I’ve been pondering this question for a long time and have never come up with a decisive answer. Ever since the iPhone came out, people have been criticizing it for not providing the ‘full internet experience’, citing the lack of true flash support. I just don’t get it though, where is the demand?
Several years ago it seems like having a full flash website was all the rage, but since then lots of great web technologies (javascript, ajax, etc.) have been utilized to make highly interactive websites that often outperform their flash counterparts in both performance and utility. These days it seems like the majority of flash content comes from flash video players, and of course the king of all flash video players is YouTube.
When you upload a video you YouTube, by default, is it transcoded to a format playable by most modern smartphones (using built in media players, not flash). I couldn’t tell you for certain, but in my experiences, it seems like the majority of YouTube’s content is available in this format. The iPhone already has a dedicated YouTube application which makes it easy to browse YouTube’s library and play videos. For phones that don’t have a dedicated application, there is the www.m.youtube.com site for browsing the library and doing many of the things you would do on the full version of the site like rating and commenting on movies. Once you get past YouTube as the majority of Flash content, you start to break it down to other video players. Sites like Hulu, Netflix, and many others offer video through flash players as well, but don’t offer nearly the amount of content as there is available on YouTube.
After videos players, I would argue that the second most common flash content is flash advertisements. These things are scatter all over pages these days, and unfortunately, those that design flash ads are not usually concerned with the efficiency of their animations, they just want to animate enough motion and colors to capture your attention. What this leads to is poor performance on the flash content that you actually want. For example, a website like Gametrailers will have a flash banner ad, or a box on the right of the video that plays a flash ad while you are trying to watch a video through a flash player, and flash generally splits the available resources between the two. I’ve seen the framerate on videos drop so low because of other pieces of flash content (like ads) playing on a page at the same time that they are unwatchable, and that is on a full computer. How do people expect mobile phones to handle all the flash content on a page these days, in addition to watching a flash video player? It is important to realize that if you are asking for full flash support, you are also welcoming all the resource sucking advertisements that plague websites. These ads aren’t usually a performance concern for full computers (except the situation I provided above), but on low powered hardware they could be a serious performance ditch and that always leads to reduced battery life.
Aside from flash video players and flash ads, the remaining flash content doesn’t seem to be in high demand (unless I’m missing something important). For example, there are lots of flash games out there, and they are lots of fun. But even if we did have full flash support on mobile phones, I don’t feel like phones are equipped with the necessary control schemes to be able to manipulate that content. Do people expect to be able to play Desktop Defense with the navigation ball on their Blackberry Pearl? I don’t think that it is realistic to expect mobile phones to be able to interface with flash content that was designed with a user, using a mouse and keyboard, in mind. Do people expect flash developers to adapt their flash content to function with the myriad of phone control schemes that are out there?
It all seems rather ridiculous to me, and I still don’t understand what content there is that drives people to ask for flash on their phones. Flash videos players are great, but the majority of content (ie: YouTube) is already available to most modern smartphones. If other flash players want to bring their content to mobile phones, they could do so much more efficiently (for the phones) by following YouTube’s approach. I don’t quite see it being necessary to provide full flash support on mobile phones; what would be the benefit of doing so? Maybe providing a familiar programing environment?
One potential option that I see for the future is that phones begin using a ‘Flash Lite’ standard which provides programmers with a familiar programming environment, and makes it easy for popular flash player sites to create simple flash applications (like video players) that will launch from a link on a website into a Flash Lite application on the phone.
I don’t think we’ll see full flash support (ie: flash players, apps, and ads embedded directly into websites) in mobile phones for a long time because it just doesn’t make sense when you weigh the content gain against the performance and battery life concerns, and isn’t practical when you consider the logistics of controlling that content with various phone control schemes.
I’ve been using an iPod Touch/iPhone 3G for nearly a year now and I can’t say that there are many times while using them that I’ve said to myself “Wow I wish this thing supported flash”. Sure, occasionally there is a video I want to watch that isn’t hosted on YouTube, but on another flash player instead; is that justification to ask for flash on phones? In my opinion, the answer is no, but I want to hear the thoughts of others. When you are using your mobile phone for web browsing, what content do you come across that makes you wish you had full flash support?
Why do we need Flash on our phones? http://tinyurl.com/d5kjkv
Liked “Why do we need Flash on our phones?” http://ff.im/-15JWc
[Google reader] Why do we need Flash on our phones? http://tinyurl.com/dzq4d2
one might like or not … flash has become part of the mainstream (money) “game” …
that’s the reason why
I have to agree with you that I really don’t see flash as being the wave of the future for web design anymore. Pre-AJAX I would have disagreed, however with the technologies and the skill sets of web developers rising steadily flash is quickly losing its foothold. The portability of xhtml formatted information coupled with the simple and undeniably crucial fact that the information is indexable will assure it or is evolutionary child will be the dominate technology for websites as we know them. However that being said there are certain situations that archiving the same visuals results would be very difficult if not counter productive to attain with the current technologies. As a Photographer my business portfolio would have been impossible with my skills to create without the use of flash. I would absolutely love to have my site and its visual appeal accessible to mobile users, but I as of yet have not found a compromise. I myself am a avid user of my Blackberry Storm’s browser, and am increasingly frustrated and/or pleasantly surprised at the extremes of websites mobile accessibility, flash being one of my greater frustrations.
In usage scenarios where a smartphone screen could be extended onto a larger screen or via a companion device (e.g.: Celio Redfly or similar), there are definitely times where one might wish to have full Flash support. Today’s phones may not be quite up to the task, but taking a small look forward to next year’s devices and beyond: a phone that is capable of offering the FIE, including Flash content, has quite a bit of appeal.
My smartphone is basically the only device that is always on my person. If I had a practical way to extend its screen to consume high-bandwidth, multimedia content while away from home or the office… my mobile entertainment/computing needs would be greatly simplified.
Why do we need Flash for our phones? I have to say I’m seriously amazed this was published on this site!?!
As it is now, due to the lack of an in real life situation usable MID/UMPC mainly due to battery times/size etc, many of us are forced to rely on mobile phones for (some like myself having more than one to cover the functions/features we want/need) real life full day mobility and computing.
Since the lack of Flash is one of the most frequent “hinders” one run into using mobile devices now, it would be a large step to get it “solved”!
There are plenty of people like myself who just can’t sit and wait another half a decade to see if a full OS full day MID/UMPC comes along, but have optioned to do what we can with mobile phones until such a devices comes along that is truly pocketable and turly mobile (read FULL DAY BATTERY TIME WITH WWAN ON).
As the MID/UMPC developers/manufacturers are dragging their feet it more and more starts to seem like either one of two (if not both) will be happening before such a device hits the market:
A) Mobile phones becoming powerful enough for the majority of potential MID/UMPC customers settling for the smartphone option since they carry one already anyhow or
B) The features/benefits of the FULL OS’ being “dublicated” in the “clouds” almost eliminating the need for a full OS MID/UMPC.
Personally I think a combination of the two will become reality a lot sooner than a full day MID/UMPC will be available.
Do I need to continue? :)
I thought having flash was important also, but then I got the N810, and realized that I wanted the firefox plugin flashblock, which funny enough I use flashblock any time I install firefox on a system.
Of course there is a few websites which use nothing but flash. Like the imax website.
Even on my Asus N10j, on gametrailers.com I’d rather download HD wmv files then watch them through flash videos, because the flash ones are choppy.
i end up just turning plugins of on my N800. i do not really need it…
and for the few times i want to watch a youtube video, there is mytube…
Eventually you could come across a website with poor design; that is, one that uses flash for its main functionality like searching for flight schedules. However at my desktop I always have all plugins off by default in my Opera browser and on my 901 Go I have flashblock in its Firefox, and the only place I recall regularly needing to allow flash is youtube.
Developers and manufacturers need to weigh the risk of not having any functionality on the random flash only sites vs. reduced costs of not having to support flash. Daily use will be fine without but it’s no solace if a random vital site needing it comes to bite you later.
Bottom line: Flash is a bane of the Internet, but some web developers have sometimes used it on vital things. Are they important or frequent enough to support?
I do agree that flash is misused for all sorts of banners. Besides that, video should be supported by default by browsers, just like images.
With Flex you can create compelling web applications. For example http://www.parleys.com. It is a nice application that could be done in html/javascript, but not as functional and smooth as this flex application. It is also available as air-application, which makes it a desktop web application.
Other companies jumped on the same bandwagon: Sun with JavaFX and Microsoft with Silverlight. This is not about browsing, but about running applications. It would be great if we had some universal platform for creating and distributing applications on mobile devices.
heh, i found myself checking who it was that wrote this, as it was so contradictory to most other articles on this page.
In the future?? Phones have been using “flash lite” for years, and it´s actually called, go figure, Flash Lite. It´s just not very good. But most of the big manufacturers have now made a deal with Adobe to support flash 10 on their phones.
And as for why you need it? FIE
I too am very surprised to see something like this on umpcportal. It´s not very well researched, and quite out of phase considering recent announcements from MWC. Sorry to sound so negative, but I´ve just come to expect more from this excellent site.
It’s such a shame that we’ve got to the point where flash is part of mainstream web but when you’ve got 95% penetration of a presentation platform, it makes sense to use it I guess.
I really hope that it stays this way though. Silverlight and other platforms are trying to push through and the worst scenario would be to have 4 or 5 platform stacks loaded on a mobile device. It makes me cringe!
Fortuantely on FIE browsers, we have the option to tune it out. When I did that on the Wibrain i1, I saw huge improvements in page load times.
See lower part of this article. http://www.umpcportal.com/2008/12/always-on-fie-mobile-computing-with-the-wibrain-i1
Steve
There are some good responses here, thats great. But I feel like not everyone is getting my point entirely. I entirely understand the desire to have a handheld device that can provide the FIE. If it was a simple option, sure, I would say lets have flash on everything. But it is much more complicated than that. Look at some of the questions I’m really asking: (from the article)
And remember, it is my personal opinion that the content out there doesn’t quite necessitate asking developers to tackle the complications of getting viable full flash support on relatively underpowered (compared to full computers) handheld devices. But Chippy may have a different opinion.
“Where is the demand?
How do people expect mobile phones to handle all the flash content on a page these days, in addition to watching a flash video player? It is important to realize that if you are asking for full flash support, you are also welcoming all the resource sucking advertisements that plague websites. These ads aren’t usually a performance concern for full computers (except the situation I provided above), but on low powered hardware they could be a serious performance ditch and that always leads to reduced battery life.
I don’t think that it is realistic to expect mobile phones to be able to interface with flash content that was designed with a user, using a mouse and keyboard, in mind. Do people expect flash developers to adapt their flash content to function with the myriad of phone control schemes that are out there?
I don’t think we’ll see full flash support (ie: flash players, apps, and ads embedded directly into websites) in mobile phones for a long time because it just doesn’t make sense when you weigh the content gain against the performance and battery life concerns, and isn’t practical when you consider the logistics of controlling that content with various phone control schemes.
When you are using your mobile phone for web browsing, what content do you come across that makes you wish you had full flash support?”
Where is the demand? If there wasn’t demand out there we wouldn’t have the news we have now of companies finally going “after” Flash.
Due to the convenience of the size, smooth WWAN WiFi and instant on of my iPhone it is very often my browsing device of choice even at home especially if I don’t plan to type anything (as right now when I’m on my EEE) and there’s plenty of sites and videos out there that I can’t interact with.
Making poor battery capacities on mobile devices to an excuse for why we shouldn’t have Flash makes no sense at all since mobile devices have 3G and GPS which both when used as designed require a lot of power CONSTANTLY while being used. My personal opinion is that no mobile phone is really “ready” for GPS at this point (due to low battery capacity/time), as for 3G it could be resolved if (as I’ve mentioned several times) the WWAN unit would only use 3G when really “needed” and GPRS/EGPRS for the rest (email IMs etc).
When it comes to the resources required for Flash content first off just like mentioned below “flash lite” has been used for some time now Adobe themselves claims “800 million devices shipped with Flash” on their Flash lite site. Now while the LITE edition also addresses your comment about resources, the fact that there is work/development now apparently going on/about to start(?) would to me indicate that it might get optimized even more for use on these mobile devices.
I am not sure what is motivating your reluctance on having Flash on a mobile device, when it’s obvious that you don’t use Flash constantly when browsing, and most likely the ability to “allow it” would be available too as mentioned below.
Now just to elaborate a little at why I see any and all moves to get the mobile phone platforms closer to supporting anything and everything done on a full OS when browsing. Despite my excitement over the OQO 2+ at CES 2009, one can’t help but be disappointed at how there is hardly any real progress in the MID/UMPC segment. To put this in perspective think about this the OQO 02 and the original iPhone were introduced and announced at the very same month of January 2007, now look at what has happened to these two since! OQO now two years later has added a different processor and a different type of touch screen, and then some, but that’s really it! Now look at what the iPhone/iPod products have gone through the past TWO YEARS! Now tell me there isn’t demand!?
Now once again I will emphasize (to try to reduce/limit the angry replies :)) I just as much as the other one on here, want a FULL OS MID/UMPC in my pocket, that’s why I have the Aigo w/XP but it despite everything is an “emergency solution”. I don’t pull the Aigo out first, but only when I have no other choice (even when that means I ran into Flash content :)) or need to run a program installed on it I can’t just run on my Sidekick LX or iPhone. So bottom line I am one that chooses to use what works (to the extent it does) “today” rather than wait for the device that MIGHT be out “tomorrow”. But at the same time I am eagerly following and trying the new devices that hit the market, in the hope of something that would get me down to: Sidekick + MID/UMPC (opposed to 3 devices!)
PSP does flash 6 quite well. It asks permission to run them, granted its more powerful then every smartphone/pda out, but they are catching up
I agree with the writer of the article that there is no demand for banners, not in flash, not in any technology. Well, there is a demand, it is from the company’s advertising, not from the users of the site.
I think there is a demand from a developers perspective to create nice cross platform applications. Cross device would be even greater, but that will be utopia.
Video!
Am I the only one that notices that every other blog post or news article nowadays comes with a video attached? This is why we need flash on our phones. And with newer, faster processors starting to become available, performance shouldn´t be as big of a problem as it used to be.
I also don´t buy the idea that we don´t need Hulu and other places, since we have Youtube. What if you could only visit one site on the internet, say AOL? Would that satisfy your needs?
More and more people are moving away from youtube now anyway, because of bad quality video. And yes, that includes the HD material, if you ask me. Take a look at vimeo.com if you want to see a proper implementation of HD video.
I´m not saying tha flash is great in any way, but it´s the most popular way of delivering the most growing “medium” on the internet, video. Saying we don´t need flash on our phones reminds of people saying that “640K is more memory than anyone will ever need”, or however the quote goes.
And as for not happening anytime soon, have a look at this http://www.engadgetmobile.com/2009/02/16/nokia-also-joins-adobe-initiative-flash-10-for-almost-all?icid=sphere_blogsmith_inpage_engadget
i got to say that i find video articles more of an annoyance then a benefit unless its to show of something that moves (and therefor is hard to capture in still images).
also, i much prefer reading rather then listening, as the details are hard to capture, resulting in the need to play a part over maybe 2-3 times to get the info on wants.
and if they want a online video standard, they should be backing html5 with video tags, not fight over what plugin people should use.
To play Flash content.
Why do you want to purposefully cripple your phone? If it’s there to use, use it. It makes no sense to complain that someone is offering new functionality to your phone. If you don’t plan on using it, don’t install it. But to complain that someone is working on it is stupid.
Thank You! Exactly my point!
I never could understand efforts to hinder or work against progress & development. Most of the time such efforts are fueled by financial benefits, if not why on earth try to hinder it?
Just like GPS modules they steal battery time like crazy when used and I personally
don’t use/need or even like them (due to battery consumption) but I don’t care that my Aigo came with one I’d never advocate for it to be left out!?
I’m not saying that Flash shouldn’t go on phones, but what I am saying is that it is complicated and people seem to feel like it should just “be there”. But in reality there is a lot to consider when you want one platform to work across an incredibly vast and varying set of hardware, I also really wanted to know how people use Flash and how it would benefit them if they had it on their mobiles. So far I haven’t heard too many good examples (there are some), most are video sites which I’ve mentioned in the main article.
Well “it is complicated” doesn’t to me sound like a “good example” (or reason) or logic for NOT having it either.
How about we turn this around? Why not *YOU* give some GOOD REASONS for NOT having it, because your claims or not sufficient battery time or hardware performance I’ve already commented on a number of times:
A) Battery time, it hasn’t hindered 3G and GPS (both which suck way too much juice still!) to enter mainstream mobile devices
B) Hardware performance restrictions, that’s only a time question, and why not have more features that perhaps will push/force the HW to the “next level” in a similar fashion that the iPhone (love or hate it!) has done with it’s competitors! Can anyone count the “iPhone-wannabes” anymore??
Also if it’s so “complicated” how come there already is Flash support on a number of devices then? It also seems like you just completely turned a deaf ear, blind eye(?) to the existence of FLASH LITE which was already commented on above too. Sometimes things can be resolved in a LITE(r) fashion just like the m.youtube and Flash Lite.
So at the end of the day what’s your agenda with this, what’s your hangup with having Flash on a mobile device exactly?? Since as pointed out to you already, if you just despise it why just click NO or CANCEL and not install it? Do you use your browser(s) on your laptop(s?) also without Flash? Why not? It can save you battery time and performance!!?
Just like has been pointed out numerous of times in this post already by me and others, this whole topic seems to go in the OPPOSITE direction of the perceived agenda of this site.
I believe most of the readers here are eager to see NEW technology HW *AND* SW solutions on new platforms & sizes, trying to promote the opposite just doesn’t make sense!? It’s all about pushing the technology to the limit and seeing/hoping if it will work, to perhaps see it become mainstream a little while later!? NO??
Believe it or not, there are still some sites that use Flash for navigation. Not a ton of sites, and they usually have a “graceful degrading” navigation, but it’s still there.
My big thing is video, (which you say “ya, but there’s YouTube!”) YouTube has a ton of content, sure, but not TV shows and movies, like Hulu and NetFlix and TV.com. Embedded video – not just links to a video file – is a big part of the Internet these days. This very blog has embedded videos in the posts.
http://www.umpcportal.com/2009/02/asus-t91-touch-ui-demo-beta
A post that this blog links to has a non-YouTube video review of a UMPC
http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/18/viliv-s5-and-x70-mids-hands-on-with-video/
Which makes more sense, having a completely different app for each video site on a ton of different types of phones… or just having Flash on everything?
Think about it, seriously.
And you dismiss Flash Games out of hand. I’m sorry, but video games are a multi-billion dollar industry. The Video Game industry made more money last year than Hollywood. And that’s been the trend for a number of years now.
You might not be able to play Desktop Tower Defense, but what about the thousands of other Flash games that don’t even use the mouse? There are plenty of flash games that use very simple controls – Up, Down, Left, Right, action button. I think most phones can handle that. And I’m sure once Flash on phones becomes the norm – there will be plenty of games mapped for keyboard, thumbboard, keypad, and/or touchscreen use. I didn’t think the iPhone made much of a game platform because of it’s lack of controls, too. But since I’ve got my iPod Touch and started downloading the games, I’ve been proven wrong.
In fact, the big push from Apple to turn the Touch/iPhone into a video game platform should be enough to get you to eat your words on that one.
“So far I haven’t heard too many good examples…”
You can always turn to the SOURCE of Flash for the info:
http://www.adobe.com/mobile/gallery/
Your question which is more or less “what do you use Flash for on your mobile” is kind of catch-22 at this point!!??
Well, my comment has been “awaiting moderation” for more than a day now… Did I say something you didn’t want posted? Maybe it is because I included links… so here it is with the links removed.
Believe it or not, there are still some sites that use Flash for navigation. Not a ton of sites, and they usually have a “graceful degrading†navigation, but it’s still there.
My big thing is video, (which you say “ya, but there’s YouTube!â€) YouTube has a ton of content, sure, but not TV shows and movies, like Hulu and NetFlix and TV dot com. Embedded video – not just links to a video file – is a big part of the Internet these days. This very blog has embedded videos in the posts.
umpcportal dot com slash 2009 slash 02 slash asus dash t91 dash touch dash ui dash demo dash beta
A post that this blog links to has a non-YouTube video review of a UMPC
engadget dot com slash 2009 slash 02 slash 18 slash viliv dash s5 dash and dash x70 dash mids dash hands dash on dash with dash video slash
Which makes more sense, having a completely different app for each video site on a ton of different types of phones… or just having Flash on everything?
Think about it, seriously.
And you dismiss Flash Games out of hand. I’m sorry, but video games are a multi-billion dollar industry. The Video Game industry made more money last year than Hollywood. And that’s been the trend for a number of years now.
You might not be able to play Desktop Tower Defense, but what about the thousands of other Flash games that don’t even use the mouse? There are plenty of flash games that use very simple controls – Up, Down, Left, Right, action button. I think most phones can handle that. And I’m sure once Flash on phones becomes the norm – there will be plenty of games mapped for keyboard, thumbboard, keypad, and/or touchscreen use. I didn’t think the iPhone made much of a game platform because of it’s lack of controls, too. But since I’ve got my iPod Touch and started downloading the games, I’ve been proven wrong.
In fact, the big push from Apple to turn the Touch/iPhone into a video game platform should be enough to get you to change your mind on that one.
i think ben is trying to say that the primary use for flash right now is video streams, and on a phone that can more effectively be handled by a “standard” codec and a way for the phone to grab the video element and decode it in hardware.
the thing about flash on desktop is that it uses cpu to decode everything, unless there is an available GPU, as then it can offload some effort onto it (one can see this by rightclicking on any flash element and going into flash preferences, there will be a tab with a single checkbox).
thing is that this way of dealing with flash video is what for instance archos have been doing for quite a while.
Well let’s stick to the subject at hand, the subject IS NOT “What options or alternative solutions would there be technically by other providers”, but do we need it?? Just as easily you could ask do we need a mobile phone period?
Now to stick to the topic I’ll use my own example, I for instance debate that I’m better off with EDGE and AGPS on my first generation iPhone vs the new 3G version With GPS all due to battery limitations (yes I also am not an ATT customer whereby I have other reasons too but still I feel this way) yet I’m not gonna go out and claim or question if mobile phones should have 3G or/and GPS!?
I say the option NEEDS to be there. It would be easy to turn it off when you don’t want it.
Interactive vector animation. It’s not just for videos or banners on websites. Sheesh… Heck I’d be more than happy if there was just a standalone .swf player and not even a browser plugin.