Adobe Flash Coming To Apple's iPhone -- Maybe, Someday (AAPL, ADBE)

Dan Frommer | June 17, 2008 6:21 AM

hulu-iphone.jpgAdobe's Flash animation/video player, missing from the 3G iPhone that Apple unveiled last week, could still make its way to Apple's phone sooner or later, via the iPhone's third-party apps program. If Apple lets it get there.

During Adobe's Q2 earnings call Monday, chief Shantanu Narayen said that Adobe had tackled some of the technical challenges to getting Flash to work on the iPhone:

We have a version that’s working on the emulation. This is still on the computer and you know, we have to continue to move it from a test environment onto the device and continue to make it work. So we are pleased with the internal progress that we’ve made to date.

Sounds promising. But once the technical work is done, Adobe (ADBE) still has a big business hurdle ahead: Convincing Apple (AAPL) to let Flash onto the iPhone. Apple boss Steve Jobs has been critical of Flash for the iPhone in the past, suggesting that the mobile version of Flash isn't powerful enough for the iPhone, and that the Mac version is too bloated for mobile gadgets.

The easiest solution, which Adobe could do on its own, is to make a standalone Flash player, which people could use to watch Flash video files or animations by themselves. To get that into the market, Adobe would just need to submit it for inclusion into the iPhone apps store.

But that wouldn't be anything like the way Flash works on a computer, where it (mostly) seamlessly displays animations, videos, user interfaces, and advertising into the design of a Web site -- because it has been integrated into a Web browser.

Adobe could independently achieve that on the iPhone, in theory, by commissioning/building its own Web browser with built-in Flash software -- even one using the same Webkit guts as Safari. But assuming this is possible, it would also be very cumbersome. And there's no guarantee that Apple would allow a Safari competitor into the apps store.

The most elegant solution: Figuring out a deal with Apple to include Flash as a plugin of sorts for the iPhone's Safari browser. But that would require a much different business relationship than Apple has with the other companies making software for the iPhone apps platform. And even if Adobe aces Flash for the iPhone and makes it the most efficient version of its plugin ever, the business part of the process could hold things up for a while longer.

Will we ever see Flash on the iPhone? For Adobe's sake, we hope so: We think there's a bright future for the iPhone platform, and if Flash isn't a part of it, Adobe is missing out. We admit that the Flash plugin on our Mac isn't the most polished software we've ever used. But there's certainly some parts of the Web -- Hulu, for example -- that rely on Flash, and that we'd love to use on the iPhone.

See Also:
iPhone 3G No-Shows: Adobe Flash, Video Recording, Copy And Paste
Adobe CEO Narayen's Six-Month Review: Thumbs Up
Adobe: We Need Flash On The iPhone

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35 Comments

David Dugan (URL) said:
Interesting, Dan...

You've been beating the Flash on iPhone drum for months, but it seems that you've finally come around to see that Adobe needs the iPhone far more than Apple needs Flash, if the following quote is any indication: "if Flash isn't a part of [the iPhone], Adobe is missing out.".

(Safe to say that six months ago you might have written "if Flash isn't a part of the [the iPhone], Apple is off its meds", yeah?)

Just out of curiosity, what has been the catalyst of your new world view here? Is it that you now have your own iPhone now and realize (like the rest of us) that you haven't missed Flash very much?
iName said:
adobe does not need the iphone. the iphone needs adobe.
Gareth Bourne said:
Apple certainly doesn't need Flash on the iPhone. Safari Mobile (Safari Touch?) is the most popular mobile browser by far, and the general consensus is that it is the best mobile browser around.

All of this is a somewhat moot point. The iPhone simply does not have the power to run Flash in any sort of usable way. It just doesn't. Even Flash Lite is a complete dog on the handful of mobiles that support it. And, Flash Lite isn't the "real internet", it is only a subset.

Also, most Flash websites would suffer from poor usability when scaled to the iPhone, and considering the touch interface, as opposed to mouse and cursor, and cursor positioning.
Kontra (URL) said:
Even if Flash could be optimized to run faster on OS X with less of an impact on the CPU and battery life, there'd still remain a huge issue of clashing UIs and interaction frameworks on the iPhone between Adobe and Apple. The iPhone is establishing the first multi-touch driven mass-market platform, Flash doesn't even have a multi-touch framework. I explore the implications of this for both Adobe and Apple in:

The new UI wars: Why there's no Flash on iPhone 2.0
http://counternotions.com/2008/06/17/flash-iphone/
ZinkDifferent said:
Seems Apple and iPhone are doing just fine without Flash - in fact, I'd say they are doing MUCH better without Flash, and the ensuing complaints about performance (by the same folks, ironically, who clamor for Flash)
jbelkin said:
Flash is the animated GIF's of web 2.0 - amusing but ultimately pointless. Flash video is low quality so that's why there's a transition to something better already. Flash is now laden with DRM or in this case non-Apple DRM. Flash is 98% web ads. Other than the Flash Marketing manager posting here, it's hard to believe anyone would defend or even actually want Flash on the iphone - it's like asking for FM radio on the ipod - some people are stuck in stuck on something they grew up on and think it's good forever. It's old school and it's time to let it stay on the web where it can serve its purpose in animating mortgage rate ads.
Name (Required) said:
I hope this is the death nell of Flash. Sites that (over) use are a pain to use and generally slow (and thats on FiOS on a less than two year old computer). I'm sure Flash has a place and I probably don't notice it then, but it seems all the bicycling and car manufacturers seem to use it on their sites and they are painful to use.

One hopes that this will lead to non-Flash versions of those and many other sites.
SJ said:
Flash is the least stable thing on my mac. Why the hell would I want it on my iphone? It is up to adobe to un-f*(#$*)_ themselves.
Lino Positano (URL) said:
As wait for the Lakers/Celtics game, I am amused to read what seems to be the majority opinion that Flash is old school, previous technology, nearly done, now on the rearguard, and perhaps dead but Adobe does not know it yet. You know that Flash is nearly done when conservatives liked johnny-come-lately shoe companies embrace it wholeheartedly to show ads, as someone previously stated.

Flash helped to distinguish Macromedia from Adobe in web development, but then Adobe bought Flash and the rest of the apps (it unceremoniously killed off GoLive after misdeveloping it for years).Adobe could mismanage Flash too if it is not attentive to the huge possibilities that the iPhone can offer.

And now Apple -- who is on undoubtedly on the forefront of software and hardware development for the web -- is hinting via its actions that Flash is done as far as the iPhone is concerned. It's funny. Flash was big, now it's not. So many creative developers are correctly critical of its lack of iPhone touch capabilities.

As Apple and its loyal developers work on today's alternative, I am waiting with interest to learn where SproutCore may go to perhaps embrace, extend, and likely nullify the much-maligned Flash and the unproven as well as developmentally disabled Silverdark.
KenC said:
Flash will be terribly slow on an iPhone ARM processor. There's no way to get around it. Unacceptable.

Look at what Nerayan said:

"We have a version that’s working on the emulation. This is still on the computer and you know, we have to continue to move it from a test environment onto the device and continue to make it work."

It works on a Mac in "emulation", presumably the SDK. It uses the Mac's resources to run. He stresses the need to actually get it to work on an actual iPhone, which it clearly does not. If Adobe can't make it work on a device after having it for a couple months, by now, then it's clearly got issues.

Give it up. Frommer, have you read about Sproutcore? Go to www.roughlydrafted.com to learn more about what happened at the WWDC.
R said:
Fail. This story is outright inaccurate. Apple's licensing doesn't allow for this, or a custom browser.


no interpreted code may be downloaded and used in an Application except for code that is interpreted and run by Apple’s Published APIs and built-in interpreter(s).


That would include a webkit or gecko based browser.

Research, write, proofread, publish.

Source:
http://blog.wired.com/monkeybites/2008/03/has-apple-banne.html
SeanC said:
These comments are hilariously off mark. Lets see what we have.

Flash is not 'laden' with DRM, and Flash video has moved on to mpg4 already, you can't expect any better quality then that for awhile. In fact video loaded through the flash player probably makes up much more bandwidth these days then ads running through the flash player. Why would you want to lose out on all that content?

I find it funny that people think there's no processing power available to run Flash, but that Sproutcore is a magical gift from God, which is powered by the very slow, non compiled, dynamic language called javascript.

And if you think Apples interpreter licensing has any affect on Adobe, you have no idea how these big companies work.
@David Dugan: Sorry I don't have a detailed response to your question. I guess I've just changed my mind. I think Flash would be nice to have on the iPhone -- and people should be able to turn it off, if they want -- but at this point I do think Adobe has more to lose here than Apple.

I don't own one yet -- Sprint contract recently ran out -- and will be one of the first in line on July 11.
Jason The Saj said:
"Adobe needs the iPhone far more than Apple needs Flash"

The moronic thing is, it's not about either of the !@#$% companies. The fact is that I the customer want both iPhone + Flash. And so do thousands of others.

And we'll hammer everyone until then.

***

"Safari Mobile (Safari Touch?) is the most popular mobile browser by far, and the general consensus is that it is the best mobile browser around."

And Opera is already being modified for Windows based touch mobiles. So while Safari has the lead. It needs to retain it.

Oh, and Safari is NOT the real internet. Maybe at best it's real HTML.

***

"The iPhone simply does not have the power to run Flash in any sort of usable way."

I doubt that, Flash Player 7 runs on my mobile with far far far less specs than the iPhone.

***

"there'd still remain a huge issue of clashing UIs and interaction frameworks on the iPhone between Adobe and Apple."

This is a non issue as people have already designed Flash apps that utilize similar input controls as Apple's iPhone. In fact, Flash is probably the one web tool that can easily migrate to such behaviors.

***

"Flash is the animated GIF's of web 2.0 - amusing but ultimately pointless"

Flash is far more. Flash is a RIA system that allows desktop like applications via the web.
Krista Sanders (URL) said:
We were literally just having a meeting the other day about creating a flash-animated background for our upcoming iPhone app. We ended up tabling the issue because of the lack of support on the device. But, now it sounds like we can continue the discussions.
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Joshua Whalen (URL) said:
This isn't about Adobe needs Apple or Apple needs Adobe, or Flash is stable or not, or even performance or user experience. It's about Apple taking the first aggressive steps in taking back it's previously dominant position in internet video for Quicktime.

Frankly, I prefer Quicktime, if only for the ability to save video clips to my disk for later reference. Flash has a disturbing locked-down quality to it, and this effectively prohibits fair use for historical archiving purposes. I like to keep a clippings file of everything I view online that I think may have historical relevance, and Flash makes this very difficult. I also don't like urrendering internet content to proprietary closed standards, so I'll take Quicktime's MP4 format any day overv Flash. Good luck, Apple.
Rob said:
As a few of the more enlightened have suggested, it indeed is not about it being more 1 companies loss than the other. Several of the web based analytics apps that I use to do my job leverage a 3rd party suite of flash graphs and maps. Not being able to get access to my dashboards is giving me second thoughts about purchasing the iphone. Flash is so much more than just videos and youtube, people. The bottom line is that in today's world customers like me *need* and/or expect flash to run on their web enabled phone not just for the amusement of watching a video, but rather for running our day to day business.

Kino said:
Adobe need Apple.... Apple need Adobe as well...... as iPhone User , I wish I could see Flash on my iPhone...... because they are both amazing!!! Please come soon, Adobe Flash! I am with you Adobe, I am with you, Apple iPhone..... the world is more beautiful, when we are together peacefully!!!!!!!!
Erick (URL) said:
Good
elliott said:
Why don't they make a flash you could turn on or off
? Or something like flashblock https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/433 ?
That way it wouldn't get bogged down by ads and such
Kenny (URL) said:
what I don't understand is - aren't Youtube videos in flash? They play very well on my iPhone... Why can't other sites play flash as well?
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epgomez said:
Apple is making a big mistake by ignoring flash. There are now some touch cellphones coming into the market far superior than the iphone that offers full internet experience as if your using your pc or notebook. 5 megapixel camera phones with internet flash support. I bought an iphone but I still use my nokia n82 just to view the news on the net because it's flash. I'm considering selling iphone and by htc touch hd phone instead. Of course apple fan boys will stick to the iphone through thick and thin.
bill pullman said:
I just bought an iphone and had it in my mind that it would be a mini-mac. Needelss to say, I'm disappointed. I can't listen to npr audio streams, watch most video files, hulu won't work... this thing is kinda shit. It needs a finder and it needs to somewhat work like a mack. Why can't I get internet radio under the itunes app on the phone???? It works on my macbook pro. All i can do on the iphones itues store is buy stupid songs for .99... bullshit. It won't sync. via wifi... WTF???

What can't my IM program run in the background????

I'm on the verge of returning it, and I'm a die hard apple fan... I expected a lot more out of this stupid phone.

I want a micro mac, not something that resembles palm os. Gimmie a finder, cut and paste, flash, and more codecs, full featured itunes phone app, etc.

Damn.
dustin said:
regardless of all this company needs phone or phone needs company. If I go to ford.com or nascar.com and wanna view a photo gallery I should be able to on this state of the art piece of equipment. However, I cannot because it requires flash. Flash is not entirely internet ads, it's a little deeper than that. So that leaves me visiting my traditional desktop to view galleries I should be able to view on this lovely iphone.
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Adam said:
As a user of an iPod Touch, I'm sick and tired of blue cubes (unrenderable Flash). I don't give a damn if Apple needs Adobe or vice versa. And as for the dumb comment above about the SDK not allowing interpreted code: Change it! Apple limits just about everything, and I'm tired of this mentality that makes Microsoft look open.
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