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Apple

Flash Ported To iOS and iPhone 4 231

Posted by CmdrTaco from the pay-attention-apple dept.
An anonymous reader noted that there is a simple HOWTO explaining how to install flash on an iPhone4. Mad props for using Strong Bad as the demo. Of course, step one is to use the JailBreakMe. Once installed, Flash inside Safari loads in a stopped state so it won't even hurt performance unless you decide to actually execute the program.
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Flash Ported To iOS and iPhone 4 More

Flash Ported To iOS and iPhone 4

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  • Everyone sing! C'mon, you know the words! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Pojut ( 1027544 ) on Monday August 09, 2010 @08:02AM (#33187532) Homepage

    "Would everyone please rise for the presentation of our national colors"

    Oh!
    Oh I like that!
    Oh yeah!
    Come to the place where the tropical breezes blow
    Come to the coolest place I know
    The people are so great
    But really there's only me
    And that means I'm so great
    And also there's The Cheat
    Oh there's The Cheat!
    The place where the tropical breezes blow
    The Cheat!
    In the coolest place I know
    The one's are always cold
    And parties last all night
    And probably lots of chocolate
    And population tire
    POPULATION TIREEEE!!!

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by TheRaven64 ( 641858 )
      Come on mods, this isn't off-topic - it's the Strongbadia national anthem, which is on-topic as Strong Bad was mentioned in the original post as the demo flash thing that they used.

  • Oh noes! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Pojut ( 1027544 ) on Monday August 09, 2010 @08:04AM (#33187548) Homepage

    Based on the way Apple has talked about flash, I guess people's iPhones are just going to explode.

  • Still won't help... (Score:3, Informative)

    by nlvp ( 115149 ) on Monday August 09, 2010 @08:11AM (#33187592)

    ...all the people who want to develop applications for sale through the App store, for whom Apple is still the gatekeeper who can enforce whatever rules any way they choose.

    Hard to believe this behaviour in the wake of the Microsoft cases heard in Europe and elsewhere, but I suppose Apple can still argue that they don't control enough of the market with the iPhone to be considered a monopolist, and so can impose any conditions on developers that they choose.

    • The difference is that the iPhone isn't anywhere near as dominant as Windows is. The iPhone isn't number one and in recent times has been getting trounced by Android. It's really only a matter of time before developers jump ship for Android, given the plethora of dickish moves that Apple has made against the developers.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by Fross ( 83754 )

        A quick google ( http://www.google.co.uk/search?rlz=1C1CHNG_enGB347GB355&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=iphone+market+share [google.co.uk] ) shows iphone passed Windows mobile in 2009, and had 3x market share of Android as of June this year.

        Do get your facts right or you look as bad as the fanboys.

      • It's really only a matter of time before developers jump ship for Android

        Android devices without an integrated mobile phone don't have Android Market, and the one that was recommended for a while (Archos 5) is stuck on an ancient version of Android. So as I understand it, Android 2.x has no close counterpart to the iPod touch for someone who doesn't want yet another monthly phone bill.

        • Nexus One, does that. It's pricy, but you can even use it as a phone without any monthly bills. Either via pay as you go or using it completely via wifi and VoIP. Or you can ditch the phone component all together and use it as a iPod replacement.

          • Nexus One

            In this page [google.com], Google wrote:

            The Nexus One is no longer available for purchase directly from Google. For more information on how to purchase the Nexus One, check out our help center.

            In this page [google.com], Google wrote:

            The Nexus One is no longer available for direct purchase from Google, but is available through Brightstar for sale to registered developers. Please note that Brightstar's Nexus One purchase page is only accessible to registered developers.

            So in order to buy an Android phone without a contract, you have

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by RMH101 ( 636144 )
              Huh? What's stopping you going down the high street, buying an android phone and using that? Or developing using the SDK?
              Google have stopped selling the Nexus One because now the carriers have STARTED selling it. At least in the UK you couldn't throw a brick whilst out shopping without breaking the window of a shop selling the Nexus One, Desire, Wildfire, Legend, Galaxy S, Dell Streak etc etc.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by tepples ( 727027 )

                What's stopping you going down the high street, buying an android phone and using that?

                What's stopping me is the $2,000 contract that comes with it. As I wrote in this post [slashdot.org], I don't "want yet another monthly phone bill."My current phone is an Audiovox 8610 for which I pay 7.13 USD per month to Virgin Mobile USA because I use it for urgencies. I highly doubt that the local T-Mobile store will sell me a Nexus One for use with one of its prepaid plans [t-mobile.com].

                I just visited T-Mobile's online store, and Search Results for Nexus One [t-mobile.com] states: "Looking for the latest Android device from Google? Pricing an

  • Oh well (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Midnight Thunder ( 17205 )

    Kudos for the achievement, but I am not going to clap too hard.

    [rant]
    I am not a big fan of Flash at the best of times. I have seen more cases of sloppy web design, UI design and lack of CPU optimisations in Flash than in other things I have used. Some of this can be attributed to people developing the Flash applications and some of this can be attributed to Adobe, but in the end we all suffer. If some of these issues were addressed I might change my mind about Flash, but at this point I have Flash block on

    • Re:Oh well (Score:5, Insightful)

      by deathguppie ( 768263 ) on Monday August 09, 2010 @08:49AM (#33187928)

      Dude, seriously. I hate the plastic knife they pack away in those little cheesy cracker packs. It doesn't work very well and it's more garbage for the environment, but sometimes it's the only way to spread my cheese. I could hate the plastic spreader, write about it in blogs, start a petition... However sometimes it's just what I'm looking for even if I don't agree with it.

      With that said, many, many flash sites load and run very well on my Nexus One. More than I would have thought, and I can always turn it off, or not go to the site.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Sockatume ( 732728 )

      Surely you exaggerate? I've seen more shit web design in plain old HTML than everything else combined. Your UID suggests you're old enough to remember Geocities and Angelfire.

      • you're old enough to remember Geocities and Angelfire

        Shhh! We don't talk of those things. Imagine if they had AJAX back then -- the world could've exploded. Best to let those memories die.

      • Surely you exaggerate? I've seen more shit web design in plain old HTML than everything else combined. Your UID suggests you're old enough to remember Geocities and Angelfire.

        I may exaggerate (heck rants are for that :), but then again my expectations have gone up too. The idea of having a Core 2 Duo PC brought to it knees by Flash ads is not something that should be accepted. There are plenty of nicely designed Flash sites (though a pure HTML approach would be nice), but should we accept a Flash applicatio

        • The real worst is that a lot of those CPU eating flash applications are omnipresent ads. For a long time I resisted using ad blockers. I've run small sites and I know that they really need those fractions of a penny per page view; but after the second or third time that my computer was brought to its knees by the ads on my WoW Guild's website (I usually leave it up to check forums and such), I had to do something.

      • I've seen more shit web design in plain old HTML than everything else combined.

        I dunno. I think today's shit designed flash pages with a long-loading shit flash introduction, shit-flash dropdown menu's, and numerous shit flash ads plastered on every page on the site is worse than anything that can be designed in html.

        About 8 years ago Flash was used sparingly and was kinda cool, but today almost every site uses flash just for the sake of using it, not because they need it for anything that plain old HTML c

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Draek ( 916851 )

          Then you're too young to remember animated starry backgrounds. Imagine a page-wide blink tag and you'd get a rough initial approximation. Remember most people couldn't be bothered to change the text's color from its default black, and you'd be starting to imagine the pain one felt when that was the only even remotely-related website Altavista could find.

          Besides, for all the evils Flash has brought us, it also gave us Portal: The Flash Version which helps balance things out.

    • Re:Oh well (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Shihar ( 153932 ) on Monday August 09, 2010 @08:54AM (#33187992)

      I have been a pretty big hater of flash in the past. Its ability to bring a modern computer to its knees with a fucking little flash game is pretty god damn annoying. That said, Apple bitch slapping the shit out of Flash has knocked a little sense into their heads. They have recently discovered mortality and found that they kind of fear it. Flash has started to clean up its act and stopped assuming that the user has more cores than fingers and enough memory to run a dozen instances Windows Vista at once. In fact, EVERYONE has started to do this from website designers to chip makers. I think the smart phone mobile revolution has been great for design in general. For too long everyone used Moore's law as crutch. Why use good design when you can throw 8 gig, handful of cores, and enough power to run a small movie theater at the problem?

      What makes the mobile revolution really interesting is that it is really just reclaiming a lot of old tech. Everyone from chip designers to programmers know exactly where to go next because we have already been there with the PC. The challenge now is to take that old tech and optimizing to do more with less. The programing piece is interesting, but I think the real advances will be in hardware design. What smartphones are doing to hardware (chips, memory, sensors, etc) is breathtaking. They have covered ground that it took PCs a decade to cover in a couple of years. By the time my HTC Evo is ready for replacement in less than two years, I don't doubt for a second that my next phone is going to be rocking specs to put my last computer to shame.

      • I have been a pretty big hater of flash in the past. Its ability to bring a modern computer to its knees with a fucking little flash game is pretty god damn annoying.

        I just wanted to mention something I noticed this weekend, anecdotally of course: I watched two episodes of X-Files (roughly 1.5 hours) on the iPhone Hulu app and only noticed a 15% or so drain on the battery. I'd be surprised if a mobile version of Flash could pull that off without co-operation from the site on the other end.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by thsths ( 31372 )

        > That said, Apple bitch slapping the shit out of Flash has knocked a little sense into their heads.

        How so? As far as I can tell Flash installs and upgrades are still every bit as unpredictable as they used to be. Google Chrome may actually be on to something by including it in the browser, but that is not exactly Adobe's achievement, is it?

        And let's not forget that there is still a big gaping 0 day (or -7 day) hole in Acrobat - which seems to be getting the norm rather than the exception.

        The 64bit plugi

    • I had to switch from a Nexus One (Froyo 2.2) to a Motorola Droid-X (Eclair 2.1) because AT&T blows chunks (despite their coverage map showing full 3g coverage) where I live and I have to say - I do miss Flash, and I catch myself visiting a website that has embedded Flash objects I like to play around with all the time and just staring at that "missing plugin" icon is still a bit of a shock (only had the new phone 3-4 days). Adobe Flash only works on Froyo 2.2.

      A lot of websites and blogs embed flash vide

    • What do you recommend that web animation series such as Homestar Runner and Weebl and Bob use instead of Flash? Authoring in Flash and rendering to H.264 or WebM would only make it ten times bigger.

    • I would prefer to make that decision myself then have a company dictate it to me. I have an iPhone and I actually really do like it. However Flash is something I would like to have the option to choose. I am not applauding Jobs for keeping Flash off the Phone, Granted 99% of the time it isn't an issue but that 1% is annoying. HTML 5 is great and all however until IE supports it well by most of it browser share it will not be replacing Flash. And there are the DRM Reasons to stay with flash... Yes I kn

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by sponga ( 739683 )

      Whatever floats your boat.

      But I have Flash running on my G1 the oldest of the Android phones and 90% of the time most sites work, in fact all the major websites work just fine and day by day more sites are adjusting their content for mobile.
      To put it in another way, I have more options than you and can access more stuff.
      No it is not bloated(yet..) and videos stream perfectly clear.

      It works....

    • "I have seen more cases of sloppy web design, UI design and lack of CPU optimisations in Flash than in other things I have used...

      If some of these issues were addressed I might change my mind about Flash...

      the lack of evidence that Adobe is actually trying to address these concerns..."

      Um, by your logic, Microsoft has some responsibility for poor .NET programming, Linus and the crew have some responsibility for poor open source programming, and who do we blame for bad C, C+, C++, and C# code?

      No, next thing

  • Battery Murderer (Score:3, Funny)

    by al3k ( 1638719 ) on Monday August 09, 2010 @08:17AM (#33187648) Homepage
    I'm sure this will only improve the iPhone's awesome battery life! (iphone owner)

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gmuslera ( 3436 )
      Turning the phone off will save battery too. The point is having the option. And won't affect battery/performance if not activated, and not visiting a site with flash. Considering how much you have to do to reach that point (jailbreak phone, install flash, enable it in your browser, and actually visiting a site with flash) then you really want to get that functionality, battery or not. Same could be said about bright screen, gps, 3g or in general, or any app that takes cpu
  • I'm convinced that Apple has put out iOS4 with at least one bug that users find mildly annoying (like failing to send emails with photos). That way once an exploit is discovered in the new OS release they have reasons for users to upgrade.

  • how about doesn't load unless you ask it to, so that it doesn't hurt those other performance factors: load time and bandwidth.

  • Curious... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by valeo.de ( 1853046 )

    I wonder how many people actually want Flash on their phones. I mean, Adobe have had more than a few years to optimise their player for the biggest sector of their market: the desktop, and they've failed completely. Even on my fairly beefy (Windows 7) desktop with gigs of ram and an abundance of free CPU cycles (read: 99% idle, only Chrome with flash running), the latest flash player chews up CPU like no man's business. (And yes, I've tried the betas and pre-releases, and they're just as bad...)

    Perhaps I'

    • Re:Curious... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Mongoose Disciple ( 722373 ) on Monday August 09, 2010 @10:03AM (#33189090)

      I don't think anyone wants Flash, per se, but they may well want content that's only available (or more easily available) in Flash.

    • Flash sucks no doubt but lack of flash sucks even more.

    • You have a seriously messed up computer. I'm on my work machine (2 gigs of ram, Windows 7 Flash 10.1 - and its an Dell Optiplex 745 with a 2 core Core 2 duo running at 2.4 GHz) and hulu in hd mode uses 15% of the cpu. My machine is nothing to brag about either.

    • the latest flash player chews up CPU like no man's business

      When doing what? H.264 decoding seems to run quick enough on my machine. Maybe you're trying to watch some Spark 3 stuff? Maybe Flash is configured poorly? Just like JavaScript can bring a machine to it's knees, sometimes, you have to block third-party things in Flash.

  • I have yet to find a single iPhone user who needs / wants flash, why are these people actually trying to make it work? Flash is a battery drain, awkward UI, etc etc. Why would anyone want to run it on an iPhone?
  • Can you run a web cam on it or more for web page layout?
    Web video calling ...

  • Not Strong Bad (Score:3, Informative)

    by Meneth ( 872868 ) on Monday August 09, 2010 @09:19AM (#33188346)
    I know he's the reason everyone goes to the site, but, unfortunately, Strong Bad didn't appear in this Flash demo at all. They only showed the speech-impeded athlete, Homestar Runner.
  • now the Justice League is trying to rescue him.

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