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Flash Comes To the iPhone Via App
An anonymous reader writes "While the HTML5 and Flash standard debate rages, Apple, a major promoter of HTML5, has allowed its iOS devices to run Flash videos. Apple has given approval to an app developed by Skyfire that translates Flash code into HTML5. According to CNN, when a user clicks on a Flash video the Skyfire app downloads the Flash video on Skyfire's server where the video is decoded and then encoded in HTML5 and is delivered to an iOS device. The app is embedded in the Safari browser."
High School Principle: Hello, Mr. Timmerman? ... ... ... some of them own iPhones that are now being confiscated but should another incident occur the parents may have a negligence suit brought against you. ... all this because of ... FLASH VIDEO! Damn you, Adobe, damn you all to hell!
Mr. Timmerman: Yes, speaking.
High School Principle: This is the principle at Luther High School and I am calling about your son Frederick.
Mr. Timmerman: Why what has Fred done?
High School Principle: Are you aware your son owns and operates an iPhone on school grounds?
Mr. Timmerman: Yes but he is not to use it during class hours, it's just for security. I'll have a talk with him when I get home
High School Principle: Are you aware that sometime today an app called 'Skyfire' allowed iPhone users to access Flash video.
Mr. Timmerman: Oh. My. God. Where is Fred, is he okay? You confiscated the iPhone, right? Please just hold him in a locked room and I will leave work right now and come pick him up.
High School Principle: I'm afraid we don't know where he is, Mr. Timmerman. It was not discovered he had access to Flash materials until he sat down during first period, continually grinning at his phone. The instructor noticed and asked him to put it away and at that point your son snarled and knocked the teacher out of the way exhibiting some super human strength -- possibly hepped up on caffeine pills.
Mr. Timmerman: No you don't understand, we're good Christians, my son hasn't been taught any sex education yet, if he's exposed to porn he
High School Principle: Again, I'm so very sorry Mr. Timmerman, according to our counselor's estimates it's now noon and your son escaped at the beginning of the day so he is probably in Tijuana right now so strung out on heroin that he has to mainline it under his eye. If you don't get to him soon, he will certainly be dead before the weekend.
Mr. Timmerman: *gasps*
High School Principle: Also, there's one more thing. A few of the other kids heard your son extolling Skyfire
Mr. Timmerman: My God. All this
High School Principle: I'm sorry Mr. Timmerman, our thoughts and prayers are with you and your family but especially your son. The poor poor victim of FLASH VIDEO.
My work here is dung.
Why do so many articles ignore the fact that there is more to Flash than video? Granted, most games aren't going to play well on a mobile device but there are lots of Flash based sites that work just fine. Being able to access those sites or not is a pretty big deal if your out and about and need to look up information on a nearby business.
This one slipped under the radar and now that the Steve Jobs Reality Distortion Field (TM) has been notified, this app will be hit with the ban stick very soon.
OR
Steve Jobs now likes flash, or finally realized that most of the internet does indeed use flash, and has succumbed to the reality of reality.
I tried to think of a good sig, and this wasn't it.
So, contrary to what the title and the summary say, this has nothing to do with 'flash on the iPhone' and everything to do with 'some company is transcoding flash video to h264 and sending it off to the iPhone.
Apple hasn't 'allowed' iOS devices to run anything new, someone is transcoding.
There is no 'app embedded in Safari browser'
Did I miss the memo that said slashdot was going to start accepting submissions from people who have no clue what they are talking about, and clearly have no idea what the fuck they are talking about from a technical stand point?
This isn't fucking new or newsworthy, what the hell is wrong with you CmdrTaco, why the hell did you approve such a retarded summary and story? Do I need to add you to the ignore list along with timothy and kdawson now?
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Odd that you should say that, because the only flash site I ever use is youtube. So, what flash do I absolutly need yet that I am not aware off?
Here is a hint, promo-sites for games/movies etc I do NOT need.
What amazes me is that so many people claim that Apple has made a mistake and that people NEED flash, they MUST have flash, yet the iPhone and iPad sell like... well like an iPhone/iPad... they sold MILLIONS. Apple with 1 phone is among the biggest phone makers. Yet apparently all these people are buying the wrong phone because their flash needs are not being met... poor suckers... that is why I see so many iPhone users fuming everytime they use their iPhone! "DAMN", they say, "STILL no flash! This sucks! I am going to return it and NEVER BUY another one!"
This explains why the next generation iPhones completely failed to sell... oh wait NO THEY DIDN'T.
Your needs do not seem to be the same as million of iPhone/iPod/iPad users. To bad. Don't buy an iPhone, buy a Windows 7 phone. Be happy.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
My guess is that the answer is "yes". Everyone who tried it hasn't reported back yet because they're, um, busy.
It's actually not a bad idea for video - and from Apple's point of view it helps gain traction for their supported flavour of codec - but unfortunately some of us still have to use Flash for non-video related functionality, whether it's building/maintaining sites that "those upstairs" insist have to have Flash embedded, or even using certain config/CMS tools that require Flash (one of the ones I regularly work with uses a Flex front-end). It's a bit misleading to say this is "Flash on the iPhone", by any stretch, it's not even Flash video on the iPhone, since the entirety of the conversion is handled by a third party before it even reaches the iPhone.
"the video is decoded and then encoded in HTML5"
I'm glad to see the standard of technical journalism around here is as high as ever, Slashdot. Please point me at the part of the HTML5 which describes its capabilities as a video container format and/or codec. Hint: the presence of a tag doesn't cover it.
Sorry, the following video could not be displayed. Reason: Porn on the iPhone is illegal, you have violated the app store user agreement. Apple black ops will be descending on your house shortly to exercise Apple's right under page 26994 of your contract, and confiscate all your iPhones.
P.S. No. This does not allow you to cancel your ATT iPhone wireless agreement or data plan without an early termination charge.
More correctly, they're reformatting a Flash/AVC "wrapper" and HTML tag (or at least those they can detect, since flash players usually involve other code) into the very same video in an MP4 wrapper with a tag. Conceptually trivial, if all you're after is playing flash video. A far cry from supporting all of flash, particularly since the video sites are the first to offer HTML5 alternatives (YouTube, for example).
-Dave Haynie
the idea gets implemented as a PC browser plugin perfectly enabling the latest Youtube and flash games.
Who needs smartphones to just hate Adobe Flash's slowness?
"Apple has given approval to an app developed by Skyfire that translates Flash code into HTML5."
NO IT DOES NOT. As others are pointing out, all this does is use a server to transcode Flash VIDEO and serve it to you. This will not do ANYTHING ELSE with Flash--it certainly DOES NOT "translate Flash code into HTML5 [code]". Better description here.
Also worth noting: "Hulu has also blocked Skyfire to guarantee that users who want to watch the streaming TV service on the iPad have to continue to pay $10 per month for Hulu Plus."
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
The standard of any kind of journalism is explaining things in a manner in which your audience will understand it. Laypeople--and in the technical community that is Slashdot, I am referring to geeks who don't necessarily know or care about all of the technical intricacies of video codecs--see the headline and think, "Oh, a way for me to watch video I couldn't before on my iPhone!" Bingo.
Most people like myself probably thought, "technically, that's not what it's doing; it's probably transcoding something written in Adobe's proprietary Flash format into something that only uses standards in the provisional specification of HTML 5, likely by extracting the H.264 video and re-wrapping it into HTML 5 standard-compliant tags." Most of those people probably also thought, "...but I know what they mean. It's a way for people to watch video they couldn't before on their iPhones." Again, bingo.
Now, I'm really sorry if you were so confused, thinking that the line was being literal and expecting there to be some kind of, I don't know, web alchemy at work, but I assure you that you were in an extreme sliver of a minority. Most people "got it," and as such, I think it passes muster as far as technical journalism goes. If it really bothers you that much, how about considering reading the f****** article, looking for technical details and/or references that you can research yourself?
Incidentally, the submitter pulled that description directly from the article, which appears in International Business Times, not exactly a bastion of "technical journalism." If you want to whine about technicalia, how about writing to the editor there instead of here? Let me guess, is it because you're too busy explaining somewhere else that since there's no modulation/demodulation over digital channels, everyone should stop calling those boxes you plug the coax into "cable modems?" Or are you too bothered by people calling 2010 the start of a new decade instead of the end of an old one? Or how about those idiots who talk about the "dark side of the moon," the side that receives just as much light as the other side? Do you make such a fuss when someone comments on how hot the "middle of summer" is, when in reality, average temperatures are highest around the solstice, which is the beginning of summer?
Oh, right, I know why. Because here, you get modded +5 Informative, whereas in normal society, you'd just get called out as the tool you are. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go to the bank to get some money out of the ATM machine using my PIN number.
The HTML5/Flash debate is no longer raging, it's very much winding down. Java and Silverlight in the browser have also been supplanted by HTML5 already.
The Skyfire app is not embedded in Safari, it has its own WebKit view, same as Safari and many other OS X apps.
And, generally, people complain about that too.
Or have you never heard of "home brew?"
Geeks have. The majority have not. The majority don't even know that one can hook a slim PC up to an HDTV with a VGA, DVI, or HDMI cable, and then use it as an Internet video player, as a DVR, or as the fourth game console, all in one box.
Every single software or hardware maker does what Apple does.
Oh, that explain why you can't run Linux on a PC or compile your own apps for Mac OS X.
No, wait, something seems off here...
Please allow me to rephrase: Most hardware makers making products for sale in the United States in form factors not traditionally associated with personal computers (e.g. handheld, set-top) sell goods that have been damaged with lockdown.