The Story
As reported earlier today, every phone but the iPhone will be getting full Flash 10.1 in the not too distant future. What the iPhone is getting soon, however, is the ability to process Flash within specific applications.
Adobe announced that they’re currently operating a closed beta which allows developers to build iPhone applications directly from the Flash Creative Suite. Yes, there will be an “export as iPhone application” feature. Apple is claiming that this test version will go public by the end of the year.
So Many Controls
You might be wondering why in the face of everyone else’s handset’s getting Flash, Apple is choosing to just have applications. And the answer to that is simple: Apple wants controls to be in place.
Forcing Flash to only be accessible in application form means that Apple can lock down the apps in the app store to only work over WiFi. As a good portion of Apple’s livelihood now depends on its relation with various wireless provider’s world-wide, Apple decided to include controls so that carriers could force the applications in question to not work over cellular data networks such as 3G and EDGE. And believe me, the carriers will lock down the more bandwidth-intensive applications. The Hulu iPhone app might be closer now than ever, but I’ll be shocked if it works on anything other than WiFi.
An Interesting Gamble
For now, let’s assume that smartphone users want Flash support to a point that many people in the market would be willing to jump ship from the iPhone to something like Windows Mobile or Android. And believe me, to some extent that’s true: there are a handful of users who are sick of how prohibitive smartphones still are, though it’s probably not the majority of iPhone users who have this prerogative.
With that in mind, we can say that Apple is basically betting that iPhone users visit only a small handful of sites which have Flash content. If you only want Flash for BoingBoingTV, then you’ll be fine as everyone and his mom is going to have an iPhone app soon that allows access to Flash content. But if you need to download twenty applications to get in your normal web browsing, you’re probably going to be pretty upset with Apple’s choice of how you can use your phone.
