There has been some confusion recently over the ongoing debate of flash support on the iPhone 3g. The latest round of speculation results from an image shown during the WDDC keynote which appears to show flash content rendered in the MobileSafari browser.

On iPhones running firmware 1.1.4, and in the iPhone Simulator included with the iPhone SDK, nationalgeographic.com renders with a picture of a cheetah and the message “This presentation requires Flash. Download free Flash player.” Certain slides shown during the keynote presentation, however, were rendered with the same cheetah image minus the “This presentation requires Flash” message.

This is likely the result of Photoshop manipulation of screen captures from a desktop or another digital editing or emulation technique, as flash on the iPhone is not quite ready for prime time at this point.

Adobe’s CEO recently stated that the company already has Flash running on an iPhone emulator (presumably the same emulator included with Apple’s iPhone SDK). “We have a version that’s working on the emulation. This is still on the computer and you know, we have to continue to move it from a test environment onto the device and continue to make it work. So we are pleased with the internal progress that we’ve made to date.”

The real problem is that Flash performance and usage is abysmal on current mobile devices. This is due in part to the fact that mobile processor speeds — including the iPhone’s — simply aren’t fast enough to handle most Flash sites. Flash Lite, the scaled down standard designed specifically for mobile devices, is not widely used due in part to its poor performance.

Jens Chr Brynildsen, a Flash expert who maintains a number of resources including Flash Magazine, told iPhone Atlas that the iPhone’s processor — a 600+ MHz ARM processor that actually runs at 412MHz — simply won’t pass muster.

“I really don’t think 600Mhz is going to cut it. I’m just testing out the Nokia E51. It has a 369Mhz processor and totally sucks performance-wise with Flash Lite. The extra 230Mhz won’t provide the required juice. […] I doubt they want to ruin a the user experience just to satisfy the need of a rather limited user base. Just imagine entering a website with five Flash banners.”

Various reports indicate the new iPhone will run on either an unspecified 700MHz or 667MHz ARM1176JZF-based CPU, but until Apple updates the tech specs it will be hard to know for sure.

Will future firmware updates allow flash support? Do you think Apple will one day sell flash through their app store? Let us know what you think.

(No Ratings Yet)

 Loading ...