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Comment by SamAtt | Hacker News Reader

I think people over-dramatize this issue. I think everyone, at Apple and Adobe, knows Flash/Air will eventually be on the iPhone. I don't think there's any doubt.

What Apple's doing now is trying to drag their feet as long as possible. Because the longer they can hold out the more momentum they get. Both in Apps written specifically for the iPhone and video on the web (Quicktime gains more and more marketshare as more people use the iPhone to view video)

That's the beauty of the situation. Apple can drag their feet for a few more years and if the Adobe mobile platform starts to gain momentum they can support it and have all the advantages in an instant.

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On the contrary, I don't think Flash/Air will ever be on the iPhone.

They have the upper hand over the whole situation and have invested a lot in Flash alternatives including HTML5 (via WebKit) and video with MP4. In addition, the battery suck will ruin the (already short) battery life, and I don't think they will compromise the user experience for Flash

Your logic only works if (a) Flash begins to fade and (b) Apple remains far ahead of all its competitors indefinately. Because in the end every other phone is going to support Flash and Apple is going to have to explain to iPhone users why phones from Windows Mobile and Google can view the entire web while iPhone users can't.

As for alternatives like HTML 5 we're at least a decade away from widespread use of those (since there are people who wait forever to upgrade their browser). So I don't see Apple being able to stall for that long.

Adobe are still, to this day, incapable of producing a performant Flash runtime for Linux and Mac OS X — in spite of this having been a known issue for like a decade. Why on god's green earth would they suddenly produce a performant Flash runtime for the iPhone?

Even if Apple wants Flash on the iPhone, and that's not a certainty (or even likely if you ask me), but even if they do, they sure as hell are not going to settle for something as poor as what they've gotten for Mac OS X. Apple has standards, and in their view it's better to not have anything at all, than to have something that is bad.

As with bdotdub's response to my comment your logic only works if Apple runs the show indefinately. Because every other major SmartPhone OS has announced Flash support. Meaning Apple will have to justify why they're keeping Flash off the iPhone.

Regardless of what you think of Microsoft and Google I guarantee you they will some day be competitive. Apple may still maintain the lead but not the dramatic one they have now. Once those two are competitve Apple won't be able to dictate terms like they do now.

> Meaning Apple will have to justify why they're keeping Flash off the iPhone.

Piss poor performance.

Apple will have to justify why they're keeping Flash off the iPhone

I wouldn't be so sure of that. What is Flash really used for?

Video? The iPhone already plays back h.264, the format used for high-quality Flash streaming. Most of the major video sites either serve up iPhone-tailored versions which stream the video directly (e.g. http://iphone.dailymotion.com) or have native applications that do the same (e.g. the YouTube app that the iPhone has had from the start). The result is better performance, better battery life, better quality and better overall experience, all without using Flash.

Games? The iPhone has no shortage of games, and with Flash CS5, the same games can be deployed as native applications, where they will undoubtedly perform better. Many Flash games designed for desktops aren't very playable on a smartphone anyway.

Aside from those, the most commonly-encountered uses of Flash are obnoxious animations and sites built entirely in Flash, neither of which would seem to inspire demand. What's left?

This isn't to say that Flash adds nothing, only that it seem like such an obvious necessity as it does in a desktop browser.

We are lucky that Microsoft is not doing the same as Apple, otherwise, otherwise we would still be stuck with compuserve and Microsoft paint.

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