But they can't all be bad... can they? Has anybody seen a Flash intro that doesn't have you scanning the screen desperately for the "skip intro" link?

The question becomes: does mobile Flash really matter? For Android in general, the answer is yes, Flash does matter. For Android 4.0? Maybe. It all depends on how many Android Gingerbread users get the ICS push within the next couple of months and how much they rely on Flash. Most Gingerbread devices will eventually see ICS updates. Yet, with HTML5 being pushed by developers, this is a fork that Android users will hardly notice.

On the other hand, there is a lot of functionality that will be missed without some aspects of Flash for mobile on Android devices. Those using Android 2.3.4-7 have Flash pre-installed without likely realizing that it is there. That was also the first full build of mobile Flash that worked in the way that it was supposed to (even though technically it was available in Froyo 2.2). As of early November, 43.9% of Android users have Gingerbread. That means that they will eventually have ICS. Yet, if Flash is coming out by the end of the year then nearly 95% of those users will probably not miss it since it will take longer than that for the OEMs and carriers to push ICS to those devices (many of which just got Gingerbread in the first place).

For almost all users, the timetable for mobile Flash for Android 4.0 is a non-factor. Even for the next generations of Android (Jelly Bean?), the lack of it will not be a problem as mobile Flash is destined to soon become irrelevant with HTML5. Flash for older Android devices is not going anywhere and, according to Pocket-lint, mobile Flash continue to be support with critical bug fixes and security updates.

Do you really need mobile Flash on your Android Ice Cream Sandwich device? If you do, why? Let us know in the comments.

The app itself is free, and after a 7-day free trial, will require a monthly subscription fee of $4.99.

According to iSwifter founder Rajat Gupta, "We have spent the last year building a cloud-based Flash browser technology that provides low latency interactivity and high frame rate rendering for an optimal user experience." And that user experience will be key, particularly for gameplay.

By creating this app, iSwifter says it will save game developers the time of having to port their Flash games to iPad. But it will also open up the wealth of Flash-based games to iPad users. Mobile gaming is skyrocketing in popularity, and as we wrote last month, iOS users are particularly voracious when it comes to their gaming habits, downloading some 5 million games per day.

But today, just to keep from making things too cut and dry, Google-owned video site YouTube has come out with a list of its own reasons why Flash is here to stay - for now - and HTML5 simply isn't qualified to handle the job at hand.

In short, Harding says that HTML5 video doesn't have the more robust features like camera and microphone access, content protection or even full-screen video display. HTML5 also lacks the "robust video streaming" necessary for streaming full movies and live events, as has become more and more common on YouTube. Beyond these features, Flash offers a single video format, whereas the battle over HTML5 video formats (for which Google's recently introduced WebM as one solution) has not yet been won. This means Flash video can be used wherever Flash is installed, while HTML5 depends on video format and browser - an unacceptable condition for YouTube's vast user base.

So while Steve Jobs has come out with his reasons for abandoning Flash - from battery life to poor security to poor performance on mobile devices - it looks like YouTube has offered its own laundry list of reasons for keeping Flash on its throne.

Those who are excited about this probably think of Flash is a space hog. As ReadWriteWeb has discovered, it sometimes is, though not always.

On the video below, "Adobe Flash Platform Evangelist" Michael Chaize compares performance of Flash 10.1 and HTML5 on mobile devices.

Comparison of performance of Flash Player 10.1 and HTML 5 on Mobile Devices from michael chaize on Vimeo.

Critics of Flash argue that it's subject to too much proprietary control and is too inefficient in its use of system resources. Fans of the format point out that a huge proportion of online video and casual gaming goes on in Flash. Is a browser without Flash support (like Safari in iOS) a broken browser? Contests like Game On 2010 aim to prove that browsers can do incredible things without Adobe. We'll see.

Will It Work?

Those who would challenge Flash face more challenges than just its ubiquity. From security to analytics to authoring tools and maturation of the technology - Flash is believed to have many advantages.

"The working subset of HTML5 is nowhere near the power of Flash," Ray Valdes wrote in an in-depth blog post for Gartner in February.

"There are many advanced effects that are only available in Flash or Silverlight or Java. For example, Google, which is driving HTML5, relies on Flash in Google Maps (for the Streetview) and in Gmail (for the multiple-file upload capability). There are tens of thousands of Flash games on the Web (at game portals like Pogo or as game apps within Facebook or Myspace) that would be difficult to do (in a performant way) with HTML5."

Can the Open Web Technology community of game developers pull it off? Game on!

The fact that this video was shot by Comex - the developer behind the Spirit jailbreak - leads us to believe that this video is most likely genuine. Assuming this is true, it will also be interesting to see if these hackers will manage to run Flash content inside the iOS's version of Safari.

More than Just Another Workaround?

Over the last few months, we have seen a number of workarounds that allowed developers to showcase their Flash content on the iOS. This, however, is the first time we have heard of a project that managed to port Flash directly to the iPhone. Comex considers this to be a "very preliminary" demo, but it definitely looks promising.

All of this, of course, could still turn out to be an elaborate hoax or just another workaround that converts Flash into a format the iOS can play natively. If it turns out to be true, however, then iPhone, iPad and iPod touch owners will soon have another reason to jailbreak their devices.

A substantial portion of the web's creativity can be found in the Flash developer community.

Too much Flash can be very annoying, but offering Google Maps in Flash only makes sense. We're excited to see what developers do with it, and we're far from alone in that excitement.

Greg Sadetsky, CEO of map savvy open source R&D lab Poly9, wrote this morning that "This is great news. There has been a long wait for Google to release an official Flash API for their popular Maps product." ZDNet's Google-watching Garett Rogers appeared to have unearthed the API hours before it was presented at the conference, that's how we knew to start looking around.

Mapping is Hot

The mapping world is exploding right now; from the release of the giant Yahoo! Geo-location database API this week, to the release of control over KML mapping markup by Google last month and the groundswell of developer interest in location-aware applications and frameworks.

Throw some Flash Google Maps into the mix and things are liable to really get interesting. Check out this adorable little Flash Map below.

Google's update mechanism ensures that the browser stays up to date, without any intervention from the user. In addition to this, Google can also test the specific version of Flash it distributes with the browser and ensure that it is stable. With its new crash protection feature in Firefox, Mozilla is also working hard to ensure that crashing Flash content can't take the whole browser down and Apple and Opera offer a similar feature in their browsers.

As CNET's Stephen Shankland rightly notes, Adobe is also working hard to keep Flash relevant and with the latest version of the Flash Player (10.1), Adobe is also trying to gain a foothold on mobile devices. Google's own Android operating system is one of the first to support mobile Flash.

The Open Screen Project "will remove barriers for developers and designers as they publish content and applications across desktops and devices, including phones, mobile Internet devices, and set top boxes," said Adobe in a press release.

In addition to publishing the Flash file format specifications, Adobe will also publish specs for the Adobe Flash Cast protocol and the Action Message Format protocol. They will also publish the device porting layer APIs for the Flash player.

What Adobe is doing with Flash -- making it an open format -- follows in the footsteps of what they did with PDF back in the mid-90s. Adobe saw a lot of innovation happen around PDF after publishing the file spec and is hoping the same thing will happen with Flash. "Only by making the [Flash file format] spec open and available to everyone will we see the universe of the extended web grow," said Dave McAllister, Director of Standards and Open Source at Adobe, who told me that proprietary communications formats "make no sense."

Since releasing the PDF file format in 1993, it has become an open standard for documents and recently took a major step toward becoming the ISO 32000 Standard. Facing increasing pressure from Microsoft's competing Silverlight technology, it seems Adobe is gunning for Flash to become the standard format for delivering rich media to the web and other devices.

Also let's not forget that Adobe has been in this game for far longer than Microsoft, so it seems odd that Silverlight is being pumped up as a Flash killer. Don't get me wrong, Silverlight is very promising. From a technical standpoint, it would be difficult to argue against Nik Cubrilovic's detailed review. But let's not call it a Flash-killer just yet, until we see some actual web app evidence that it's better than Flash. Will designers take to Silverlight like they adopted Flash on masse? That is probably the key question.

In any case, our poll suggests that most people are indeed impressed by Silverlight. 23% rated it "awesome" and 32% "promising". So over half give it the thumbs up. 25% of respondants rated it "meh", but only 9% said it's terrible. Also there's a little confusion out there about what Silverlight is and does, with 11% not sure what it is. We'll look to address that this week with an explanatory post about Silverlight.

Full results:

Question: Microsoft announced on Monday a raft of new features for Silverlight, its web development platform. What do you think of it?

It's awesome! 23% (116 votes)
It looks promising, but need to test it out more 32% (163 votes)
Meh 25% (124 votes)
It's terrible! 9% (44 votes)
I don't get what it is... 11% (55 votes)
Total Votes: 502

According to the statement, the partnership stems from the Open Screen Project, Adobe's industry-wide initiative set to address challenges of Web browsing on a broad range of screens.

ARM believes that the resulting technology will run on "billions of devices from our partners, such as pocket-sized mobile devices, mobile computing platforms, set-top boxes, digital TVs and automotive infotainment," said vice president of marketing, Ian Drew in the statement. "The combination of Adobe Flash and ARM's low-power processor IP and Mali GPU will ensure a fantastic Internet experience for consumers on the world's leading 32-bit architecture."

Getting Flash on mobiles in an efficient manner has been a goal of Adobe for some time. The majority of mobile phones that can use Flash at the moment use Flash Lite, the cut down version of the technology, and one that is limited in what it can play.

Although the technology is not expected to be available until the second half of 2009, Adobe will demonstrate Flash Player 10 during the Adobe MAX developer conference this week in San Francisco.

Today, Skyfire will try to break through Apple's Flash blockade with the submission of its mobile browser, which transcodes Flash into HTML5 in real time, to the App Store. And according to its creators, Apple is going to accept it.

This isn't the first time we've expected to see Flash on the iPhone, but aside from a hack for jailbroken phones and a program that uses your home computer as a proxy server, Flash has remained off-limits for Apple's mobile users.

Skyfire operates similarly to Opera Mini for the iPhone, basing its Web-browsing capabilities off of a Webkit browser core shared with Safari and using cloud-computing to transcode Flash into HTML5 in real time. Flash video is translated every three seconds, with video data being compressed by up to 75%.

Skyfire also avoids the concerns raised in Steve Jobs' recent essay regarding Flash on mobile devices. By optimizing Flash for iPhones and network conditions in the Cloud, Skyfire improves performance and maximizes battery life while playing video. The browser also avoids alternate runtime environments and other security vulnerabilities.

Opera may have already broken the non-native browser barrier, but we'll have to wait and see if Skyfire can use this sort of end-around to bring Flash video to Apple's mobile devices while thumbing their nose at Jobs all the while.

According to Betlem, Adobe is working on the iPhone Flash Player, but the iPhone is a closed platform. In other words, it's entirely up to Apple as to if and when they will allow the player onto the iPhone.

You may remember it was only earlier this spring that Apple CEO Steve Jobs deemed the current version of Flash Lite, the scaled-down version of Flash for mobile phones, as not being good enough for the iPhone. According to Jobs, Flash Lite would spoil the iPhone experience. He also noted that the desktop version wouldn't work either as it would run too slowly on the iPhone. What he called for was the creation of a "missing product in the middle."

Apparently, Adobe has heeded that call and has been busy building that middle-of-the-road version. The only question now is whether or not it will be good enough. At this point, Apple may be feeling the pressure to make Flash work considering Microsoft's recent licensing of Flash and Reader LE on Windows Mobile.

When Will It Arrive?

As to when we will see Flash on iPhone, it's anybody's guess. However, according to AppleInsider, the iPhone/iPod Touch software will be updated next month to v2.2 beta 1. Included in the update will be a newer version of Safari, which has been redesigned to relocate the Google Search bar to the right of the Address Bar. Also in the update will be a new App Store which will feature a new categories page with large category icons and more spacing between each listing.

We suppose it's too much to hope for that the new version of Flash would be pushed down with this upcoming update as well, but Apple has been known to surprise us before.

POLL: What Do You Think About Flash On iPhone?

We're looking forward to having Flash on the iPhone, but we're curious what you think. Has it been difficult for you to use your iPhone/iPod Touch without it? Or do you think "good riddance!" having never liked Flash in the first place? Please take our poll and let us know your thoughts.

]]> Discuss]]> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/adobe_confirms_flash_for_iphon.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/adobe_confirms_flash_for_iphon.php News Wed, 01 Oct 2008 06:39:18 -0800 Sarah Perez An enterprising iPhone hacker has figured out how to get Adobe Flash working on the iPhone, despite Steve Jobs' banishment of the third-party plugin from all iDevices for reasons detailed in his long-winded "Thoughts on Flash" memo posted to Apple.com back in April.

Why do you need Flash on the iPhone? To see banner ads?

No, not really.

And now there's a way to get this content on your iPhone: Frash.

Well, sort of.

Frash is a very, very alpha port of Flash 10.1 designed for the iPhone. The software comes from Comex, the same hacker who brought you the Spirit jailbreak and the JailbreakMe.com website, among other things. And it's just been compiled again.

How to Install Frash (a.k.a Flash for iPhone)

To install Frash properly, you'll need to refer to a how-to guide, like this one hosted on Redmond Pie. But to sum up: You must first jailbreak your phone, download the .deb, upload it to a folder on your iPhone using SSH, restart your phone and... what's that? Did I lose you?

If all that sounds too hard, too geeky or too time-consuming, there is another way, as I discovered this morning. You can just install Frash from Cydia, the jailbreak app store instead.

In order to accomplish this feat, you'll need to already have a jailbroken phone.

Then the instructions are as follows:

1. Launch Cydia and tap the "Manage" button
2. Tap "Sources"
3. Tap the "Edit" button (top-right)
4. Tap "Add" (top-left)
5. In the pop-up box, type http:///repo.benm.at/
6. Tap "Add Source" to close the box
7. Tap the "Done" button (top-right)
8. Go to the "Search" section in Cydia and search for "Frash"
9. Install the app.

Done!

Now you have Frash on your iPhone. SBSettings users can also add the "Frash Toggle" to easily switch Frash on or off. (You'll want to keep it off for the most part because it can hog the battery).

Do You Need This?

Besides the argument, "because you can," is there any real reason to install Flash/Frash on your iPhone? Maybe there's the odd site that requires it, but, for the most part, you can live without it, we'd say.

Besides, in its current implementation, Frash hasn't been able to deliver the Flash content we miss the most: videos. To test, we headed to a few different sites with Flash-only video. (You can see the ones we chose - we pulled them from our "iDon't" flickr photoset here). Trying to play the Flash videos either crashed the browser, led to weird error messages or simply left us staring at blank, black screens where the video should have been.

But that's why it's called, alpha, right?

Banner ads, however, worked just fine.