JD on EP

What I find bizarre, is that you seems to be worried about the lack of Flash on the iPhone and not how it gets [not] used on the other millions and millions of devices (check Bill Perry posts and how users complain about Flash 5 being slow on the PSP). First of all, lets drop the names gimmicks: Flash is NOT FlashLite (and viceversa), behind the many obvious reasons, one sums them all up: no current device has enough power to run the Flash 9 VM. The iPhone has a 400 mHz processor that will make any modern Flash app that uses even a few of the special Flash features to run like a turtle (components, filters etc). However all my Nokia 3rd Edition devices have FlashLite, but whenever I navigate to any site that uses Flash, guess what happen [hint: no display, big void space in the middle of the page]. I still have to come across any web site that make use of FlashLite, not even Adobe home page is capable of detecting its own product and instead serves mobile users with a useless 1.2 MB static page. So even if iPhone had FlashLite (because Flash 8 & 9 for devices do not exist) the navigation to web sites with Flash content would have been impossible (or disrupted as you say). I wonder if it is worse to leave out things that cannot be done properly (full Flash 9 on devices) or implement something with a slightly different name but a lot less capabilities and claim support for the higher platform by confusing consumers over names. I also own a Nokia N800 tablet which notably sports a Flash 9 implementation as browser plugin, but thanks to the 330 Mhz processor, anything with Flash is barely usable and the browser do not support many things like Google Docs, so it provides a "disruptive" web experience even if it has Flash.

[jd sez: I'm not sure of your main point, but my Nokia N800 Internet Tablet runs Adobe Flash Player 9, and many devices in Japan and Korea already use Flash-based home displays. But still, reconciling the mobile and desktop profiles is one of our longterm goals. I still think it was a nice quote, and lack of Flash support is one of the most persistent negative comments on the Apple iPhone.]

The point is that there is a lot of confusion between what Flash can do on the desktop and what Flash can do on devices. On all devices, except the Nokia tablet (mentioned as well in my reponse) it is not possible right now to support the full feature set required by Flash 9, that's why Adobe has FlashLite, a product that supports a subset of the parent Flash implementation. Many things on the "light" version are left out (like: components, filters, advanced text and so on), so if you try to navigate to a web page that has some Flash embedded you will see nothing (i.e.: disruptive experience). Now, iPhone being a moderately powerful device in terms of hardware, still doesn't have the specs necessary to run Flash 9 so what Apple/Adobe could do is to support FlashLite only and this wont make the web browsing experience any less disruptive than what currently it is. Also, it is tru that the Nokia N800 has Flash 9 or as you say "runs it", question is "how well it runs?". Another point of confusion for the public is mentioning devices that implement some form as Flash but not meant for public fruition: as you say many devices have Flash based home and UI, but they cannot playback any Flash[Lite] based content; can we say that these devices have Flash[Lite]?
I know more people that complained about the inhability of playing back FlashLite content on the LG Prada (every review I have read about it, mention Flash, but more or less conveniently forget to mention that Flash content playback is not supported) than users complaining about the lack of FlashLite for iPhone.

It's interesting why?? I only raise this as in order to get Flash on the iPhone (assuming it's hardware ready) both Adobe and Apple need to forgive one another's posture in the QuickTime vs Flash compete. Not to mention Adobe AIR vs Safari (given Apple are making moves in that space) and last but most important of all, Final Cut Pro vs Adobe CS3.

Video is a hot commodity and one of you will need to back down and give way to the other. Question now remains how badly does Apple want it as I can tell Adobe do ;)

Between your readers & me, I have the iPod Touch and I have buyers remorse. Reason, I want to create localised RIA's for a the device using a few ideas around both multi-touch & screen orientation.. bah humbug!

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Scott Barnes
RIA Evangelist
Microsoft.

So, saying that the iPhone do not have enough power to run the full Flash Player and that implementing the lesser capable FlashLite on it wont change the situation about "disruptive browing experience" is just noise to your ears?

I'm sure your readers are intelligent enough to discern what has been said here and treat technologies for what they are rather than undisputable religious faith.