Love it or hate it, Adobe’s Flash is one of the Web’s most prominent technologies. But when Apple released the iPhone in 2007, support for Flash was conspicuously absent from the device’s Web browser. Since then, the lack of Flash on the iPhone—and whether it’s more detrimental to Apple or Adobe—has remained the topic of an almost constant speculation, peppered with occasional volleys from both companies.
While the back-and-forth between the two has yet to escalate into an out-and-out conflict, reading between the lines makes it clear that there’s more than a little disagreement over the future of Flash on the iPhone—or whether indeed it even has a future.
Also ICH hätte ja schon gern einen Flash Player auf meinem iPhone. Ich stoße einfach zu oft auf Websites, deren zentrale Inhalte ich ohne schlicht nicht zu sehen bekomme. Und das nervt.
Die Ankündigungen am ersten Tag des Mobile World Congress in Barcelona unterstreichen vor allem eines: Apple hat mit dem iPhone und dem App Store dazu alles* richtig gemacht.
Adobe unveiled a new version of its Flash video player Monday that makes it possible to watch videos and other content on some mobile phones. Just don’t expect to use it on an iPhone.
Flash is the most common software for watching video on the Internet, including ones from YouTube and countless other sites. It’s also used to view other features on Web sites, such as zooming in on and scrolling over products. Odds are you use it every day, as Flash is installed on 98% of Internet-connected computers, according to Adobe.
Until now, however, only a slimmed down version of the software was available for mobile phones. Adobe has been working with a number of wireless carriers and phone makers to develop a version of Flash that will run on all devices. Notably absent from the project: Apple, which along with BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion, is one of the few smartphone companies that doesn’t allow Flash in its device
The trend continued at Adobe’s annual MAX conference in San Francisco Tuesday. The company’s technology chief, Kevin Lynch, said that Flash would now work on smartphones—those big-screened phones that are increasingly able to do all the things PCs can. He demonstrated the software on a device from Samsung, one that ran Microsoft’s Windows Mobile operating system, and one that ran Google’s new Android OS.
Then he held up an iPhone. The crowd expected a Steve Jobs-like “one more thing” announcement. Instead, Lynch said that Flash still wasn’t available for the iPhone. The company was working on it, he added.
If only it was that easy. Getting Flash to work on the iPhone isn’t a technical challenge but a political one. Apple has taken steps to ensure that only content it approves will run on the iPhone. It’s a way of ensuring that developers will design software specifically for the device, which should in turn boost its appeal. The promise of Flash is that it commoditizes the phone itself by making content available regardless of device. So it might be a while.
Ich bin gestern Abend zum ersten Mal mit der neuen mobilen Bordkarte von Lufthansa auf meinem iPhone geflogen. Was — abgesehen von einigen (noch) verständnislosen, aber sehr interessierten Blicken des Personals am Gate in Tegel — tadellos funktioniert hat.
Allerdings gibt es dabei doch noch einen kleinen “Medienbruch”: Der Online-Check-in funktioniert auf dem iPhone leider nur eingeschränkt, weil Lufthansa die Sitzplatzauswahl in Flash umgesetzt hat. Das ja bekanntlich noch nicht für das iPhone erhältlich ist. Eingecheckt hab ich also auf dem PC (die Platzwahl hätte ich mir aber auch schenken können, der Lufthansa Airport Bus ist mir nämlich trotzdem vor der Nase weggefahren).
Trotzdem: Ein praktischer Service, der Zeit, Nerven und Papier spart. Vorbildlich.
Die “Macworld” weist (via Gizmodo) darauf hin, dass man auf einem iPhone mit Software 2.0 (also natürlich auch dem iPhone 3G) Videos von YouTube auf einer Site in Safari jetzt direkt anklicken kann. Der Clip öffnet sich daraufhin im YouTube-Player.
Die Kommentare unter dem Artikel lassen die Zukunft eines “vollwertigen” Flash Players für das iPhone allerdings weiter ungewiss erscheinen.
Adobe Systems Inc. has begun work to create a media player destined for Apple Inc.’s iPhone, Chief Executive Shantanu Narayen said Tuesday, thus adding a new wrinkle to a standoff between the two long-term partners.
In comments widely reported last month, Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs said the company’s iPhone hadn’t adopted Adobe’s mobile version of its Flash program because of technical and performance concerns. At the time, he suggested Adobe work on a new version of the player.
On Tuesday, when asked about the issue during a conference call with investors, Narayen said the company had since obtained the software developer tools Apple released last month. The tools will let Adobe build a Flash player for the iPhone, then distribute it through Apple’s iTunes online store, he said.
“We believe Flash is synonymous with the Internet experience, and we are committed to bringing Flash to the iPhone,” Narayen said. “We have evaluated (the software developer tools) and we think we can develop an iPhone Flash player ourselves.”
Das Bookmarklet iTransmogrify bringt zumindest allerlei häufige Flash-Inhalte von Websites auf das iPhone, indem es sie zum Beispiel in den YouTube-Client umleitet. Geht auch ohne Jailbreak.
Gestatten…
...Thomas Cloer, Redakteur bei der COMPUTERWOCHE und ehemaliger iPhone-Nutzer (zuletzt: 3GS). Ich schreibe hier mehr oder weniger regelmäßig, was es rund um das Apple-Smartphone Neues gibt.
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