Will the iPad ever get flash support?

I can understand the appeal of cross platform development tools for some developers, however the big disadvantage to them, is that you are always working within the constraints of the lowest common demoninator.

If your cross platform development tools supports a dozen or more different tablets few developers would bother to incorporate features that make use of the unique hardware or software aspects of a few specific top end tablets.

So, despite users going out and choosing a tablet based on its unique features, they end up getting apps that take advantage of none of them, and would've worked the same on the cheapest, lowest specced tablet.

That's why Apple doesn't like "middleware" in general - it doesn't let developers get the best performance out of specific tablet hardware and allow developers access to unique software and hardware features of specific models.

What's the point in manufacturers coming up with new tablet hardware features, if all the apps are made with "middleware" and don't take advantage of them?

Hi;

If you mean if IPAD can open Flash Web Pages the answer is YES. With iSwifter :

http://itunes.apple.com/es/app/iswifter-flash-web-browser/id388857173?mt=8

you can go through web pages with flash. This app is not fully developed but it's working right now.

You make it sound like because there's only one IPad this makes it better compared to different versions of tablets running the same version of Android. That's like saying Blizzard didn't build in the programming to handle people that only have Directx 10 and those that have Directx 11 in their World of Warcraft game. This functionality can be built in to check for added features and offer them if they are available. It's up to the developer to build this in. You wouldn't expect someone developing an app for iOS4 to take advantage of new features in iOS5. Also this is already prevalent on the web today. When I develop web applications for my company I usually have to make some kind of concession for older browsers that can't handle the latest technology, IE6 for example. Since my company deals with companies and the government, they don't always have the latest and greatest version of Windows or IE... because in their mind, it just works. But developers like myself that believe IE6 and in some cases Opera are the worst browsers ever, still need to support these browsers because that's what our company wants. The same concept applies for apps developed for mobile devices. And even though I know Java and XML and could write native Android apps, if I had the time to learn (knowledge of how to do this increases in my free time), I don't know Objective C and I don't wish to revisit my C days and write in C. It's also not necessary to load every added feature for a particular device if these features have nothing to do with the functionality of my app.

If I could get away with writing AS3 applications in AIR, creating classes with common methods that can be used on all devices and then load specific classes to deal with particular features for a device, as a developer I'd rather go that route because I can take advantage of code re uses, spend less time coding and more time testing and my company would be happy because my productivity increased. From a usability perspective, the consumer that knows nothing about development would never know.

Also the OS should handle any Hardware Related events. If I want to access the camera, I don't need to know what kind of camera it is or what kind of sdcard I plan to store the pictures on. If a particular devices doesn't have an external sdcard, that's no going to blow up my app, I just used the internal storage.

Flash Support (all versions)

95.57%

http://www.statowl.com/flash.php

OS Platform Statistics

2012	Win7	Vista	Win2003	WinXP	Linux	Mac	Mobile
February	48.7%	4.5%	0.7%	30.0%	5.0%	9.1%	1.3%
January	47.1%	4.7%	0.7%	31.4%	4.9%	9.0%	1.3%

http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_os.asp

Mobile Devices Statistics

2012	Total	iPhone	iPad	iPod	Android	Others
February	1.27 %	0.22 %	0.45 %	0.04 %	0.39 %	0.17 %
January	1.25 %	0.22 %	0.44 %	0.04 %	0.38 %	0.17 %

http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_mobile.asp

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1.3% is mobile.

67% of that is IOS

So around 0.75% of all internet traffic belongs to IOS.

This is why your html5 revolution is not taking off.

you have a 1.3% share trying to dictate web formats for the other 98.7%

And Flash is still supported on 95% of devices

... and it's been 3 years since Apple claimed no one would need Flash, 6 years since he banned it from IOS.

We have a long time to go before the last "I need Adobe Flash" post fades into the dark, if that day ever comes. The tech world could change again by that point, shift into web apps, internet tv, and suddenly Flash is the hottest thing going again.

This is why your html5 revolution is not taking off.

My HTML5 revolution? It's not mine - you must be confusing me with someone else.

you have a 1.3% share trying to dictate web formats for the other 98.7%

I don't have a share in anything, nor am I dictating anything - again, you seem to be confusing me with an OS or something...

6 years since he banned it from IOS.

Erm, iOS didn't exist 6 years ago. First iPhone came out in June 2007 - that's less than 5 years ago. You need to learn how to count to 5 again.

Frankly, I don't care what happens to Flash. If people need it, that's fine with me. Occasionally I do too (in my job as a web developer). Wouldn't bother me either way if it came to iOS, but as Adobe has ceased development of Flash for mobile, that seems highly unlikely even if Apple did change their mind.

Continuing to debate it here is a complete waste of time. But, you carry on - some of us actually have worthwhile things to do.

duderRama you say "So around 0.75% of all internet traffic belongs to IOS."

Do you really mean "all internet traffic" or do you mean all internet traffic to www.w3schools.com reporting those statistics. They say on their web site "From the statistics below, collected from W3Schools' log-files over a period of seven years, you can read the long term trends of operating system usage." or do you mean only http traffic to www.w3schools.com

The relevant point (to me any way) is not a debate between two religions, but simply whether or not the Ipad does the job. One aspect of that is access to web tv and movie content. And also a number of web sites I go to seem to have some flash content on them. There sure is a lot of flash content 'out there'. It seems that there are two solutions - in some cases (some of the TV networks) there may be an App as opposed to just using the regular web page. I guess thats Ok but why should I clutter up the device with a bunch of appas just to get some content (it seems way simpler to just go to a web page)? And a couple of people here have mentioned workarounds to view flash So this probably isnt a deal breaker but its def an issue.

This is not complicated, if Flash is important to you the iPad is the wrong device to buy, only you can decide whether you want an iPad enough to ignore the lack of Flash.

I tend to find most laypeople talking about HTML5 aren't too familiar with what it actually gives you, or give credit to HTML5 where older technologies are doing the heavy lifting . There is certainly a move toward replacing all those snazzy homepage flash animations with something that'll run on your iPad/phone/pod but by and large that tends to be just plain ole HTML and Javascript. It's neat but it's not new - it's just in vogue now is all.

The hoopla around HTML5 centres on the <canvas> and <video> tags (and to a lesser extent <audio>). There are of course a sack of other tags but nothing that gets end users hot and bothered. Both the media tags have sketchy browser support (different implementations in Android/IOS) and require different codecs depending on what browser you're using. Canvas is somewhat more exciting (for me at least) but again it has its own cross-browser headaches.

From a developer perspective it's a step backward into the dark ages of sketchy browser support - even if you're sticking inside the mobile spectrum. The nicest thing about Flash is that by and large it "just works" on any platform that'll run it. After that it's just performance tuning.

Like CSS3 and CSS2 before it, the kinks, to some extent at least, get ironed out over time and browser updates.

Flash gives you cross-platform video with a single codec, and its 2D animation capabilities eclipse any current browser's canvas support (desktop or mobile). Flash 11 brought a bunch of upgraded 3D capability, and anyone who saw Adobe's jaw dropping 'molehill' demos would be hard pressed to conceive of a similar result using current native browser technologies.

I'm not a flash-for-the-sake-of-flash guy, but games are where Flash really shines, and where HTML5 really doesn't. This is largely why, I believe, Adobe has chosen not to pursue Flash for the mobile platform -- because of the existing rich app/game offering for mobile more or less obviates the need to muck about with flash-based browser games.

Funnily enough, for all its advocacy, Apple's implementation of HTML5 media is pathetically restrictive. You will play media only in the manner that Apple says you can play media. Forget, for example, playing inline video on the iphone until Apple decides otherwise. I know Android (at least earlier versions) did similar things but therein lines the issue - different vendor, different implementation. HTML5 is either a standard or it isn't. Cherry picking feature support is just annoying at best.

... so to return to the topic (at last) ... until HTML5 can do everything flash can do, why not use flash? More to the point, why not allow flash on IOS? It'll likely never happen but just because Apple says it's not a good idea doesn't make it so.

oobi wrote:

... so to return to the topic (at last) ... until HTML5 can do everything flash can do, why not use flash? More to the point, why not allow flash on IOS? It'll likely never happen but just because Apple says it's not a good idea doesn't make it so.

Which part of "Adobe never complteted a version of Flash for iOS" is not clear?

Meg St._Clair wrote:

Which part of "Adobe never complteted a version of Flash for iOS" is not clear?

The part where Apple decided to block it.

How can Adobe complete something in which is not allowed?

In Steve Jobs own words he says this twice, in a letter...

why we do not allow Flash on iPhones, iPods and iPads.

If I am a company that makes electric motors, and Apple says "we do not allow electric motors in our cars", how can you blame my company for "never completeing a version of an electric motor for Apple"?

Try to download vBrowser to play website that requires flash.

My interest was not games but the presentation of media particularly video. And looking at this from a marketing or user perspective not just the technical aspects. I certainly don't have hard stats but my *impression* is that, for example, quite a few TV channel websites use Flash to present their content. A few, but by no means all, have Apps which can be downloaded as an alternatve. For a very limited device (in terms of screen real estate) like an iPhone perhaps that makes sense. However the iPad is a pretty good browsing platform so as a user I'm left with 2 questions:

- why should I have to go through the bother of downloading an app (where available) just to view a web page

- given the number of web pages that stick to Flash, it seems that Appple's attempt to dictate standards isn't working; but conversely a lot of content providers seem content to ignore Apple.

So the Hip and Cool Apple people don't watch movies or TV?

I just find is an interesting market disconnect. In the event I have plumped for the iPad over the MBA for its superiority for "reading" - the primary purpose - and a suspicion that more and better and most interestingly *different* ways for content creation will emerge on this platform. Oh and yes, as has just been pointed out there are Flash enabled browsers available on iPad

.... Ooops hit the wrong button .... MSG continues....

Albeit with some limitations etc. just not "made by Apple"

Ps: Is it really true that (a) html5 is Apple's alternative to flash.

And

(b) Safari is not very efficient at html5?

I just read that somewhere and it seemed a bit inconsistent.