March 4th, 2008
Adobe, Apple and Microsoft all talking about rich Internet applications on mobile devices
I’ve spent quite a bit of time talking about Flash on the iPhone and first and foremost it’s because I love my iPhone and I don’t think that the web experience is complete without Flash. Today Steve Jobs was quoted in the Apple shareholder meeting as saying:
The full-blown PC Flash version “performs too slow to be useful” on the iPhone, and a mobile version called Flash Lite “is not capable of being used with the Web,”
I obviously can’t speak to performance issues on the iPhone for the desktop version of the Flash Player version but Flash Lite has a long history of enhancing the web with Flash content on mobile devices. In fact, some of the slickest devices on the market like the Nokia N95 and Sony Mylo are shipping with Flash Lite. We’ve got a lot of partners, 450 Million flash enabled devices out there and we’re looking at 1 Billion devices with Flash by the 2010. Consumers and device manufacturers want to capture the rich Internet application wave on mobile devices and when you look at the numbers, 450 million people can’t be wrong. That’s strong demand for a better web experience no matter how you slice it. I’d even go as far as to say that the web experience isn’t complete on the iPhone until some kind of Flash support is added. This commercial is a great example of that.
The last couple of days have been interesting for Adobe and rich Internet applications in the mobile space. First we hear Microsoft is working with Nokia to put Silverlight on one of their phones Nokia is also partner for Adobe in mobile and has Flash Lite pre-installed on more than 70 handsets including all S60 devices. Now this from Apple. Over the next few months be on the look out for more interesting developments in this space……not least from Adobe.
Ryan Stewart, a Rich Internet Application developer and industry analyst, recently joined Adobe's Platform Team as a Rich Internet Application Evangelist. full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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