The smartphone era

When the first iPhones hit the market a few years back, we all went crazy and was introduced to a complete new way to make use of our mobile phones. Finally, we could get our emails nice and easily on the go, play all kinds of new and exciting games and most of all, we were introduced to the world of Apps!

The wide variety of applications that were available on Apples new device was outstanding, enabling us to do all our favourite things with a few taps of a finger – mobile banking, social networking and online shopping, just to name a few. We were so amazed by all these new features that nothing else compared, even though the camera was poor, there was no way to record videos and anything built with Adobe Flash could not be accessed. But, despite these small let-downs, the iPhone was a hit and the smartphone era was born.

Other players in the market place

As time went on, other devices came onto the market to get their ‘piece of the pie’ – Nokia made major steps forward with their smartphones with the Ovi Store (their equivalent to Apples App Store), HTC started producing phones that looked and acted similar to the iPhone and Blackberry made sure their devices had all the latest features. Everyone now owed a smartphone, infact it seemed not be smart if you didn’t have one!

With the increasing competition, the initial little let-downs with the iPhone were soon becoming a big issue for the users, but as Apple released newer versions, we had the luxury of improved features such as high megapixel cameras, video recording and even Facetime video calling. As nice as all these additions were, there was still something missing…..Flash!

So what about Adobe Flash Player?

Adobe Flash Player is a cross-platform, browser-based application runtime that provides uncompromised viewing of expressive applications, content and videos across browsers and operating systems. It is used by 99% of Internet users and many websites require you to have the player installed to view and interact properly across the web. The fact that the iPhone did not support such a modern technology stunned and frustrated users, but at the end of the day, the iPhone was just a mobile phone, so was it really a big deal?

Then came the iPad

Apple soon released it’s next device – the iPad. There has been a lot of scepticism around this device, with a lot of people (me included) just seeing it as an enlarged iPhone, offering nothing new and being well over-priced. You could buy a laptop at a fraction of the cost, which offers much more functionality than a tablet, but people still fell in love with the idea of owning one simply because of it’s look and feel.

There is still one huge problem though….Flash. Yes, we all made peace with Apple not letting us have this technology on our iPhones, but the iPad is a tablet computer. The point of the iPad is to replace our home computers and laptops. It is not about making phone calls or sending text messages, it is to browse the web, watch movies, play games and read our emails. Seeing as Flash helps us to do all these things, why would Apple deprive it’s users from unlocking the true potential of what the iPad could really do?

Is it technically possible to run Flash on an iPhone/iPad?

There is no technical reason that Flash should not be on the iPad as well as the iPhone. Adobe is working with about 50 partners in the mobile space, including big names like Google, Nokia and HTC, as well as 19 out of 20 handset manufacturers. Flash player is stable and would perform well on hardware like the iPad. But it’s because Apple is protecting revenue streams derived from content like movies and games. If users could watch free TV shows on Hulu or YouTube, they wouldn’t buy them through iTunes. Likewise, users could play some of the hundreds of Flash games on sites like Miniclip, instead of buying games through the App Store, on which Apple takes a 30% cut of every sale. They have eliminated any way to get content on their device that they don’t own.

Apples HTML 5 view point over Flash

Apples response to this is a seemingly well-intentioned suggestion that everyone should just use HTML5 instead of Flash. There is no doubt that HTML5 and CSS 2 are making waves in the web world and that it looks set to be the next big thing.

However, at FIJ Design, we have many experienced website designers who loathe the idea of someone informing them that they need to re-code their clients websites or mobile apps in HTML5 when (a) HTML5 isn’t currently supported (as standard) across browsers yet, whereas Flash is, and (b) there are tons of things you simply cannot do in HTML5 (yet) which can easily be done in Flash. We believe Apple should make Flash available on both the iPhone and iPad until such time where HTML 5 and CSS 2 are fully supported.

Blackberry Tablet supports Flash

Whether you like it or hate it, Flash is an established programming platform which has been used for a massive number of apps and websites that we love and use on a daily basis. Seeing as even Blackberry’s new tablet, the PlayBook, has Flash built-in, is it time that Apple allowed it’s users to benefit?

There are two sides to this ‘war’ – the end user and the developer. As a user, do you miss having Flash on your device and feel your missing out? As a developer, do you find it frustrating that you need to find a workaround, on top of other already existing mult-browser compatibility issues?