Adobe got 7 million iPhone and iPod touch download requests for Flash in December
By Vlad Savov 
posted February 10th 2010 3:04AM
posted February 10th 2010 3:04AM
A touch of history might be appropriate here. Back in March 2008, Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen proudly proclaimed that his team was about to start coding a Flash player for the iPhone, only for his company to promptly backtrack on those words a day later. Then, about this time last year, Apple and Adobe again announced that they were collectively working on putting the ubiquitous format on Cupertino's mobile devices, but you won't be surprised to hear that hasn't born any fruit yet either. In fact, relations seem to have grown a lot frostier thanks to the iPad's Flash-less introduction, and an escalating war of passive aggressive words culminated in Steve Jobs calling Adobe lazy. Lazy or otherwise, Adobe is keeping track of its download stats, and it's taken the chance to boast that it received a cool 7 million download requests for Flash player from iPhone and iPod touch devices during December. We're hardly shocked by this number, but it seems to illustrate well the fact that so long as the two heavyweights continue playing an increasingly complacent form of hardball with one another, the only winners will be their competition.
LOL @ Steve Jobs.
@mnhthebest
Don't get me wrong, I like the iPad, and I will get one.
I also like my 3Gs.
I don't even want flash - except for Hulu and a real YouTube.
@BUNT2
I guess all you iPhone users will have to wait for HTML5 haaa... while my N1 is getting flash 10.1 as well as the Palm Pre
@BUNT2
"it seems to illustrate well the fact that so long as the two heavyweights continue playing an increasingly complacent form of hardball with one another"
Think that part of the article is going against the rest of it and defending jobs.... Only one playing hardball is Jobs, everyone else is just getting blue balled because of him
@basroil
And blue balls is the worst!
Waiting until you actually have flash to brag about is probably a good idea.
@BUNT2 I don't understand why Apple is backstabbing all the companies that make them what they are. They used to mock IBM, now they used IBM for their G processors, while mocking intel and x86 architecture... Now they are all wintel+bootcamp, Adobe made Apple what they are today, now they mock and block Adobe, Google made their iPhone from good to great (youtube, search and maps) and now they seem to start mocking Google and android as well... They are losing some powerful relationships... And with their customers: no professional was waiting for a glossy cinema display, nor a lack of firewire, nor a lack of blu-ray, nor a lack of numeric keypad, nor a lack of i5/i7 which has been available for about a half year now ....
@(Unverified)
Well i think you're right.
And to add to your second point, it's really disappointing to see apple so strongly target consumers. I would argue that professional users is all that kept that company alive. If it wasn't for FCP, Photoshop, and now Smoke on mac, I would be linux and a thinkpad.
@cherryboom *grown men, not grown man. For someone complaining about the difference between boys and men, one would think that a rudimentary mastery of the English language would be one of those.
And ok, you don't want Flash, but this news article kinda proves that a lot do. So while you don't need Flash, I'll be watching Hulu on my Palm Pre in a few weeks :)
@BUNT2
I don't understand what's so hard. I use the Skyfire browser on my (WinMo 6.5) Touch Pro 2, which supports flash, silverlight, etc.
Hey 2005, the iPhone called, and it wants some of your features. Wait, I guess it doesn't.
Adobe has been using the same code on all platforms no matter how bad it runs. It's only becasue of iPhone holding out on flash and the bad press that they've started to optimize code for each platform.
@(Unverified)
a second mouse button on a laptop would be nice to have too
@BUNT2
I like how Jobs calling Adobe lazy was a rumor from an "unknown source", and is presented in this article as fact.
"We're hardly shocked by this number, but it seems to illustrate well the fact that so long as the two heavyweights continue playing an increasingly complacent form of hardball with one another, the only winners will be their competition."
Yes, I agree. HTML5 will be the winner!
@LazyKid There is a right click button on the trackpads. You can also 2 finger click. You can also ctrl-click. Three different ways to right click.
@BUNT2 Only on engadget would you get down ranked for saying what you like and don't need. Sounds like people need to go to the apple free engadget.
@liftedngifted1 You can have it. Watch it eat up your precious battery and system resources. Who cares about flash on a phone. The ipad is another story stupid just stupid to put it against a netbook and not include flash
@LazyKid You know that they only sell one laptop that has One mouse button. And They all are multitouch capable.
@greezyg Dont even waste your time explaining this to a windoze user that has never even used a mac it's so 1999
@BUNT2
Your right about Apple's core market nowadays. Entertainment is number one in their eye's. The company needs to split in two.
As for Flash being buggy and bloated?. Apple needs to get their own house in order and look at ITunes.
@liftedngifted1
Why? There are no useful websites that use flash. And you can watch any youtube video via youtube app. BTW, QT videos are much better than FLV.
@Alex Hey, 2005, the iPhone called, and it wants some of your-- Oh, wait... I think the iPhone's call was just dropped...
Can't wait for flash for Android.
@B3astofthe3ast When Flash for Android hits first with Apple still saying "no", it's going to create a stir unlike anything we've ever seen.
@B3astofthe3ast
ehh...
I think flash should be available on mobile devices for reasons of openness, but I don't think I would ever want to use it. That sounds kind of painful.
@Steve B,
I have used Flash to view embedded web content almost 3 yrs. now. I started with Nokia Symbian phones, watching YouTube in the browser of my Nokia N95-2. It was far from painless, and was in fact a joyful experience.
I am now using the Nokia N900, which runs the desktop Flash plugin gracefully. I have yet to have Flash damage my device or ruin my battery life. All it has done is allow me more access to the content, applications, and games available all over the web that most n.eophyte mobile users assume are inaccessible from a mobile without an added application. Last.fm and Pandora in the browser? Check! Most embedded video sites played right in the browser, with all coming soon? Got 'em! Farmville right in the browser! You got it! The list goes on and on...
So when Steve Jobs tells you how multitasking, Flash, or anything else will mess up the user experience, he really means something else. It will mess up his scheme to fleece consumers, allowing them to bypass the App Store. It will also expose Apple as immature in its development of processor and battery management, since everyone else is able to implement Flash and exceed the supposed standard for mobile browsing set by the iPhone according to the media. If Nokia, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, and HTC can do it, why can't Apple?
I wish Steve Jobs wasn't so stubborn. Just give people the choice to install Flash if they want it!
@Eminemdrdre00 are you offering to respond to all the support requests Apple gets when Flash flattens people's batteries, crashes and is just generally a POS?
@Eminemdrdre00
yeah Steve, just listen to the Technorati and turn OS X Mobile into Windows Mobile, whats your problem!!!?
:P
@Eminemdrdre00
Tell Steve that the Palm Pre is gaining support for Flash 10.1 with the February 15 release of webOS. Oh well, such is life.
@Eminemdrdre00 You know very well that "choice" goes against everything Apple thinks. You'll get flash when Steve Jobs decides you want flash.
@Eminemdrdre00
No Flash? That's just a great "feature" of the iPhone/Touch!
I want flash for my iphone 3gs!!!
Damn you Steve Jobs!
@chrisrottan I 2nd that, 3rd that... 7 millionth that!!!
@SeNiLe911
Steve wants to sell you music vids, TV show, and Movies, and not to mention mini "flash" like game. Flash can do all that so I doubt that they will open up flash. This how how they make billions in profits. I like apple but I like oranges every now and then.
@chrisrottan
Probably what you want is a version of Flash that is fast, doesn't eat your battery for lunch, and which doesn't crash. I rather doubt that you'd ever see that for the iPhone even if Apple allowed it since years of Adobe Flash for the Mac shows that Adobe is just focused on Windows. When Steve Jobs said that Adobe is "lazy", Flash for the Mac is evidence for that. I'm honestly not sure which is worse, no support for a platform or the pretend support we see today.
@cdf74dc9 I never thought about that. Considering Apple has been billing their iPhone & Touch as casual gaming systems, all the free flash games on the Internet could put a dent in their game sales for games that really aren't any better in most cases.
@Kelmon Complete lie. The reason why flash runs badly on Macs is BECAUSE of Apple. They don't allow Adobe to have access to the hardware layer necessary to boost performance like Windows does.
Blame Apple, not Adobe for flash running great in windows but like crap on Macs.
@Gigaflop Your wrong sir
@Kelmon
hmmm! no need to be selective in your readings, or biaised,
no judgemnt calls before you know all the facts, or at least the two sides of the facts.
mainly:
Apple says it is bogus an app, using too many ressources, and crashing.
Adobe says that their app uses hardware to decode video and images, as this is very heavy in processing needs. but apple do not allow them.
for processing video, requirering a lot of processing, I confirm, I work in transcoding lately, and yes it is: the closer you code to the lower kernel layer, the better, must is to be on ring zero of the OS, as a driver.
now, does apple allow coders to access teh same api's apple uses: NO.
which one to believe here, hmmm! I let you pursue the checks, and do not believe me, do some search
@cdf74dc9 Apple and Jobs would make more money selling iPhones that run Flash than they do selling the apps you talk about. I don't buy that argument. Plus you have to be online to load those Flash apps and games, something not always possible.
@Gigaflop Ok, then why does Flash suck on Linux, the open-source OS, where no one is hiding anything?
Because Adobe is slacking.
You're helping cover their tracks with that story of yours.
Not really Adobe. Since their products are used by the competitors as well.
Apple on the other hand might lose. But then, somebody who wants an Iphone/ Ipod/ Ipad isn't gonna stop only because it's half baked in termes of web usage.
Huh? Anyone know where you can make these supposed requests?
Or are they talking about direct views to the get flash page from iPhones? Those are two entirely different things.
@Nerdtalker
its the second.
and there's 75 million iDevice owners...
so 1 tenth of all owners hit flash sites ONCE, in a month.
yawn.
@Wesscoast
Not exactly. Adobe put a link on the page that clicking "you don't have the latest flash plugin, click here to download" brought you to that told click on said link if they wanted flash on their iphone/ipod touch.
http://www.tuaw.com/2009/11/03/adobe-points-finger-at-apple-over-flash-for-iphone/
If the number were for the number of times mobile safari went to "flash" sites, the number would be significantly higher. Put even more clearly, the NYtimes homepage probably received more than 7 million hits from iDevices in December. Each one of those would have been a ping for flash, and the list goes on and on.
@Saauron If you think the number is high now, just wait till those iPads start hitting the streets. I predict that the sales of iPads and in increase in requests will be pretty well correlated.
@Nerdtalker
I'm not taking sides on this -- I have flash disabled in my browsers because it's 95% ads, but I'd like to have flash as an option on my iPhone. God knows whose fault it is, though since Jobs is stubborn as hell I'm perfectly willing to believe it's his fault.
HOWEVER, it strikes me as amusing that Adobe is *bragging* about how many people are unable to use their product.
@Nerdtalker
They aren't bragging about it - they are trying to show Apple that the policy is bad on their part.
Anyway,I don't get the apple apologists here who say things like nobody needs flash, or it's crap, and html 5 will kill it. None of that is the point. The issue is that when I go to a website, like dodge's or millions of others, and want to read them and am stopped cause of no flash plug in - that makes me want to thrown my iphone at the wall. They are preventing me from using the whole internet. It's annoying no matter how much you need to kiss their ass. (This is directed in general, not towards the above comment I replied to.)
@Wesscoast 75 million iPhones and iPod Touches? No fucking way.
The only way you can reach that number is if you're counting every iPod, some of which are unable to connect to the internet at all, making it impossible to request Flash.