Adobe slams Apple's iPad snub

Many people are infuriated by Apple's ongoing reluctance to integrate Flash web technology into its products – but none more than the software's developer, Flash.

Appearing online in the hours that followed Steve Jobs' iPad reveal last night, a new entry on the Adobe blog reads:

"It looks like Apple is continuing to impose restrictions on their devices that limit both content publishers and consumers".

[Noctis Aftermath]

It's just apple/steve jobs being stubborn and the consumers are the ones suffering.
Hopefully someone gives him a good hard slap so he wakes up and implements it.

[whoelse]

I think this sums it up:
http://twitpic.com/10684d

[kneon]

Everything Jobs and co do is directly related to extracting the maximum income from his flock. By enabling flash or Java then many of those mini games that people are paying a few cents for on the app store could be had for free. Free and Apple just don't go together :)

[darthv72]

does apple have their own type of flash media format? It would make sense that they snub flash because they want to promote their own format on their own hardware.

I thought they had a version of quicktime that did what flash and shockwave did...?

[WhittO]

it may be a resource hog like they are saying, but they should give that choice to the consumer and if they wish to use flash but have lower battery life.
i'm sure most people would turn flash on anyway.

Cant hurt to include it and have it as an option to turn on in the settings menu!

I really think that they are keeping flash off their mobile platforms because they would see many people using games etc for free on websites rather than using their App store.

[travelguy2k]

as an app/patch that you can buy on the appstore, that way they can profit from Flash also... and we can all have an internet surfing device that isn't gimped.

[ReBurn]

Yep, just comes right down to revenue.

[Kakkoii]

Same reason their charging $130 extra for the 3G version, which cost's them less than $10 extra to make over the non-3G version.

[Raf1k1]

What possible advantage could there be to not allow or even restrict Flash on Apple devices?

edit: good point.

[Sangria]

Maybe they plan to release another iPad a year later with Flash compatibility and 16/9 screen for $100 more, just like they did with iPhone 3G and 3GS.

[feelintheflow]

They claim that flash is an energy and resource hog, and to make their mobile devices work as efficiently as they do, they would not be able to have flash. One thing I heard is that they said it would cut the 10hr battery life to about 3-4 if people were using programs with flash. Don't know how true that is, and can't say i agree, but thats just what I have heard that apple has said about it.

edit: I don't think either Iphone does flash either, so I don't see what your point about a later version has to do with it. It is a software issue not a hardware issue.

[TheROsingleB]

Apple is afraid to integrate flash because of all the free games, free streaming TV and free streaming video/movies you would have access to if Flash were available on their devices. It would render the App Store for video and games pretty useless, and apple would not see nearly as much money from those areas.

Thats the reason.

[darthv72]

"I don't think either Iphone does flash either, so I don't see what your point about a later version has to do with it. It is a software issue not a hardware issue."

But can't the iphone/touch access sites like youtube? Isnt youtube using flash for their streaming?

Unless there is a plugin that converts flash to quicktime on the fly...?

[feelintheflow]

That is why I can see it on my original iphone and you can watch it on the ipad as in the demonstration. No doubt it has something to do with them wanting to make money form the itunes store on video though. It is not a hardware issue. The 3g iphone can not use flash either. Hope this clears it up.

[Raoh]

HTML5

nuff said

[Theoneneo81]

I agree Flash is highly overrated youtube switched over to HTML5 i would expect Hulu to do the Same in a year or two.

[Major_Tom]

HTML5 is still a long ways off, and the flash doesn't need the iPad, the iPad desperately needs flash.

[Bonsai1214]

definitely the way to go.

[WhittO]

You Tube does use flash in their interface, the "proper" site anyway.
The iphone site for You Tube is awfull when searching for videos, not being able to sort videos out into date etc = fail.

[Kakkoii]

Doesn't matter how well HTML 5 get's adopted.

1.) It still doesn't have anywhere near the feature set of Flash.

2.) So much of the world wide web has integrated Flash/Java content, and there's no way that even 1/10 of it would be ported over to HTML 5 within 5 years.

It's just plain foolish, ignorant and greedy to not implement flash. Under the logic of the battery life argument, you could then argue that there shouldn't be any sort of music or video support either. As listening to music or watching videos drastically decreases battery life also.

[Noob]

The device is bigger and has more power, so why no flash support? I have a 3 year old nokia internet tablet that's capable of flash(that can be turned on and off) and pretty cheap, so there's no excuses. May as well stick with an iPod touch/iPhone or just buy a netbook. Maybe they'll get it right next year.

[feelintheflow]

From what I have read it has to do with battery life from a system resource hog like flash. I am no tech wizard, its just what they are saying. So who knows. Html5 is supposed to be replacing flash anyway at some point isnt it?

[Major_Tom]

It's licensing and apps, it's not anything to do with resource.

Everything you can possibly imagine is available in flash, obviously Apple recognizes the threat otherwise flash would be on there.

[Kakkoii]

@feelintheflow:

Under the logic of the battery life argument, you could then argue that there shouldn't be any sort of music or video support either. As listening to music or watching videos drastically decreases battery life also.

[DJ]

With their marketing and encourage all other smartphone producers to advertise their major advantage over the iPhone and iPad. Without Flash, a good chunk of the Internet simply isn't available for use.

[ATi_Elite]

I don't blame Apple for not wanting anything to do with Adobe.
It is well known that Adobe has severe weaknesses in their security where hackers can infect Adobe products and place viruses on your computer.

I fell victim of a Zero Day virus through Adobe PDF reader and had to reinstall my OS. I no longer use any of Adobe products.

Apple is all about quality and I'm glad they do not do business with Adobe.

The iPAD looks awesome but needs to do more if your going to spend $900 for the top model.

[KingKiff]

We need prpoer net support not useless crap like this... Try getting better protection for your PC problem solved, Adobe never hurt me

[ATi_Elite]

I don't use Adobe because they have security issues and I'm sure that's why Apple doesn't use them either.

[exnihilonihilfit]

You almost certainly use flash every day without realizing it. Your concern about security is related to Adobe Acrobat, not Flash. Acrobat PDF files can indeed have viruses attached, but so can pretty much anything so...

[tedyesca]

iphone 3gs is basically a jailbroken 3gs, so apple would release it just so people wouldnt jailbreak...

[Armyntt]

a 3Gs is not basically a jailbroken 3G. I have a jailbroke 3G and its not a 3Gs. Your 3G is pretty close to a 3Gs via the newest updates.

[mcgrawgamer]

not sure the battery issue is all that viable. My HTC hero has flash support and my battery life has not been affected non what so ever. Jobs can dilly dally with flash all he wants but sooner or later Google and Android are going to come up with the winning formula and apple will be hard pressed to make competitive adjustments.

[psiom]

Here's a few things people may or may not realise about Flash:

* Input Differences:
Most Flash sites and games have rollovers based on the mouse position, and input based on key presses. The iPhone has no passive cursor position (only touch and drag), and it's virtual keyboard cannot operate in the capacity as key-presses in any nice way. A whole lot of existing content would simply be incompatible with the device in any number of potentially major ways.

* Resource control:
To fully understand what is meant by battery life problems, all you really need to know is that the Flash plugin is traditionally capable of taking as much CPU power and memory as it wants. Poorly coded Flash can max the memory and crash (I'm a Flash developer and I've done this to my pc many times due to leaks and errors). Flash can also run the CPU at 100%, non stop, unchecked, for as long as it likes.

* Plugin speed:
Flash has a notoriously slow run time. The PS3 has absolutely horrible Flash 9 performance. It might be a factor in not wanting to bother since a lot of people trying to play games would get very choppy performance anyway.

I don't really know if software/games competition from Flash is really an issue. There are other ways for people to compete using supported web technologies. They can't really stop it just by blocking Flash.

As I said earlier, Flash content is neither designed for this device, nor would it run very well, especially with regards to games. If you want to play anything worth a dime on the iPhone/iPad you would want it to be coded natively in objective C and open GL.

[Zikron]

I'm a Flash Developer too and everything you said is true. However, Adobe has been working on a "Flash Lite" or Low Level Virtual Machine (LLVM) that COULD work on mobile devices such as the iPhone, iPod and iPad. Check out this article straight from Adobe: http://www.adobe.com/devnet... So Flash will be capable of running on these products, the problem has been that Apple is not working with Adobe. The reason for that as a wise man once said: "The answer to all of your questions is money."

Even if these Apple devices can not support Flash in the immediate future Flash CS5 is going to have a packager for the iPhone which will allow Flash developers to bring their work to the platform without knowledge of Objective C.

[Guitardr85]

ehh...Jobs will be dead soon any way...too soon?!?!? On man, not again...

[Justiful]

I think this Video Sums up best all the flaws of the iPad

http://www.youtube.com/watc...