AppleInsider StaffAn impending software update to Apple's iPhone will include a plug-in for the handset's Safari web browser that will finally let users view Adobe Flash media files, the Wall Street Journal's Walt Mossberg reports.
"At launch, the iPhone version of the Safari browser is missing some plug-ins needed for playing common types of Web videos. The most important of these is the plug-in for Adobe’s Flash technology," Mossberg wrote. "Apple says it plans to add that plug-in through an early software update, which I am guessing will occur within the next couple of months."
The columnist also noted having some success in connecting his iPhone to a friend's BMW dashboard system over Bluetooth.
"In my two-week test of the iPhone, I succeeded in connecting it without much trouble to the built-in audio system and microphone on a friend’s BMW. Almost instantly, the over 700 contacts I had on my test iPhone were displayed on the car’s dashboard screen and calls could be made and received through the iPhone," he wrote."
Mossberg added, however, that the iPhone can use Bluetooth to connect only with cars and with wireless phone headsets. "It cannot use Bluetooth to transfer any data to or from a computer, to play music through stereo wireless headsets, or for any other purpose."
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44 Comments
The Flash plug-in, if it doesn't bog things down excessively, is excellent news.
How come they let Mossberg say so much? Apple specifically states now that you should avoid Flash in their "iPhone development guidelines". They could've omitted that if the flash update was so near.
The Flash plug-in, if it doesn't bog things down excessively, is excellent news.
this is excellent news... in addition to being able to view flash sites, especially video (good) and advertisements (bad), the other significant factor is that this is probably the preferred method to write applications for many developers, especially if the .SWF file can be hosted locally on the phone's memory. speed should not be an issue. with the latest Flash Player 9, the runtime has increased in speed and efficiency greatly, compared to 8... somewhere on the magnitude of 10 times (guess from memory) for certain features. also, since we are talking about comparing speed against RIA applications running in Safari, the Flash runtime should see parity, if not an advantage to speed compared to AJAX / webkit applications.
The problem is that there isn't currently a Flash runtime for the ARM processor and if there was, how fast would it really be?
joy. so the next time i come here to post from my phone i'll be annoyed by those flash ads.
this will be a great addition to the phone. so many sites i frequent that i can't see without flash...