
March 22, 2008 at 2:18 pm
I understand that Apple is not promoting any webtechnology but if you create a mobile device and intend to bring the internet experience to another level you can not ignore Flash because it is a fact that this technology just makes the web a far more interesting experience. And first announce that they are going to try and implement the player and a few days later already tell us the opposite.. That’s just ridiculous.
vilebody
March 22, 2008 at 4:25 pm
Many people believe Flash is not much more than YouTube and annoying ads, where the first is apparently easy to transform and the second is good riddance. I don’t agree fully, but nearly.
I prefer open video codecs plus SVG and the usual AJAX.
Loads of SVG via http://svg.startpagina.nl
stelt
March 25, 2008 at 9:24 pm
I respect your opinion about flash but thinking it is only youtube and some advertising is just wrong if you ask me. I think it’s fair to say, even though you prefer open video codecs plus svg and ajax, that you cannot ignore flash as it is one of the most important technologies and it has a hughe influence in how the people experience the web. If you are creating a smartphone and prepare it for some high internet experience, not providing a flash player makes a large amount of (cool) internet experiences unavailable. That the experiences can be annoying ( like the ads) is true but that’s another discussion.
grtz Thomas
vilebody
March 25, 2008 at 10:44 pm
If a technology is not used for something annoying, it is not mature. So yes, annoying SVG is showing up as well. I would soften your sentence about Flash like:..an important technology … significant influence… Apple is being competitive, and as long as they’re not in a monopolist position that is perfectly legal. Even though some don’t like it and others do.
stelt
March 26, 2008 at 12:08 am
There is nothing wrong with being competitive that’s true but they should not say “Flash Lite for mobile was not full featured enough” or ” the full version of Flash would not run well on the iPhone ” because that’s just a lame excuses in my opinion. The fact that they announce the flash support and then immediately take it back frustrates me even more than the non-support itself.
grtz
vilebody
March 26, 2008 at 10:13 am