Software
Adobe Flash Player 10.1 – the iPhone’s missing link?
By Peter CohenOctober 5, 2009, 5:27 am PT
Adobe Systems on Monday unveiled Flash Player 10.1 software for smartphones, smartbooks, netbooks and other Internet-connected devices. iPhone OS is conspicuously absent from the list of supported platforms, but Flash Player 10.1 could be the fabled “middle product” Steve Jobs has been looking for. Flash Player 10.1 is expected to be available as a public developer beta for Windows Mobile, Palm WebOS, Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux “later this year,” with public betas for Google Android and Symbian OS to follow in early 2010.
In related news, Adobe and Research In Motion (RIM) previously announced a collaboration to bring Flash Player to Blackberry smartphones.
Flash is ubiquitous on the Web as a delivery system for rich media content including video, animation and sound. Other efforts have tried to supplant Flash’s dominance: Microsoft developed a competing technology called Silverlight, for example, while HTML5 offers some capabilities similar to Flash — Adobe estimates that the previous release, Flash Player 10, has been installed on more than 93 percent of computers since its release 10 months ago.
Flash Player 10.1 – the missing product in the middle?
So far, Flash has been a non-starter on the popular iPhone. That’s not for lack of trying, according to Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen, who has said during Adobe calls with financial analysts that Adobe has made “internal progress” getting Flash to work on the iPhone.
Apple CEO Steve Jobs has been critical of Adobe’s efforts in the past, indicating that the desktop version of Flash runs too slowly on the iPhone, and that Flash Lite, Adobe’s current mobile-optimized version of Flash, “is not capable of being used with the Web.” Jobs said during a 2008 meeting with shareholders that Adobe is missing a product in the middle.
And at least in some respects, Flash Player 10.1 would seek to bridge that gap which exists between the desktop Flash experience and Flash Lite. Adobe calls Flash Player 10.1 the “first full Flash Player” for mobile devices.
Flash Player 10.1 leverages Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) on new handhelds, for example, to help accelerate video and graphics. It also supports multi-touch interfaces, gestures, accelerometer input and screen orientation – all features found on the iPhone (along with an increasing number of mobile devices from other manufacturers).
What’s more, Adobe is emphasizing Flash Player 10.1′s support of the Adobe-led Open Screen Project, an effort involving more than four dozen companies whose goal is to provide a consistent runtime environment for rich Internet applications operating across mobile devices, desktop computers and other products.
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8 Responses to “Adobe Flash Player 10.1 – the iPhone’s missing link?”
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Adobe Flash Player 10.1 – the iPhone’s missing link?
By Peter CohenOctober 5, 2009, 5:27 am PT
Adobe Systems on Monday unveiled Flash Player 10.1 software for smartphones, smartbooks, netbooks and other Internet-connected devices. iPhone OS is conspicuously absent from the list of supported platforms, but Flash Player 10.1 could be the fabled “middle product” Steve Jobs has been looking for. Flash Player 10.1 is expected to be available as a public developer beta for Windows Mobile, Palm WebOS, Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux “later this year,” with public betas for Google Android and Symbian OS to follow in early 2010.
In related news, Adobe and Research In Motion (RIM) previously announced a collaboration to bring Flash Player to Blackberry smartphones.
Flash is ubiquitous on the Web as a delivery system for rich media content including video, animation and sound. Other efforts have tried to supplant Flash’s dominance: Microsoft developed a competing technology called Silverlight, for example, while HTML5 offers some capabilities similar to Flash — Adobe estimates that the previous release, Flash Player 10, has been installed on more than 93 percent of computers since its release 10 months ago.
Flash Player 10.1 – the missing product in the middle?
So far, Flash has been a non-starter on the popular iPhone. That’s not for lack of trying, according to Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen, who has said during Adobe calls with financial analysts that Adobe has made “internal progress” getting Flash to work on the iPhone.
Apple CEO Steve Jobs has been critical of Adobe’s efforts in the past, indicating that the desktop version of Flash runs too slowly on the iPhone, and that Flash Lite, Adobe’s current mobile-optimized version of Flash, “is not capable of being used with the Web.” Jobs said during a 2008 meeting with shareholders that Adobe is missing a product in the middle.
And at least in some respects, Flash Player 10.1 would seek to bridge that gap which exists between the desktop Flash experience and Flash Lite. Adobe calls Flash Player 10.1 the “first full Flash Player” for mobile devices.
Flash Player 10.1 leverages Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) on new handhelds, for example, to help accelerate video and graphics. It also supports multi-touch interfaces, gestures, accelerometer input and screen orientation – all features found on the iPhone (along with an increasing number of mobile devices from other manufacturers).
What’s more, Adobe is emphasizing Flash Player 10.1′s support of the Adobe-led Open Screen Project, an effort involving more than four dozen companies whose goal is to provide a consistent runtime environment for rich Internet applications operating across mobile devices, desktop computers and other products.
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8 Responses to “Adobe Flash Player 10.1 – the iPhone’s missing link?”
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Flash runs like crap on a mac. It’ll run like crap on an iPhone. No thanks.
Hmm. Watching a 320×240 video in Flash via Safari last night, had both my CPU pegged at something like 120%. Ridic. Adobe, I raise my eyebrow at thee. (For like the 3rd time in the past hour or so.)
Adobe doesn’t care about the people who have to run Flash crap on their computers. They only care about the advertisers who pay for the flash development tools. That is the majority of the revenue from Flash for Adobe. We are not their customers, the advertisers and spammers are. Thanks but no thanks.
Please keep the iPhone free from Flash. I have Flash block on my Mac to accomplish the same thing. I never click on blocked flash content and I don’t seem to be missing anything.
If Adobe was concerned for their Flash users, they would provide tools to manage Flash to users. The fact that they don’t should tell you everything you need to know about what Adobe cares about.
I don’t really see what the problem is unless Flash is integrated as part of Mobile Safari. That would definitely muck up the Web experience for many iPhone users. But if there were an app, and if Mobile Safari just handed off Flash content to that app, it would be an effective compromise.
Sure. But i doubt that Adobe is interested in such a compromise. That would do nothing for the advertisers since no one would ever click on the ads.
Apple is in a touch spot here. Apple seems to be holding out and not allowing Flash, Silverlight, etc. and probably for good reason. To date, this hasn’t been an issue because Flash implementations on other phones were not really even usable. However, if 10.1 is the real deal, then the iPhone would have a perceived weakness as compared to other phones. As long as the exclusion of Flash doesn’t impact iPhone sales, we can say that Apple is on the right course. Until then, lets hope more web sites adopt HTML 5, etc. based standards for their solutions.
I do not like flash. I despise it, actually. Part of it is irrational, but most of it is based on the performance. It’s abysmal. And video encoded in flash looks horrible.
Adobe is a horrendous Mac OS X citizen, so why on earth would I want it on my iPhone!? Not ever, no way, no how, no thanks.