$5 US Flash player for iPad and iPhones

[gwpriester]

A discussion of lack of Flash support for iOS came up recently and I said there were Flash players for the iPad. Unfortunately the link I posted after a too quick Google search (as sledger so ironically observed) was a bit steep. Several thousands of dollars. But this was a developer solution and not an actual app.

There is a $5 app called Photon that works pretty well.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/photo...430200224?mt=8

It's a separate browser and not a plug-in for Safari which would have been nice. But it does play Flash video on both iPads and iPhones and works just like a browser.

[Cloud]

The $5 seems like a very fair price, but it makes you think if it can be done why don't apple do it for safari? This is my next purchase.

[gwpriester]

The $5 seems like a very fair price, but it makes you think if it can be done why don't apple do it for safari?

Because for reasons best known to Apple, they don't want to support Flash because Flash is an Adobe product. It is insane and makes absolutely no sense. But that is the way it is.

[Cloud]

Strange that without the popularity of adobe products, illustrator, photoshop and the like that apple would not be where they are today, how many designers professional and otherwise have used both together since the early days of pcs to the extent that Coreldraw (a worthy alternative to adobe) gave up on the apple pc a long way back. They are like bread and butter, ok on their own but so much better together, I wonder which one got too big for their boots?

[steve.ledger]

Flash playback = more CPU usage = battery power

You can often hear desktop CPU fans speed up when viewing flash content.
Adobe have made efforts to reduce this, but Apple made the choice and have stuck with it.

[Cloud]

Flash does run on other tablets though, they must be more powerful, wonder what their battery life is like. I think though that apple have actually gone the right way here as when html5 is more wide spread it could replace flash altogether. Some of the apps I use in my sites, for banners, photo slideshows etc have flash on desktop/laptops and when the site is viewed on a mobile/ipad it shows a html5 version, albeit a much simpler version, or at least something which can be viewed on a phone.

[gwpriester]

Speaking of viewing things on a phone, I have finally joined the world of smart phones (I basically never used our cell phone, it was just in the car for emergencies) and I browsed to TG. While most of the site is minuscule on the screen (Nokia Lumia 710), the forum posts bump up to a very readable size.

[steve.ledger]

The earlier first release iThings were less powerful and did have battery drain issues, not such an problem now.

Yep Gary, until I got a smart phone, the dumbphone was not a loved object at all.
Smartphones are so much more useful.

[haakoo]

I think the flash issue on Ithings is just simple economics;
People could make flash based apps and with its scripting power,link outside the itunes store
Which of course would make apple not earn a dime

Hans

[gwpriester]

Well it also occurs to me that Flash in regards to the player, competes directly with the Apple QuickTime player.