Flash

SmokeScreen to Play Flash Videos on Your iPhone and iPad

Sébastien Page ∙ May 30, 2010

Flash. That's something most iPhone users have been forced to give up. Fortunately there is still a handful of renegade coders that won't let Steve Jobs and his gang dictate what you can or cannot view on your iPhone.

Chris Smoak is one of these guys. Because he is aware that no matter what Apple thinks, Flash is still a huge part of the Internet, he developed Smokescreen, a workaround that will allow you to play Flash content on your iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch.

Here is how SmokeScreen works: "It runs entirely in the browser, reads in SWF binaries, unzips them (in native JS), extracts images and embedded audio and turns them in to base64 encoded data:uris, then stitches the vector graphics back together as animated SVG."

SmokeScreen is just at its beginnings. Since Smokescreen is written in JavaScript, it is slower than the Flash plugin and is limited in speed by the performance of the browser. Still, it's a nice beginning that gives us hope to see Flash one day running on iPhone OS. [via Engadget]

Adobe Flash and the iGeneration

Guest Author ∙ Updated January 23, 2016

This is a guest post by Polemicist, a loyal blog reader and commenter. If you'd like to guest post on the iPhone Download Blog, please see the guidelines.

What ever happened to this guy?

Developer Jonah Grant submitted an "Adobe Flash mobile" plug-in for the iPhone and iPod Touch's Safari browser on Friday, April 24 2009.

Maybe Jonah’s plug-in was only an urban legend but I do recall Adobe saying they were working on a new version of Flash for the iPod and iPhone and now over a year later we get to see the wonders of the iPad still with no Flash support. To top that off the mobile Safari browser doesn’t appear to be able to support HTML 5 so we are again left in limbo with a media rich field of HTML, JPG and maybe a few animated GIF's.

So why would Apple go out of its way to stop a product that has been around since the early 90’s in one form or another? Flash has become so much a part of the internet that it has been included in Windows CD's since Windows 98.

Yes OK there have been security risks with Flash and Apple can say that those risks are the reason they do not allow Flash content. They can even block it due to the fact that Flash can execute arbitrary code. But if that is the case then they had better not let QuickTime run on the iPad or iPhone as it allows arbitrary code execution as well. Anyway both Apple and Adobe patch their security holes quite quickly so again not a good enough reason for saying no to Flash.

Apple can say that Flash content doesn’t run quickly enough on iPhones. That might actually be correct and in some cases a Flash enabled iPhone user might have to turn off Flash support so they can bypass for example an intro screen that is freezing their browser (wouldn’t that be inconvenient). The iPad on the other hand could easily cope with massive Flash content so that crosses that off the list of reasons.

Why do they take fast processors then underclock them?

Original & 3G: Samsung 32-bit RISC ARM 1176JZ(F)-S v1.0 620 MHz underclocked to 412 MHz PowerVR MBX Lite 3D GPU[8]

3GS: Samsung S5PC100 ARM Cortex-A8 833 MHz underclocked to 600 MHz PowerVR SGX GPU

I wonder if they are going to do the same with the iPad?

All things considered the only logical reason I can see for Apple to ban Flash content is that they might lose money. Because of this attitude from Apple I now want to see the iPad hacked so badly that a version of Snow Leopard can be installed on it.

But I digress. So let’s take a look at the issues here.

On the Official side of the fence we have:

Adobe determined to put Flash onto mobile devices. Apple determined to keep Flash off all of its mobile devices. Developers more than capable of porting Flash to Apple mobile devices. Apple not letting Developers put Flash onto the App Store.

On the Jailbreaker side of the fence we have:

Dedicated hackers capable of making iPad do whatever they want. Homebrew developers with vast experience in iPhone Software. Adobe apparently porting Flash to other mobile devices

Looks to me like the JB community will win. Once a version of Flash is made that will run on Windows Mobile and Android devices the Homebrew guys I’m sure will take great pleasure in putting it onto iPad and maybe even the iPhone. Adobe would have to make the mobile version of Flash capable of being used on Apple products so they can show it off to Apple. Maybe (if we are lucky) that version might “leak” from Adobe.

I’m sure the JB community will happily pay a dollar or two for the Homebrew developer’s effort to port the mobile Flash to the iGadgets. I for one would donate to that cause. Picture just how annoyed Apple will get if this happens and how smug the looks would be on the Adobe team (at least while Apple wasn’t looking).

Imagine now an iPhone/iPad that can browse Flash based websites and then take that website and run it full screen. Going online and finding a few SWF games, downloading and playing them using an updated version of iFile. Watching a Flash based movie or TV channel right from the palm of your hand.

What a wonderful world that would be. I look forward to this Utopia. If not (like many Mac Fanboys) I will look forward to Windows Mobile 7.

What do you think?

iPhone 3GS A Month Later. Still A Lot Missing

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated May 26, 2017

It seems it was yesterday that I unboxed my iPhone 3GS for the first time. Of course it was love at first sight. It is fast and elegant, but now that I've been using it for a month, I notice there is still a lot missing to make it the perfect phone.

Copy/Paste is Clunky

Woohoo, the iPhone finally has copy/paste. It only took Apple 2 years to implement this basic feature... The reality is that they did a terrible job. I think copy/paste on the iPhone is clunky and intrusive. Now everytime you touch your iPhone screen, you have this annoying popup asking you if you want to select/copy/paste. Apple products usually are about amazing user experience and copy/paste for the iPhone is a big fail.

Apple and Adobe Collaborating on iPhone Flash

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated May 11, 2018

Flash for the iPhone kinda reminds me of copy/paste for the iPhone. It's something that should have been there since day 1, but never was because Apple made the non-sense decision to not having it. Why? I don't know for sure but I am certain Steve Jobs has a rational explanation for this.

The Flash non-sense is now coming to an end as Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen announced last week at the World Economic Forum that Adobe and Apple are working together in an effort to bring Flash to the iPhone. That's about time!

In an interview to Bloomberg, Narayen said that "it's a hard technical challenge and that's part of the reason Apple and Adobe are cooperating to try and get it done as soon as possible". He also said that "we have the developer kit and the onus is now on us".

According to RWW:

The debate has been long and tough. In March last year Narayen said that with or without Apple's blessing, Adobe planned to develop a Flash player for the iPhone/iPod touch platform. Unfortunately Apple CEO Steve Jobs had already made it clear the current Adobe offerings were not acceptable. Flash Lite, the version designed specifically for mobile devices, just wasn't good enough and Adobe's desktop product was just too slow on the iPhone. According to Jobs, what was needed was a "missing product in the middle."

It seems that Adobe has been working on this missing product and while there is no time frame, we certainly hope to get Flash on our iPhones sooner rather than later...

Flash Finally Coming to Your iPhone With iMobileCinema

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated January 23, 2016

It's completely unofficial and still very buggy, but yes, you finally can get Flash on your iPhone... kinda. iMobileCinema is a new app available for free in Cydia that aims at being the "Flash for iPhone" application.

iMobileCinema is in fact a Safari plugin for playing internet videos on your iPhone or iPod touch. I personally gave it a try on several websites and it worked pretty well.

After installing iMobileCinema, simply visit any webpage that has Flash content and it will show you a big "play" triangle on top of videos so you know you can play it.

Is iMobileCinema a Flash Player for Safari?

The answer is no. Even though iMobileCinema acts like a Flash plugin, it can't play Flash content such as Flash games and ads. It only plays Flashvideos that are embedded in a webpage.

iMobileCinema can't decode Flash files (.swf) but it ca decode Flash Videos (.flv). It decodes and plays the flash video in real-time while it's buffering.

According to iMobileCinema's blog, they are also coming up with some cool new features...

Some live broadcast sites are using rtmp protocol to deliver videos, e.g., mtv.com, hulu.com. We'll try to support the protocol later. And playing embedded mp3, like singsbox.com, is a good idea and we'll try to support it too.

iMobileCinema is available via Cydia. You will have to add this source to Cydia: http://d.imobilecinema.com

Here is a short demo of iMobileCinema in action...

The iPhone will get Flash…

Guest Author ∙ Updated January 23, 2016

Flash needs to be on the iPhone. Adobe knows it, Apple knows it, we know it. Due to Flash's many integrations on the Internet from advertisements to games and even full blown web sites, people are craving this functionality on their iPhone everywhere and a quick search on Twitter shows you what I am talking about. Not to mention it flys in the face of Apple's own statements that Mobile Safari browses "the true web" as it most certainly does not without Flash, Java and Active-X support.

The Good News, Flash streaming video is close ...

Streaming flash video for example can be interpreted by iMobile Cinema but it is only available for 1.x version firmware at the moment. According to the website the 2.x firmware version is in the works. Can't wait for this to be a reality as it is the main reason I want flash to perform on my phone.

Many sites are also offering iPhone friendly video now as they realize the political lockout of the Flash player may take a while to get resolved.

The Bad News, Wired says it will never happen ...

If you read the doom and gloom article over at Wired you may agree with them and give up hope.

Personally, I think they are dead wrong because hackers or 3rd party developers will address the solution if Apple does not. My prediction is that a jailbreak version of the Flash player shows up mid-next year at the latest. Can't wait.

Flash finally coming to the iPhone?

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated November 12, 2019

That's a feature that has been expected since the very beginnings of the iPhone. Apple has always turned down Adobe's request to include Flash on the iPhone, mostly due to the fact that the iPhone (and other phones for that matter) aren’t fast enough to handle most Flash-driven sites. Even Flash Lite, a shrinked-down version of Flash specifically developed for mobile devices, is requiring too much CPU power.

But according to Flash expert Jens Chr Brynildsen, Paul Betlem publicly confirmed for the first time that Adobe is actively developing a Flash Player for the iPhone.

"My team is working on Flash on the iPhone, but it's a closed platform." He noted that Apple makes all the decisions, so in other words, the ball is in Apple's yard at this time. If Apple says yes, Adobe will have the player available in a very short time.

It looks like we're almost there. I guess the hardest part is not to develop Flash for the iPhone. The hardest part of the job is to get Steve-o approve Flash...

How much do you want Flash? Let us know in the comments why you want (or not) Flash on your iPhone.