Will or won't the iPhone get Adobe Flash support? It all depends on who and when you ask.
A couple of weeks ago, Apple CEO Steve Jobs indicated the iPhone and iPod touch wouldn't be supporting the most widely used way for delivering animations, videos (YouTube, anybody) and interactive applications on the Web anytime soon.
Job said, “The full version of the Flash player "performs too slow to be useful," and Flash Lite, Adobe's version for mobile phones, "is not capable of being used with the Web." He added, "There's this missing product in the middle," but "it just doesn't exist."
Speaking of the great flash standoff between his company and Apple during an investor call yesterday, however, Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen said his company is already in the process of developing a version of the Flash media player for the iPhone, without – it appears - the direct input of Apple, the The Wall Street Journal reported today.
Narayen said Adobe's downloaded the software development kit (SDK) for creating third-party applications for the iPhone, made available by Apple earlier this month, and is using it to build a iPhone and iPod touch-friendly Flash client.
"We believe Flash is synonymous with the Internet experience, and we are committed to bringing Flash to the iPhone," Narayen said, according to The Journal. "We have evaluated (the software developer tools) and we think we can develop an iPhone Flash player ourselves."
Adobe, like all those developing official iPhone programs, plans to make the player available through iTunes and the iPhone App Store. Since Apple doesn't plan to launch its iPhone and iPod touch software distribution scheme until June, it'll be at least that long before the new Flash player is available, however.
Adobe’s not hurting when it comes to finding smartphone companies who would like to see their customers take able to take Flash on the road with them.
Earlier this week, for example, Adobe announced a deal with Microsoft to make Flash Lite a standard part of the Windows Mobile package delivered to phone manufacturers. This follows a recently announced deal with Nokia to bring Flash to the cell phone giant’s smartphones as well.
According to Adobe, Flash Lite's been downloaded over 500 million times and is available to mobile handsets at all levels—from your basic cell phone to advanced feature phones and smartphones—running on several different mobile platforms. During its fiscal first quarter alone, Adobe saw over 100 million cell phones ship with Flash.
