what's so hard about getting flash on smartphones?

[rudeguy]

I don't understand what the big problem is. Can someone dumb it down for me?

 

[Pliablemoose]

Because Adobe is lazy and won't optimize it for the platform as a plug in.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-10098883-92.html

Notice the date...

 

[zerocool84]

Nothing you just have to support it and since phones are so powerful now they have the horsepower to run it. Certain phone manufacterers *cough apple* use BS excuses as to why they aren't going to put it on their products. The Motorola Devour which isn't a powerhouse at all is getting Flash. Phones that claim to have the best browsing experience need Flash since there are so many things you can't do on the web if you don't have it.

 

[Pliablemoose]

snip.

Soooo... Adobe hasn't been promising to bring Flash to smartphones for years?

"Our goal (was to make) a billion phones Flash-enabled by 2010," Lynch said. "We're actually going to get 1 billion Flash-enabled phones by 2009."

The only phone I know of that works with Flash is the N900, and Flash brings it to it's buggy knees... The N900 is more computer than phone, and it's a half finished offering from Nokia.

The flip side of the coin is that nothing will keep sites like Hulu from developing an app for the iPhone or iPad, just like there's an app for YouTube...

Adobe is going to screw around and lose their dominant position, I give them 2 more years, and the only sites left with Flash will be those poorly written restaurant websites that are all Flash.

http://www.joescrabshack.com/

http://www.applebees.com

http://www.swadleys.com/

http://www.aquaknox.net/

 

[aceO07]

Because Adobe is lazy and won't optimize it for the platform as a plug in.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-10098883-92.html

Notice the date...

Wow. I didn't realize that announcement was from 2008. End of 2008. Good thing I haven't had a need for flash on my phone when I'm outside. I don't think 3.2" HVGA screen would be that great for flash anyways. Unless it's optimized (compared to PC version), it will also eat batteries.

 

[aceO07]

http://www.joescrabshack.com/

You might be surprised to know that if you disable js/flash for that site, it shows html/css instead.

 

[Pliablemoose]

Hell, Adobe's likely trying to figure out how to optimize the user data it stores on a smartphone with a flash capable browser.

Take a look under criticism in the Wiki entry... I always wondered why some of those cookies came back so quick...

http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Macromedia_Flash

 

[rudeguy]

so its just Adobe being its stupid self?

Why not make a quick couple million by releasing a paid for version?

 

[Xellos2099]

N900 got flash

 

[BassBomb]

its so they can bring out a new version of a phone and call it iphone 3GS flash!!

 

[Pliablemoose]

its so they can bring out a new version of a phone and call it iPhone 3GS HTML5!!

Fixed that for you

 

[secretanchitman]

N900 got flash

firefox for maemo RC3 via daring fireball:

We’ve decided to disable plugin (not to be confused with add-ons, which are supported) support for this release. The Adobe Flash plugin used on many sites degraded the performance of the browser to the point where it didn’t meet our standards.

honestly, i see no need for flash. its nice to see my browsing is much faster on my iphone. however...on my laptop/desktop, its basically all but a requirement.

 

[Pliablemoose]

We’ve decided to disable plugin (not to be confused with add-ons, which are supported) support for this release. The Adobe Flash plugin used on many sites degraded the performance of the browser to the point where it didn’t meet our standards.

Until dual core CPU's start appearing on phones I don't think Flash is a viable option on cell phones, by then HTML5 will be that much more common, the industry is just going to leapfrog Flash on smartphones.

The other issue is that Flash uses quite a bit of data on already strained wireless networks...

 

[Pliablemoose]

Huh, speaking of HTML5, I just signed on for the Beta in YouTube, it's pretty good, watching in FS 720p using Chrome...

 

[gorcorps]

Flash is just a terrible way of doing things. Not optimized, and takes way too much to play properly. Steve Jobs claims that because of how bad it is he doesn't want to have Apple put the time in to make flash work, and hopes something better will start being adopted if he didn't support flash (like HTML5). Not sure if that's something he really said, or a rumor, or if it was true if he did say it.

If it's true it's probably the only thing about Jobs' thought process I can totally agree with. Flash needs to be done away with

 

[deputc26]

Flash is compute intensive.
Phones have limited compute resources.
Problem.

 

[deputc26]

Huh, speaking of HTML5, I just signed on for the Beta in YouTube, it's pretty good, watching in FS 720p using Chrome...

what is FS? fullscreen? I thought the youtube beta html 5 mode didn't support fullscreen *goes to check it out*

 

[Leros]

its so they can bring out a new version of a phone and call it iphone 3GS flash!!

Apple locks down the app store to control what can be run on the iPhone. If you allow Flash, developers can just develop Flash versions of their app which completely bypasses the app store. That's my conspiracy theory at least.

 

[ChAoTiCpInOy]

Apple has no problem with developers having web apps. In fact that's how they wanted developers to develop at first. Building apps that actually use the hardware efficiently is what Apple wants.

 

[Leros]

Apple has no problem with developers having web apps. In fact that's how they wanted developers to develop at first. Building apps that actually use the hardware efficiently is what Apple wants.

I would say they don't mind people building lousy crippled web apps. But flash would allow them to build web apps which rival the apps in the app store.

 

[Capt Caveman]

Apple locks down the app store to control what can be run on the iPhone. If you allow Flash, developers can just develop Flash versions of their app which completely bypasses the app store. That's my conspiracy theory at least.

Yet Apple wants further development of HTML5 over Flash, which goes against that.

I would say they don't mind people building lousy crippled web apps. But flash would allow them to build web apps which rival the apps in the app store.

Google Voice in HTML5 is not too crippled imho.

 

[ChAoTiCpInOy]

I would say they don't mind people building lousy crippled web apps. But flash would allow them to build web apps which rival the apps in the app store.

Would you want an app that is specifically designed to run on iPhone OS or an app that runs in flash?

 

[Leros]

Would you want an app that is specifically designed to run on iPhone OS or an app that runs in flash?

Well, if Apple won't let us have certain apps, I would prefer to have those in Flash than not have them at all.

 

[Gunbuster]

What do all the porn streaming sites use? Do you really want zero free wireless network bandwidth?

 

[boomhower]

Personally I think flash on cell phones is overrated. Something larger like the ipad and netbooks sure, they should be a complete browsing experience. Smartphones, eh, I can live without it.