Steve Jobs hates you, and so does this error page
By Tim Stevens 
posted May 27th 2010 8:55AM
posted May 27th 2010 8:55AM
Daring, controversial, and effective? More like busted, as this doesn't actually detect Safari Mobile. It instead is triggered by any browser that doesn't support Flash. In other words, installing this little redirect on your site is a great way to really piss off anyone on Android (pre 2.2, natch), Windows Mobile, Opera Mobile, Lynx... you get the picture. Steer clear.If someone visits your site on a Flash enabled device/computer your home page will load fine, as it always does; but if someone visits your site on an iPad or iPhone, instead of the current blank or error page coming up, your site will greet them with this special message page.
Update: We got a good news / bad news update from the SOS crew. Good news: the script has been updated to only show up for iPad and iPhone devices. Bad news: they were told that the image they were using had to be "modified slightly," resulting in a new image that shows rather more black box than CEO. If only there were some place that still showed the original image...
I said this elsewhere: it would be more appropriate if it was his own face on the person flipping the bird - he clearly shows great contempt for people on low-power, low-bandwidth devices. His own web site eats up 2.3MB of bandwidth just to show a white screen with a list of links on it.
@Dale P Seriously WTF? Everything on his site (except the video stuff) can be achieved with less bandwidth with HTML and flash. Drop in a switchable video control that switches between html 5 or flash based on user agent and you're future proofed. This guy is just lazy.
His site probably isn't SEO friendly either.
Can this show up in the engadget articles with videos when viewing from an ipod/pad/phone?
Yup trying to show how lack of flash on Apple devices hurts users, I think this is a fail as it also shows how lack of flash hurts Android users too. I wish flash would just die, I hate all those flash adds all over a web page add blockers don't block them types of adds and if you use a flash blocker to block the adds then you don't get to see the other things that are in flash.
Posted from POS HTC Hero soon to be EVO
@Gatica
If Flash was replaced by a different plugin or standard or whatever, you are still going to see all of those ads. That's no because of Flash; Flash is just a means to an end. That end will still be there if an when Flash dies.
Apple has already started showing this with iAd or whatever they're calling it. It's their version of Flash ad banners and blocks, but written in HTML5. They'll still be there when Flash is gone dude.
hate to break it to you but htc devices htc hero and later even on 1.5 had flash lite
Ummm WinMo has multiple browsers that support Flash, so I don't think I'll be seeing that message.
Right now Ballmer and the Opera Mobile people hate you too by that logic, so why pick on Jobs?
@DTJ i have a winmo6.5 phone and can watch flash on opera... what was your point again?
For this error page to be news, I expected a witty and creative error page that gave a good counterpoint to Jobs' statements. Instead, there is a juvenile Photoshop that could be offensive to users (what if a kid stumbles upon it), and no arguments other than "other browsers can display the page". This error page is ill-advised, offensive, and worst of all, not very intelligent.
Hmmm.. lets see if there is any response from Apple on this :p
Android , Windows Mobile, Opera Mobile, Lynx ? What are this things?
@aelaos Web browsers, naturally.
I can understand that some would feel that not having Flash was a huge shortcoming. I do on occasion wish my iPhone had Flash. However, it doesn't even remotely kill it. The vast majority of sites I visit don't require Flash. So I can't play Farmville. OK. I'll live. I've got a ton of games on my phone that were all designed for it, not for a mouse and/or keyboard, most of which I got for free or 99 cents, and the ones I've kept are all good games (yes, there's plenty of crap too, none of which I've kept). I don't watch Hulu as I'm not a big TV watcher, and I suppose if watching Hulu on your mobile phone is of top importance then maybe, for the moment, it's a big deal, but eventually Hulu will support the iPhone, I don't think there's any question about that. The main things I'd want to be able to use wouldn't work well, as-is, on a touch-based phone anyway. Video is better handled by other means, not Flash, especially on a mobile phone. Flash applications, such as most games, aren't going to work well on an entirely touch-based interface - they need to be designed for it, and they aren't. This doesn't even consider issues of battery life and stability, just the practical use of these sites.
@crunc That is not the point here. The point is "Why can't we have flash?" because Jobs doesn't want it?
People we have to stand up for ourselves and not be controlled by the others. Sure flash might be dying, but is it dead yet? No. Others might say I dislike flash and it would drain my battery if thats the case there should be an OPTION(choice) to turn off/on flash but let there be a choice, not just because someone does not want it can't mean we can't have it.
Some of you people don't know how important having a choice is. I suggest some of you come live in my country just one year and learn about our government and while they will say you have a choice you really don't.
Out of the 5 banks I know their interest rate average starts at 10.0 (yes not .10) and sometimes it goes up at 50.0 and 80.0 for all banks. Telmex/telcel control the telecom and internet business, others might say but there is competition(movistar, iusacell) but those providers have to use the wires of telmex and in return have to pay telmex to use them as for the cell phone and internet market it is ran the same, and not to mention our fastest internet spees is 6mbps. And you want to know why? Because we didnt care about choices and now that its controlled by the giant corporations of our times we are screwed.
Everytime i see the USA is making life a lot more controlled and only a few people complain eventually it will all be controlled and your precious rights wont matter no more. So make companies such as Apple give you and option and don't just settle for what they say you can't have.
p.s I studied economics and international relationships, and you would be surprised how much the governmet learns from companies such as Apple.
@SskyNnet I'm sorry, but seeing this as an issue of having my rights restricted is absolutely ludicrous. I'm not going to get my panties in a bunch over the lack of Flash on the iPhone and even if I did, there are other smartphones out there I could use instead that do support Flash. There's genuinely important issues out there to be concerned about, like why media like Engadget keep trashing Foxconn when the suicide rate there is not only much lower then the suicide rate in China, it is dramatically lower then the suicide rate in the US, and lower then the rate of something like 85 other countries. The media should be praising Foxconn for their low suicide rate, not trying to sabotage them (and also Apple, which always gets front and center mention in these articles). That kind of mindless attack on a company (and really an entire country) is something to worry about, not the lack of Flash on the iPhone.
i got flash on m htc desire i dont have a problem not ever
Steer clear. Why would you tell us about it and then tell us to steer clear. How pro Apple can engadget get. Do you get paid bt Apple in any way?
I doubt anyone would use this, it's just not politically correct to put on any website.
@nando2323
You are an idiot. Something is better than nothing. HTML5 can't do everything currently. We will cross the bridge when we will get there. How about that? Didn't you listen to what Hulu said?
@nando2323
I got to be honest with you, if a site isn't prepared to make sure its business / content is not viewable to the masses then its generally not worth worrying about. Taking a stand against the tens of millions of iPhones, iPods, iPads etc is not only stupid but commercial suicide.
You can't let stupid politics get in the way of sense when it comes to your valuable marketing / business, so follow this idiot in the blog post at your peril ;-)
the funny yhings is that most of the people who buy ipads dont even know that it doesnt support flash....sighs...i'm glad i aint that stupid to waste my money on a big useless webrowaer tablet..i'll wait
@nipponJ ...and your evidence for this is where? Because you feel it to be the case so it must be true?
@nipponJ LOL. You anti-apple folks like to latch onto a small thing and play it up as the end of the world. Most sites don't use Flash. Many that do now have iPhone optimized versions anyway. The vast majority of websites work great on the iPhone. It's just not that big of a deal for most of us, and with each passing day it becomes even less of a big deal. So you can struggle to play a mouse/keyboard based Flash game on your touch-based phone. Congrats. I've got about 75 games on my iPhone that were designed for it, and a ton to choose from that I don't have yet, most of which were free and the rest were mostly 99 cents or a few dollars. I'm not exactly lacking for entertainment on this thing.
@crunc yea a ton of very boring games that nobady really plays, only a few are good and j'm am not anti apple in now way. Flash should have been supported , steve jobs aint god, he seems more of a dictator. Expain to me what does he mean by OPEN ?
@nipponJ I knew it didn't have Flash as I have owned an iPhone since the 3G launched. I am very happy it doesn't have Flash.
Not sure where the boring games thing is coming from, I have several games I rack up time on. Pinball HD, Real Racing HD, Plants Vs Zombies HD, We Rule, Godfinger, NOVA, Let's Golf HD... all great games. There are plenty more I want, I just don't have unlimited funds.
@Dale P "I'm very happy it doesn't have Flash"
seriously dude. Wtf. If they allowed it as an option, you could turn it off. Then you'd still have the same damn experience with your phone, and all of us that would like to view more web content can choose to do so. We'd all be happy.
There's no reason you should be happy that it doesn't support Flash at all if you could turn it off. No reason.
@krishansy
]Hulu is making an app for the iPhone/iPad, regardless of how they feel about HTML5.
It is amazin g how much energy has been spent on this debate. If you need flash for whatever reason dont by an iphone. Problem solved. If you are like me and could care less because you dont use your phone for any serious browsing then you probably will love the phone. Apple has the right to allow whatever they want on their devices and it only bothers a few silly people that like to b1tch about whatever they can. After having an Iphone since the first edition I can say I may have ran into a site once or twice that needed flash. As a web developer myself I never use flash in any of my designs and people that design pages that require flash to operate simply either do not care about their audience or are not paying attention. I dont need to access a page that is developed without my mobile in mind. Anyhow, if someone can give me a reason that is more than (I need to watch huluuu) than I may change my mind but so far very few people can think of a reason for the masses that flash is missing.
@Spiritus Sancti
I bought a 2G and was very happy with it. I even made the argument a couple years ago that people need to stop begging for Flash on phones because it ran like crap. Even when the Hero came out, I believe the 3G was out at the time, and Flash ran terribly on that device. Adobe had released a statement saying that they were in talks with Apple about creating a version of Flash with their device. Big deal, it sucks on phones, right?!
I bought a 3GS, and it is a great phone.
Then Adobe demonstrated Flash 10.1 beta on an N1. And it ran very well. I now care about having Flash on my phone. Because the hardware is capable and the software is finally being optimized. I already bought my 3GS. I don't regret it, because it'a a great phone, and I'll have had almost a year of enjoyment out of it before Android gets a decent version of Flash. But the fact of the matter is, it's a great phone, a great platform, and I want Flash on it. I'm allowed to want.
Especially when the hardware is fully capable, the software has been optimized, and the reasons for not supporting it are assinine. "Show me a version of Flash that runs well on an iPhone," Steve says, but at the same time, he won't allow it on their devices. Double standard? The 3GS is in the same class as the N1, so I'm sure it would run just as well.
I do heavily browse the net on my phone, and there are videos I'd like to watch every day on it that I can't. It's not the end of the world, but it is enough at this point that I might change to Android if I can't find that jailbreak app that allows Flash video to play.
Just stare into his eyes and you'll see the future, it'll flash before your eyes.
@drh
You must realize a couple of details, though:
1st: There are tens of millions of iPhones/iPod touch/iPads. Sure. Then again, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of millions of desktops, laptops, netbooks, that can browse Flash content just fine. And in a year or so, we will probably see boatloads of Windows 7 and Android 2.2 tablets. All flash-capable. So having flash content in your site is hardly "commercially suicide", as a vast majority of the public audience will still be perfectly able to see it. And yeah, i forgot to mention Android 2.2 phones. I guess a few of those will be sold as well.
But sitll, you're losing the iPhone/iPad crowd, ¿right?. Wrong. If there's one thing that can be said about every and all of them, is that they all have at least a PC or a Mac laying around somewhere (as iPhones/iPads are not standalone devices, they need PC's for syncing content). And guess what: your Flah website plays just nice in those (well, probably not so well on Macs). So even the iPhone crowd will be able to see your Flash-based website. Go figure!.
2nd: The problem with HTML5 is not just that you need to make the change, is that probably most of your content is not even possible with HTML5. It seems to me that some people are in the misbelief that, since HTML5 is video-capable, Flash is dead. So wrong.
3rd: oh and by the way, let's talk about about that "commercially suicide" and "letting stupid politics get in the way" again for a moment, shall we? ¿What about releasing a device that's pretty much focused on Internet browsing, and then stubbornly keep it from being compatible with the industry's de facto standard, just because your CEO doesn't like it?
Yeah, about that, ¿what makes more sense, expecting 80 million Flash websites to switch to another format that does not offer any advantage whatsoever, just because 5% of the world's audience can't see it, or just let that 5% have Flash -as an option, if you will- and get done with it?
4th: Wrap Up: Flash will still be a Standard for Internet developing for many years to come, so it will be pretty safe to use it on your website: hundreds of millions of people will be able to see your content, and that's more audience than you'll ever need. And as for mobile devices, well, Flash 10.1 is already available to Android 2.2 users, with Symbian coming next, and then most likely WinPho7 -not launch day, though-. So in let's say a year, every single major mobile plattform in the world will be Flash capable (good thing, since HTML 5 sucks badly on mobiles). Well, all except one. Yeah, let's ditch Flash because an incredibly tiny minority of the userbase can't do it. That makes sense.
@drh
At the same time, you don't let some company dictate what their ideal internet world is! I like Apple & Adobe, use both their products, and it's unfair on everyone if they're fighting. Flash sites can look SO good, and so many huge (and small) commercial companies use it in their websites so what's the point of ruining the $$$ they put into it.
Designers & developers should think about making sites that work for all, but you forget that just because there's millions of iPhoTouPad users, there's hundreds of millions of normal web users...
There are issues with Flash that need to be resolved, but Mr. Jobs, stop thinking your ideas are the best things in the world!
@Jack Actually, that's nothing more than Rumor so far. And even based on that Rumor, it seems Hulu Mobile would be subscription based.
@Jack That wasn't his point. Hulu came out and said that they are working on it but they're finding it close to impossible especially this early on to implement the security features to satisfy their content providers.
@drh Apply it the other way. Apple is taking an idiotic stand that hurts their users, and may ultimately hurt their business, in that Google is going to use it to tout Android. Also, Apple is opening themselves up to anti-trust action for using their influence to harm Adobe and force content providers away from flash.
Now I have an iPhone and an iPad. I like them, but the lack of flash provides a less than complete web experience. That is undeniable.
Any other device? I'm sorry bit it seems to me flash is not officially available on ANY platform, and certainly not ANY OTHER DEVICE...
@jellotime91
Officially flash supported platforms:
Microsoft® Windows Vista®
Microsoft Windows XP
Microsoft Windows Server® 2003
Microsoft Windows Server 2008
Microsoft Windows 2000
Microsoft Windows 7
Mac OS X v10.4 or later (PowerPC) .
Mac OS X v10.4 or later (Intel)
Mac OS X v10.6
Red Hat® Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 5
openSUSE® 11
Ubuntu 7.10 or later or 8.04 or later
Solaris 10
and now, Android
@AA Alex
Devices, as in mobile devices running mobile OSes. Android hasn't officially released 2.2, and many Android devices currently available won't make it to 2.2, so, Android actually doesn't support flash yet. And neither does any other mobile platform except winmo 6.5.
So you can't say "any other device"...
@jellotime91 HD2... flash works great thanks
@SteveyAyo
Yeah... WinMo 6.5 is not ANY other device. You're missing the point.
@jellotime91
>...And neither does any other mobile platform
>except winmo 6.5.
Add Symbian and Maemo/Meego,
Thats 45 or so % of all the world's smartphones that do Flash.
Ah, ah, ah, you didn't say the magic word!
@EllimistX
DAMN! Forgot the passcode!
Well how many are there?
About 2 billion.
Stupid fucks
Honestly, I wonder if anyone inside Apple has the balls to tell Steve Jobs that he has become the irrelevant, control-freak prick that he and his company were supposed to oppose -- at least, as far as the Apple marketing message declared.
I'm damn glad I've never spent money on any Apple shit. And, wow...look at me, I'm still producing successfully in a free market.... Imagine that.
OMG this is so full of win!
I want to buy this guy a beer!
Man, people really doesn't know the meaning of a mobile limitation. Just because Steve Jobs says flash is like this and like that he means that it wasn't meant for mobile! He didn't mean to replace flash, he is just telling you that it wasn't meant for mobile devices.
You wan't a site with full flash? then make it load on a desktop or laptop browser if your viewing it on a mobile device such as the iPad or iPhone or Froyo make it into HTML 5 it's just simple. As a developer this is a good thing making mobile versions of websites into HTML 5 and the creativity of flash on a desktop people might even get creative on making a mobile version.
Flash:Desktops
HTML 5: Laptops
Video streaming sites? just make the video open up on a mobile video player, thats all there is to it.
Farmville? well zynga poker has made their own app for mobile devices and its good instead of playing it directly on the facebook page
Mobile is not equal to desktops DON'T FORCE FLASH ON MOBILE DEVICES
Wan't Flash? get a laptop/Desktop
i'd like to be a apple bashing hipster. because when one party decides not to support a particular technology on their product... it is blatantly illegal, uncool, and unfair. it brings feelings of hurt / neglect / unpopularity... and an overwhelming inability live life positively.
p.s. please sense the sarcasm in this post... isn't it obvious?