At least that’s what the UK’s Advertising Standards Agency says. They pulled an iPhone ad because it claimed to give you “all parts of the Internet”. But the omission of Flash and Java was enough for the agency to call BS on that claim.
Read here:
http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/27/uks-advertising-standards-authority-yanks-iphone-ad-for-being-m/
And I’m not Adobe, but yeah, I’m feeling pretty smug. 🙂
Kudos to the Advertising Standards Agency for that! (And disses to Apple)! :)=
I was amazed that Apple left Flash out of the iPhone. I wouldn’t buy one of the things, but I know a few people who are happy with theirs, and so presumed there was a logical reason (i.e. not hampering the performance of the phone, or the connection when leeching off of wi-fi), but if that were the case, surely this should be an option not an obligation. It’s certainly testament to the omnipotence of the Flash player. I share your smugness 🙂
I’m a Flash developer also, and this is an awesome site, and Flash CS3 is easily the best Flash ever, but I have to call bullshit on the smugness.
The FlashPlayer system requirements, published by Adobe, the author of FlashPlayer software, clearly state you need a full-size PC, a keyboard, and a mouse. The iPhone has none of these. FlashPlayer simply does not now and has not ever run on a phone. FlashPlayer is not touch-ready. Why this is Apple’s fault, I do not know.
FlashPlayer also runs with very poor performance on the Mac, this has been a major complaint for many years. They have been optimizing the Windows version and other platforms are an afterthought. Given that, the idea that Adobe would be able to port FlashPlayer from 2x2GHz CPU, 2GB RAM, 256MB GPU on the Mac where it runs badly over to the 400MHz ARM chip in the iPhone and get anything like usable performance is patently ridiculous. The idea that Apple was supposed to do this instead of Adobe? Completely absurd in every dimension. And again I don’t see why porting Adobe software to the iPhone platform is Apple’s responsibility.
Finally, the iPhone does only one thing at a time. Even if you encounter a QuickTime movie inline in a Web page, when you click it to play, you are taken out of the browser and into a full-screen media player. Most Flash movies are inline in the browser and make no sense being shown in a separate media player.
> I was amazed that Apple left Flash out of the iPhone.
How did they “leave it out”? If they were able to fit it in there, that would have been an engineering miracle. And again, FlashPlayer is Adobe software. Only Adobe can modify it, improve it, port it or publish it. Only Adobe can put Flash into something, therefore only Adobe can leave it out.
I mean, there is no FlashPlayer in Windows Mobile, how did Apple cause that to happen? C’mon. Windows Mobile is 10 years old and the flagship version of FlashPlayer runs on desktop Windows. Also Windows Mobile basically has an imitation mouse, it is better prepared to run FlashPlayer. Yet no FlashPlayer there.
First, from my viewpoint, the biggest part of the smugness is merely the recognition that Flash is such an integral part of the web that you can’t really say you deliver all parts of the web without including Flash.
Second, the fact that Apple did not include Flash in the iPhone has absolutely nothing to do with technical limitations. Adobe would have gladly bent over backwards to lend any support necessary, probably at no cost to get Flash in there. Hell, look at what Apple DID get into the iPhone – audio, video, accelerometer, gps, bluetooth, 3g, multitouch, etc., etc. You’re telling me they couldn’t have figured out how to get the Flash player in there if they really wanted to?
So that’s the other part of the smugness. Apple basically gave Adobe a big FU on the Flash player, then claimed to deliver “all parts of the web” and got called on it. It’s like when your big brother was teasing you and then your mom caught him and yelled at him. Not a major victory, but feels kind of good inside. 🙂
“all parts of the Internet” suggest that it has full equivalent capabilities then the main internet accessor (the desktop pc), which it simply doesn’t have. Also: shutting out a large percent of al websites because they are made in flash does make the statement ‘all parts’ a bit silly. So all-in-all good call from the ad authority.
“an engineering miracle [to put flash on the iphone]”?
I hardly think so. Have you ever used an iphone? With relation to your points about the keyboard, mouse, and full size PC; your finger is the mouse (both clicking and dragging is no issue), the iphone has a full on-screen keyboard, and if Adobe tried hard enough, then the iphone hardware is capable of running a lite version of flash player.
After all, some other phones such as Nokias, Sony Ericssons, etc. have a lite flash player – and a large proportion of mobile phone games are programmed and run in flash.
And also if you want to get into the flawed world of measuring an entire system’s performance based on cpu cycles per second, then iphones CPU in fact runs on average at 600mhz and varies depending on load up to 700mhz.
I’m not trying to defend Apple here – in fact I deplore them in almost every way (especially their cynical marketing and price structuring) – and really this whole argument justifies my hatred of Apple, because why have they not released flash for it yet >:(
@Hamranhansenhansen
“The FlashPlayer system requirements, published by Adobe, the author of FlashPlayer software, clearly state you need a full-size PC, a keyboard, and a mouse.”
Sorry dude, this isn’t sufficient justification for not having Flash Player on iphone. read Seb’s comment for more info.
“FlashPlayer also runs with very poor performance on the Mac”
Actually mac performance has been better on the mac since Flash 8:
http://www.kaourantin.net/2005/07/why-does-flash-player-8-on-mac-perform.html
“How did they “leave it out”?”
Steve Jobs has stated that Flash Player for desktops was too demanding, while Flash Lite wasn’t powerful enough. If performance was that much of a concern for the house of apple they could have opted for Flash Lite. Instead they are demanding that Adobe make them a special player just for the iphone where as all other mobile device manufactures seem to be happy to leverage what is already provided for them.
I do think apples ads are misleading and agree with the decision to pull the ad.
For those who haven’t see it already:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjgXnMVMimg
-erik
I was amazed it didn’t have Flash support too, when I tried it. It’s just really too bad and disappointing. It’s an amazing piece of technology, but it needs Flash!! 🙂