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Adobe Surrenders Mobile Flash - Steve Jobs FTW, Users FTL!

[November 09, 2011]

Adobe Surrenders Mobile Flash - Steve Jobs FTW, Users FTL!

Originally posted on VoIP & Gadgets Blog, here: http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/tom-keating/apple/adobe-surrenders-mobile-flash---steve-jobs-ftw-users-ftl.asp.

I had hoped that with Steve Jobs' passing that Flash for the iPhone/iPad might now be possible, but alas with today's news from Adobe that they're killing off mobile Flash, my hopes were bitterly crushed. It's not that I'm a huge fan of Adobe Flash on mobile devices, but it's the best technology that just plain damn works! I can't tell you how many times I've surfed the web on my iPhone 4S and iPad and I can't play an embedded YouTube clip. If you're on an Android device, you have no problems playing any YouTube content.

A commenter to my blog article has a good point when he writes:

There are a number of educational applets that I would like to use in the classrooom but I can't in the iPad because they are in Flash and Java. See http://phet.colorado.edu/ to see things that real educators have spent a lot time on that have real value in the classroom that are blocked by this stupid obsession. Make Flash and Java an option that users have to make an effort to enable. Put up all the warnings about battery life and security you want (much like MS does for certain actions), and let the end-users take responsibility for what they want to do.

Perhaps I should have bought an Android smartphone instead of the new iPhone 4S. I think my 4S will be my last Apple smartphone unless Flash-dependent sites like YouTube, Break.com, Hulu, and other websites adopt HTML5 very quickly. I'm getting really aggravated that arguably the best smartphone on the market is still crippled by not having Flash in the hopes that one day, like really really soon that all the millions of websites around the world will adopt HTML5. devil-fire-background