Sean Walther's Blog

Apple, Adobe, Flash, iPhone, iPad and Open Source

I just saw an interesting blog “Back and Forth” between a few sites:

• Robert Scoble at Scobleizer
• John Gruber at Daring Fireball
• Dave Winer at scripting.com

The conversation revolves around the future of Flash and open standards. › Continue reading

Tags: Adobe, Apple, Daring Fireball, Dave Winer, Flash, iPad, iPhone, John Gruber, Macromedia, open standard, Robert Scoble, Scobleizer, Scripting.com

Wired: Why Apple Won’t Allow Adobe Flash on iPhone

A topic I am highly interested, the intersection of two of my favorite technologies — Adobe Flash (earlier, Macromedia Flash) and the iPhone.

Wired.com has a story published today, November 17, 2008 — Why Apple Won’t Allow Adobe Flash on iPhone.

Although there are reports that Adobe is investing in porting Flash over to the iPhone, Flash for the iPhone (seangw.com), according to the iPhone SDK agreement, recently published by wikileaks.org, “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).”

Personally I just cannot see Apple eliminating Flash from the iPhone.  It is a power struggle between Adobe and Apple, but why?  Adobe’s applications have supported the core Apple “worhshippers”, designers, who have used Apple devotedly for decades.  The only thing that Flash does for the iPhone is eliminate control by Apple over content on the iPhone.  We all know it’s going to happen sooner or later.

Some other arguments Apple is using, or that can be conceivable are:

• Lack of control over applications 
• Goes against the iPhone developer’s Terms of Service specifically prohibiting Flash from appearing on the iPhone.
• Customer support complaints regarding flash (given the already large number of requests for the iPhone)
• Battery life issues
• Straining the iPhone’s limited resources

Tags: Adobe, Apple, battery life, Flash, iPhone, iPhone SDK, iPhone SDK Agreement, Macromedia, Macromedia Flash 8, Terms of Service, wikileaks.org, Wired