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Will Steve Jobs ever let iPad owners have Flash?

Summary: Consumers are caught in the middle of a battle between Apple ad Adobe. But will the popularity of the iPad eventually mean that Steve Jobs will have to let iPad owners have Flash?

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

By for Hardware 2.0 |

Consumers are caught in the middle of a battle between Apple ad Adobe. But will the popularity of the iPad eventually mean that Steve Jobs will have to let iPad owners have Flash?

Some numbers for you to mull over.

According to a survey by ChangeWave, some 1 in 5 US consumers plan on buying an iPad. But, when existing iPad owners were surveyed about their pet peeves, the lack of Flash support came in at the top, grabbing some 17% of the vote.

Two things can happen:

  1. The iPad is such an overwhelming success that content providers either have to drop Flash or support two content delivery platforms to satisfy the needs to iPad users
  2. The number of iPad owners hits a critical mass where Apple can no longer defend its stance on having the iPad a Flash-free zone and will have to give in to Adobe

Which will it be?

We've certainly seen Apple bend in the past, but my feeling is that we're not going to see any change of heart over Flash. Apple obviously has a dislike for Flash, and unless Adobe come out with a far superior platform, I see the iPad and iPhone remaining Flash-free.

Topics: iPad, Apple, Mobility

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75 comments
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  • No

    He knocked Adobe to the floor and kept kicking Adobe. I don't think he'll change his mind now.<br><br>If there's no Flash on the iPhone/iTouch, then the same will go for the iPad. Jobs is waiting for HTML5 which will implement Flash's replacement. Jobs will receive this new update with open arms.
    Maarek
    Reply Vote

    • RE: Will Steve Jobs ever let iPad owners have Flash?

      @Maarek Job's can wait for HTML5. By the time that all major browsers support HTML5 to the extent that developers won't be stuck in cross-browser-compatibility hell, iPad 1.0 will be history. In the meantime, consumers lose because Apple won't even let them choose whether they want it or not. Everybody was also chanting that DHTML supposed to destroy Flash, 10 years ago.
      RepublicOfDuh
      Reply Vote

      • RE: Will Steve Jobs ever let iPad owners have Flash?

        @RepublicOfDuh have you actually USED HTML5? It's crap!! The controls don't work right on any browser I've tried it on. It doesn't support skipping to other portions of the video and it doesn't spool for quick replay.
        blueskip
        Reply Vote

      • you must be ...

        a leader in the RepublicOfDuh
        john_gillespie@...
        Reply Vote

    • RE: Will Steve Jobs ever let iPad owners have Flash?

      @Maarek

      IMO waiting for HTML5 is absurd when there is a working solution that exists today, especially when widespread HTML5 adoption could be years away. Yes, future technologies will be better, but why do without something you could have today? I'm still waiting for the Star Trek shuttlecraft, but I'm not refusing to use alternative transportation in the meantime.

      I'm not trying to defend Flash, and I agree completely with you - Jobs has gotten himself into a place where there's pretty much no way for him to change his mind now.
      1DaveN
      Reply Vote

      • RE: Will Steve Jobs ever let iPad owners have Flash?

        @DaveN_MVP People said the same ting when they ditched the floppy drive... someone's gotta take the lead.
        Metronome49
        Reply Vote

  • Apple was not bent over principal matters, so **no Flash**.

    And the absence of Flash is super good thing; as Opera said, one could cook an egg on a device running Flash.<br><br>That is because it uses either old H.263 coder which is not hard-ware accelerated, or H.264 (since recently), but still crippled version, which is not compatible with hardware acceleration of playback.<br><br><b>Tests showed Flash slashes battery time of a device in half.</b>
    DDERSSS
    Reply Vote

    • RE: Will Steve Jobs ever let iPad owners have Flash?

      @denisrs Your arguments have so many holes in them, I don't know where to start. Hint: Flash does way more than just play video.

      Also, like any other application platform, the applications themselves determine whether they are using a lot of CPU at any given time or not. To say that Flash slashes battery time in half is as ignorant as saying all Windows apps crash.
      RepublicOfDuh
      Reply Vote

      • Obviously video playback meant; though games do only 1/3 better

        @RepublicOfDuh: according to Adobe's own estimations.
        DDERSSS
        Reply Vote

      • RE: Will Steve Jobs ever let iPad owners have Flash?

        @RepublicOfDuh

        "To say that Flash slashes battery time in half is as ignorant as saying all Windows apps crash."

        Well, perhaps you're right. The major Windows apps I've used DO crash. It's a major pain when using MasterCAM to have it hang or crash, etc.

        Oh, wait. That's not what you meant. You were implying that Flash DOESN'T suck battery life.

        Well, you're wrong. It does. Tests prove it. Anybody can confirm this by using a Flash blocker like ClickToFlash and watching battery life soar.
        Jkirk3279
        Reply Vote

      • RE: Will Steve Jobs ever let iPad owners have Flash?

        @RepublicOfDuh

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        weightlosspills
        Reply Vote

    • RE: Will Steve Jobs ever let iPad owners have Flash?

      @denisrs Other tests showed that no flash slashes customers in half when a better product such as Android shows up.
      blueskip
      Reply Vote

      • RE: Will Steve Jobs ever let iPad owners have Flash?

        @blueskip
        " Other tests showed that no flash slashes customers in half when a better product such as Android shows up."

        Not so far. I presume you're referring to the iPhone?

        The iPhone is outselling the Android phones by a large margin worldwide. We'll only know the US numbers for sure after we get some REAL data.
        Jkirk3279
        Reply Vote

  • RE: Will Steve Jobs ever let iPad owners have Flash?

    @tk_77
    Actually I agree with you completely! Nicely said!
    rossdav
    Reply Vote

    • RE: Will Steve Jobs ever let iPad owners have Flash?

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      Steampower
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  • RE: Will Steve Jobs ever let iPad owners have Flash?

    @tk_77 I guess you never really took a look at FLASH enabled web sites where you interact with the site like a game but you are collecting information and watching the site be animated during the whole experience.
    Maarek
    Reply Vote

    • RE: Will Steve Jobs ever let iPad owners have Flash?

      @Maarek

      I've seen many of those sites in the past. In MY opinion they are quite annoying. Most of the time I visit a site for a specific reason, for a specific piece of information or set of content. If I have to "play a game" in order to get that content then it gets annoying. I'm sure there are many people that enjoy this sort of thing, but I don't. I wouldn't mind if the option was available to play the site like a game to experience all their content, but also let me get at it in traditional ways. If there's no traditional way, then most likely I won't bother.
      tk_77
      Reply Vote

    • RE: Will Steve Jobs ever let iPad owners have Flash?

      @Maarek I totally agree with you.<br><br>One great example is any website from any respectable car manufacturer: You can select the car you want, rotate it 360 degrees, change the paint color, the wheels. <br><br>These websites scream FLASH all over them and their HTML equivalents are boring and ridiculous. <br><br>Real Estate websites are also great for FLASH.
      royalstream
      Reply Vote

    • RE: Will Steve Jobs ever let iPad owners have Flash?

      @Maarek
      He's saying (and rightly so) that there are ways to implement a site so that all of what you suggested is not done on flash. That you use flash for some of those user experiences while the rest you can implement in other ways.

      I too believe that entire site based on flash is not a good idea. Flash was never meant to be a full web site development tool. Its meant for you to build components onto your site. But nobody said all components must be flash based. Sometimes you use javascript, sometimes you use jquery, sometimes there is ajax, sometimes you let it get handled on the server side and sometimes you let flash handle it.

      In all cases, flash should not be abandoned just because a small group of people can't figure out why their computer sucks. Javascript did not always run well. Java did not always run well, asp did not always play nice, html itself was not always robust. Products evolve. To single any one out and tell their masses to stop supporting it, well you're free to do so but its not like flash is a dinky tool that 2 programmers is trying out in the wild so its pretty narrow minded to try and stomp it out.
      rengek
      Reply Vote

    • RE: Will Steve Jobs ever let iPad owners have Flash?

      @Maarek
      This is cool for about 5 seconds, then it gets annoying.
      ryanstrassburg
      Reply Vote
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