Steve suggested this to Adobe years back. Yesterday Adobe confirmed that it is ceasing development of Flash Player for mobile devices. Adobe will focus on HTML5 for the mobile devices moving forward. Adobe VP Danny Winokur posted this on Adobe’s blog:
Our future work with Flash on mobile devices will be focused on enabling Flash developers to package native apps with Adobe AIR for all the major app stores. We will no longer continue to develop Flash Player in the browser to work with new mobile device configurations (chipset, browser, OS version, etc.) following the upcoming release of Flash Player 11.1 for Android and BlackBerry PlayBook. We will of course continue to provide critical bug fixes and security updates for existing device configurations. We will also allow our source code licensees to continue working on and release their own implementations.
Adobe will now focus their development efforts on:
Applications for mobile
Expressive content on the desktop (in and out of browser)
Macrumors noted something very important about Flash, as Adobe announced the release of Flash Media Server 4.5 and Flash Access 3.0 and updated tools to allow publishers to host streaming Flash video content.
“With Adobe Flash Media Server 4.5, media publishers now have a single, simple workflow for delivering content using the same stream to Flash-enabled devices or to the Apple iPhone and iPad.” In other words, Adobe’s solution repackages content in real-time, changing the protocol to suit the target device, HTTP Dynamic Streaming or HLS, for example. This should mean that iOS devices will get much of the advantages of Flash video support, without the processor degradation and battery life cost of the format in use on other devices.
Computerworld also noted that the release includes a new solution to allow Flash content to be repackaged and streamed to iOS devices, which famously do not support Flash Player directly. “With Adobe Flash Media Server 4.5, media publishers now have a single, simple workflow for delivering content using the same stream to Flash-enabled devices or to the Apple iPhone and iPad.”
Premium Video Streaming with Flash Media Server 4.5 Flash Media Server 4.5 expands on its mobile delivery options with the addition of iOS support and enables content owners to create HTTP content on the fly to reduce costs brought on by device proliferation. New features of Flash Media Server 4.5: Delivery to iPad and iPhone enables businesses to use the same media and live streams to deliver full adaptive bit-rate experiences to platforms supporting Flash, as well as Apple devices, including iPad and iPhone. Integrated Content Protection simplifies deployment and reduces infrastructure cost, enabling seamless streaming for advertising-funded online video. On-demand Stream Packaging eliminates the need to prepare and protect assets ahead of time, reducing complexity and storage costs and simplifying publishing for businesses so they can use one set of source video to reach multiple downstream devices.
AppleInsider yesterday said that Apple might be indeed redesigning the camera flash for iPhone 4S/5. Apple has reportedly “greatly reduced” the number of orders from Philips for the LED flashes used in the iPhone 4 over the past one to two months.
Apple is said to have “greatly reduced” orders of Philips LED flash components in the last one to two months. This person, who has provided accurate information on Apple’s iPhone in the past, said the change “may” be a sign that Philips LED flash will not be used in the upcoming fifth-generation iPhone.
Rumors among Apple suppliers have led to claims that the new supplier of LED flash for the so-called “iPhone 5″ will be a firm based in Taiwan. However, that bit of information was characterized as “highly unconfirmed.”
The rumor has been corroborated by new iPhone camera parts that separated the camera sensor from its flash. The move is likely a reflection of lessons from the iPhone 4 and general photography: moving the flash further from the sensor reduces the instances of blown-out highlights and effects like red-eye, reports Macnn.
Apple is rumored to be using an eight-megapixel CMOS sensor from OmniVision that would be more sensitive than in the past. While excellent for low light, it could also be overly sensitive to light from a flash that on the iPhone 4 is just a fraction of an inch away.
Apple is rumored to be starting production in July for the next phone and would likely be winding down the majority of its part production to make way for the new device. Old components probably won’t be phased out entirely as Apple will likely want to keep the iPhone 4 as the new entry-level model.
Check these two rumored iPhone 5 case and the new camera flash:
Its been 2 months of approval process for Skyfire to get approved by Apple. Hopefull you will be seeing Skyfire 2.0 app appear in the App Store for $2.99 according to CNNMoney. Basically this magical app is a browser which can deliver Flash video files into HTML5 format on an iPhone or iPad. Basically when we request Skyfile to play a flash video file, Skyfire’s servers download, render and translate the video into HTML5, which is a web standard that iOS devices support. Skyfire then displays a thumbnail that users can click on to stream the video from its servers. Cool stuff!!!
“We will attack those pesky blue Flash error messages,” said Jeffrey Glueck, Skyfire’s CEO.
Determining what percentage of online video is unavailable to iOS devices — and how much will be available once Skyfire is released — is a tricky task. Though three-quarters of Web video may be encoded in Flash, that doesn’t mean that video is encoded only in Flash. More than half of the videos found online are also available in HTML5, according to a recent study by MeFeedia.
YouTube, for instance, encodes its videos in multiple formats, including Flash and HTML5, so it can be viewed on mobile devices without Flash support.
Unfortunately, there’s certain interaction that Skyfire unable to applied. Even though you can play Flash video with Skyfire, but you can’t play games and watch from Hulu.
Thanks to Meeta who shared this interesting Hindi learning app for toddlers. This simple iPhone app comes for Free and can help your kids pick up Hindi alphabets pretty quickly. Give it a try, here is the App Store link.
Building strong Hindi vocabulary has never been so exciting for preschoolers and toddlers. eFlash Educational Baby Flash Cards in Hindi features over 450 high quality images with text and voiceovers.
Its going to be called Frash. Comex guys have compiled once again and ported Adobe Flash 10.1 on to iPhone iOS 4 devices. Still in alpha, Frash should be soon on Cydia.You’ll have to place the .deb package on your i-device manually and install it from there. Check this video:
Virgin America has become more iPhone and iPad friendly. Their new website has dropped Flash content completely in order to allow users with iPhones to check in for flights using their mobiles. AppleInsider covered this news sometime back:
In an interview with the Register UK, Virgin’s chief technology officer Ravi Simhambhatla said, “I don’t want to cater to one hardware or one software platform one way to another, and Flash eliminates iPhone users. This year is going to be the year of the mobile [for Virgin].”
Interesting developments happening after Steve Jobs bashed Flash player sometime back. The Register reported that Virgin’s new Flash-free website is responsible for bringing in 70% of the company’s $100 million in quarterly revenues.
Daniel Eran Dilger, author of the Roughly Drafted blog shares his thoughts on why Apple is not going to promote Flash on mobile devices ever. At the end of this video, you will agree to Apple and Google’s view on why they support open source and HTML5 standards. And why Adobe will eventually ruin the mobile phone space if Flash is promoted on the smartphones.
In response to Steve Jobs comment about Flash not being ready for the iPhone last week, Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch tried to share quite a few points supporting the argument for Flash on Apple’s devices: Here is that blog link:
“Some have been surprised at the lack of inclusion of Flash Player on a recent magical device,” Lynch writes. “Flash has been incredibly successful in its adoption, with over 85% of the top web sites containing Flash content and Flash running on over 98% of computers on the Web… It is used for the majority of casual games, video, and animation on the Web and familiar brands like Nike, Hulu, BBC, Major League Baseball, and more rely on Flash to deliver the most compelling experiences to over a billion people.”
Looks like you can finally load a Flash (.swf) file on your iPhone browser. But this doesnt come from Apple. There is this Gordon project, an open source effort at github, that makes it possible to load Flash files on the iPhone’s native safari browser. TUAW covered this interesting news yesterday where Erika Sadun posted a good explanation.
“…to make this work, Flash developers will need to encapsulate the SWF into an HTML wrapper, importing the Gordon JavaScript source and then loading the swf, as shown here.”
This format of pulling Flash files should catch on soon. You can check out 2 examples of Flash running on your iPhone by opening these demos in Mobile Safari. What you are basically seeing is Gordon in action. It’s an open source Flash runtime written in JavaScript, written by Tobias Schneider. Though Flash doesn’t work on iPhones, but JavaScript can, right?
This rumor is coming from non other than AppleInsider, which is reporting that Apple is looking to acquire significant quantities of LED camera flash components, sparking speculation that the company is planning to add flash capabilities to its camera on the iPhone, and possibly the iPod touch should it also gain a camera.
People familiar with Apple’s initiative claim the electronics maker is seeking allotments of LED camera flash components in the tens of millions for delivery during the 2010 calendar year, meaning future iPhones — and possibly the iPod touch — are the most likely recipients of those parts, due to their sales volume. Those same people say that Philips’ Lumileds Lighting sector is believed to be the front-runner for Apple’s business and may have already secured the design win.
In making the jump to the iPhone 3GS last spring, the Cupertino-based company was content in focusing on enhancements to the overall user experience of its mobile phone to maintain its high level of satisfaction amongst consumers. Improvements to the device’s camera technology were limited to an updated image sensor capable of capturing 1.1 more megapixels, and software technology to improve the quality of motion photos and those taken in poor lighting
Apple has also confirmed orders with current camera sensor supplier OmniVision Technologies for large quantities of 5-megapixel camera sensors, likely destined for the next-generation iPhone.
Adobe has updated its Get Flash Player message when an user is accessing web pages with flash video on iPhone Safari browser. Apple redirects iPhone users to a page which blames Apple for the lack of Flash support on iPhone platform.
Apple restricts use of technologies required by products like Flash Player. Until Apple eliminates these restrictions, Adobe cannot provide Flash Player for the iPhone or iPod Touch.
