Adobe speaks up about Flash on the iPad

It is interesting to see all the posts about how flash doesn't work on the OS X, yet people still choose to use it anyways. I wonder how many people would second guess their purchase of a Mac were they told a good percentage of sites (ie: Hulu, etc) would not work when they took the machine home.

The same case probably holds true for the Iphone but to a lesser degree. Fortunately for me I knew that the Iphone didn't support Flash when I purchased it. I unfortunately did not know the full extent of the reasoning behind it until after my purchase. Before then I was fully against buying the Iphone for the very reasons people are complaining about SI and Playboy being available while other small dev apps were removed. These are the same/similar tactics that MS uses/used all the time to stamp out small developers.

What I find interesting is that the large majority (frankly largest user base too) have nary an issue with Flash on a PC. Yet there is all this complaining about Flash not working and causing crashes on OS X. It is just as likely that there is something wrong in the OS X code helping to crash Flash. I'm sure quality control is very high over at Apple, considering the CEO, but that doesn't let Apple of the leash in my book especially when it seems their OS and other items built on their OS seem to have a major problem with Flash.

Whether this is problem is actually Adobe's or Apple's I don't know since neither is ever going to really own up to the real cause. I would also argue that Flash is *not* out the door anytime soon. Flash is just as popular now as it was when I was back in middle and high school. Sites like Newgrounds, Hulu, Youtube, etc keep Flash in the forefront of entertainment websites. So what you wish/hope for and what is actually reality are two totally different things.

The only people who moan and groan about it are web standards purists and the large sites actually using web standards are fewer than those that don't. Go complain to a Fortune 500 about web standards and see what sort of response you get. I don't care if you're a Flash developer or a web developer. Unless you have clients blowing up your skirt to get you to dev them a site for a Fortune 500 Fortune 30 no one cares. You're small potatoes and what you do doesn't affect the majority of the internet.

Unfortunately for all of the Apple fanboys the reality of the matter is that Apple did an excellent job at developing and marketing the Iphone. So much so in fact I went out and bought one, this being the first and thus far only Apple product I own. But with that marketing prowess comes the masses of people who don't care much for all of the "elite think" garbage and just want a product that works and is convenient. Those same people are going to want choices and when Apple restricts those choices (both on the App Store front and with this Flash issue) those same customers will leave as soon as they came. Many folks don't know about flash not working on the Iphone, ATT *doesn't* tell customers of this fact. While there is the 30 day return policy for cellphones that then becomes lost revenue for the company; and a potential future customer of Apple.

What I feel like when I came here to read this article was this : "You're not an Apple fanboy, we don't care what you think. Return the purchase and continue on with your life outside of our 'elite circle'." While that sentiment may carry on with the fanboys for life, the fact of the matter is Apple is starting to get mainstream attention which brings mainstream issues. Forcing those new customers to that mentality is only going to work on a handful of people.

"It seems like a really bad idea to let a single company have that much control over the creation and delivery of the internet's content, don't you think?"

wow, you can say that with a straight face when Apple imposes total control over the content and content delivery on its devices?

"now that Apple is in the business of selling content, exactly how is it in the company's best interest to provide access to that same content, through another company's platform, for free? And as far as games are concerned, once again Apple has this covered, through the App Store. "




yeah, didn't Microsoft get sued for that? something about Antitrust issues?

Flash enablement should be analog on the iPad. If the user wants the "entire" Internet experience, then they will need to deal with the shortcomings of flash within iPhone OS 3.

Regardless of the App Store's bottom line, they do make a significant chunk of money via apps and games that would be significantly reduced if flash came to the device. More importantly Apple's gets marketing fuel and buzz from apps which helps feed the machine and get the developer community excited about developing for Apple.

Whether flash should be phased out or not really is left up to users that are unwilling/unable to update browsers within primarily corporate america. That is where the real problem lies. The collective cannot embrace/develop solely for standards like HTML5 et al, if users aren't forced to upgrade from IE6. While a dwindling problem, it is still a problem. Until some governing body says okay from this point on you can't view the Internet through rabbit ears anymore like television, things will not progress. Flash has its place, and it isn't going anywhere anytime soon, like good ole Uncle Joe sent out to pasture that just refuses to die. There is no other standard with the same install base that allows the same level of interactivity as Flash, resource hog or not. Come up with a better solution that's installed in virtually every system out there.

First off, don't ever point at another company and yell 'proprietary' in defense of Apple. I love their products, but they are as closed and proprietary as it gets. Everything is top-secret, NDA, and closed source.

They make computers like the iMac which are hermetically sealed so you can never even upgrade the damn hard drive or video card without voiding your warranty.

Second, Adobe provided a true cross-platform web video solution while Apple (with its not only proprietary but damned expensive Sorensen codec) and Microsoft battled it out for web video ownership.

Third, Apple is no longer the underdog, they are the new Microsoft. They pull shit Microsoft dare not dream of. How about taking 30% of all revenue from iPhone developers? !!!! If Microsoft took 30% of all developer gross they would be sued into oblivion!

And as far as Apple having the right to not support a competing feature in its web browser - in Microsoft land thats called ANTITRUST.

HTML 5 video is a great development, but advanced server bandwidth management and client development tools like Flash Media Server are nonexistent. HTML 5 is a very basic and featureless video spec that isnt even supported by the two biggest browsers in the market yet.

I mean, every embedded web player on earth can serve progressive H.264 now, the reason content providers prefer Flash is Adobe's high level of support for the product.

I know a lot of people hate Flash, and they are free to use a simple blocker, but I've personally never had an issue with it on my Macs or my Windows boxes. (Linux is another story).

When I view a web page, I want all of the content types to have support, and that includes flash, and I dont give a damn about Job's religious ferver against it. That's his issue.

When the iMac phased out the floppy, there were already external burners and SCSI already had USB as a solution, but Flash hasn't got a real replacement yet!

Based on all these comments, we're all techies here, but what about all the regular folks that love Facebook games? I think Apple is going to upset s very large amount of people that will be expecting to do this. I think the iPad will run Flash within a year of release. Apple pretty much has to if thet want the Wii or iPod demographic any time soon!

I really hope Adobe put out something that Apple will allow people to turn on if they want to. I happen to believe that the bad loading and buggy code problems will be in all future Flash equivelents.

However, I love TUAW. Keep up with giving your own true opinions!

Wow, 240 comments.. Well, it's been a hot topic since the iPhone was released without Flash support, and revived with each new version and OS update, so only normal it's the pad's turn now..
From reading most of the comments, it seems to me many No-Flashers consider it's only use is allowing video display. Flash allowed for the 1st time cross-browser and OS display of interactive content, which could be updated in real time according to user input, with external content (data, images, videos..) and without page refreshes.
Part of this can now be done with AJAX, but not all. Many eStores with advanced product display (zoom, turn, change color..) use Flash interfaces.

Our corporate site uses Flash for videos, but also virtual tours of holliday resorts, which allow visiting the facilities before booking a stay. We use flash banners to promote our vacation products (providing static jpg or gif fallbacks of course), the main site menu is build in flash + dynamic data pulling in all sections (with html links if flash is not detected).
The campaign managment interface of our Email router is entirely Flash-based. Same as the stats App by Omniture (well, they just got bought by Adobe..).

SWFs can be built with other tools than the Adobe Flash software, SVG has been around for many years but never made it big time.
Other video formats such as Apples Quicktime or Real.. also requiere a plug-in to display in-browser.
SWFs slowing down browsers exist, that is not so much a faulty plug-in (Flash) as it's faulty code written by content providers. Same goes for some iPhone Apps who crash the device.
The advantage of Flash is that the content is vector based mostly (or could be, if properly designed), which means much faster download than any bitmap based content, same goes for flash streaming video (flv) which loads as you go, and that users can interact with it in ways not possible with other current technologies.

The whole discussion should not be about "is Flash good or bad", but about "why is Apple not allowing me to do what I choose to with my device"?! Why can I use Flash on a MacBook, and choose to disable it, not to install it or remove it if I want because I feel I don't need it and or it uses to many ressources, but I can't on a device designed for mobile Internet access?! Missing mouse pointer could be an argument, but again, it should be my own choice, and Adobe / Flash developpers choices to come up with other methods to detect and use user location on-screen detection.
The alert posted of Safari crashing clearly says "MIGHT have been caused by the Flash plug-in".. Might be something else too..

As the decision to use or not use Flash on the iPad is not allowed by Apple, the next-best decision is then "to buy or not to buy" - thanks for the link to the Adam tablet, which looks very promissing!

Written on a MBP with Flash by an iPhone / iPod Touch owner without Flash.

If it doesn't have flash, it's not the internet in my hand. It's not the best internet experience I can get, sorry Steve.

Nothing else matters.

Chris, I know this is just an opinion piece, but this post bothered me enough to actually make me go on TUAW to comment on it.

It's cool to voice your opinion and all, but I feel this is all just some fanboy-inspired trash talking... yeah Flash is proprietary and all, but anyone can use it; no one pays a fee to Adobe to use it (unless you count the Flash-building program) and it's used all over the internet, just like HTML, CSS, Javascript.

Saying that Apple is in the right for not utilizing Flash on the grounds that it'll make the browser clunky is perfectly fine with me, but when you say that Adobe is just being evil is where you cross the line into being a plain-old fanboy.

I have no problem with being a fanboy, especially because I am one (obviously for Apple), but when you use this to criticize another company and their obvious accomplishments on the internet, I have to call you out on that.

@Dan and @cannedtoona have deftly illustrated their ignorance. Good job. Have you ever even looked at the accessibility features of iPhone OS 3.0? You can indeed use an iPhone if you are completely and totally blind. Also, you fail to take into account those people who are only partially visually impaired.

Way to go. Please tell me you're both web developers. Please?