last100 » Adobe Flash

Without Apple’s help, Adobe building Flash to iPhone development bridge

Steve O'Hear — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 14:08:25 +0000

Building bridges, literally.

No, Adobe isn’t bringing Flash player support to iPhone. That would require cooperation from Cupertino, something that Apple CEO Steve Jobs is unlikely to sanction. Instead, the upcoming version of the latest Flash developer tools – Adobe Flash Professional CS5 – will offer Flash developers a way to output their finished creations as a native app for iPhone and iPod touch.

Since the source code is iPhone OS native, presumably through an Actionscript to Objective-C bridge, the resulting apps should qualify for submission to the iPhone App Store just as they would if they’d been built using Apple’s own development tools. This means that developers can re-factor their Flash creations for the iPhone and iPod touch, with Apple remaining in control of distribution.

In other words, while Adobe may have found a work-around of sorts for getting Flash content onto the iPhone (even if it’s no longer technically Flash), it’s hard to see how it doesn’t benefit Apple in equal measure. This isn’t Flash support as we know it – via a browser plug-in – and is likely to see tons of ‘casual’ Flash games arriving in the iPhone App Store, some of which will be paid-for apps where Apple takes a 30% cut. Adobe won’t see a penny of this directly but will hope to sell more copies of it CS5 developer tools with the wide ranging promise of ‘build once, run anywhere’.

Java anyone?

---
Related Articles at last100:

Flash 10 coming to smartphones this October? Apple and RIM still missing in action

Steve O'Hear — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 12:26:53 +0000

It seems that Adobe is well on track to deliver a version of Flash 10 for smartphones, with the first beta release due this October. Adobe President and CEO Shantanu Naraye said as much during the company’s latest earnings call, as well as revealing that “multiple partners have already received early versions of this release…”.

Naraye then goes on to name names, citing Android, Nokia’s Symbian, Windows Mobile and Palm’s WebOS as among the first smartphones to “support web browsing with the newsest Flash player.”

Missing in action is RIM’s BlackBerry and, less surprising, Apple’s iPhone and iPod touch devices. Apple’s official line has always been that the full version of Flash player – not the underpowered and less well supported Flash Lite – is too processor intensive to run properly on a smartphone, leading to a significant drain on battery life. However, with the new iPhone 3GS (the “S” stands for speed) that would appear to be less on an issue.

Instead, as we all should know by now, the real reason why Apple doesn’t want to embrace Adobe’s Flash is that it would offer third-party developers an alternative “runtime” on which to develop and, perhaps more importantly, distrubute apps for the iPhone, bypassing Apple’s control (and that of its partner carriers) and the iTunes App Store itself. And we can’t have that, can we? Instead, it’s been reported that Apple may be planning to add support for Flash video in particular through an update to the iPhone’s version of Apple’s QuickTime.

As for why RIM hasn’t jumped on board, well that’s anybody’s guess, although I’d suggest that making a decent web browser for BlackBerry – you know, one that renders HTML properly – should be a priority for RIM over adding the bells and whistles of Flash.

---
Related Articles at last100:

Forget iPhone, Adobe wants to put Flash on the telly

Steve O'Hear — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 13:59:15 +0000

Just like everybody else these days, Adobe has its sights set on the living room. Today the company announced a version of its Adobe Flash Platform designed to run on Internet-connected televisions, set-top boxes, and Blu-ray players, with the aim of making it easier to deliver online video and other web-based content – think widgets – to the TV.

To achieve this, Adobe has already recruited a range of hardware and content partners, including Broadcom, Comcast, Intel, STMicroelectronics, Netflix, The New York Times Company, and Disney. The first devices to support the specially optimized version of Flash are expected to ship in the second half of 2009, says Adobe.

As much as Flash is entrenched on personal computers, especially for online video, like with mobile phones (still no Flash support on iPhone), Adobe is yet to become the dominant standard for delivering Internet content into the living room. Others competing in the space include Microsoft with its Mediaroom platform aimed at Telcos, and now with Silverlight, a direct Flash competitor.

Then there’s Yahoo with its “Widgets Channel”, which is also being backed by Intel who are obviously hedging their bets, and recently entered the wild on televisions from Samsung. Boutique gadget maker Chumby has re-invented itself for the living room, partnering with chip maker Broadcom to make it easy for consumer electronics companies to embed its widget platform into Internet-connected TVs, Blu-ray players and set-top boxes. And even Google is eyeing up the space, with rumors that a set-top box platform similar to Android is in the works, while the company has begun publicly experimenting with Internet TV widgets via a partnership with Panasonic.

---
Related Articles at last100: