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camera flash, YES!!!!

I'm not holding my breath for a iPhone period.

I just don't have a use for it.

My MacBook Pro and cheap disposable phone does just fine by me.

When times are good, I can buy all the Apple toys I please. When times are bad, I make do with items that just get the job done and save me money.

Now if Apple made something that saved or made me money, that's a whole different story.

Apple is too consumer driven, they need to invade corporate and businesses with products that are "Indispensable"

Remember desktop publishing?

Back to their roots, Apple needs to take soon.

That's just silly... but at the very least they could keep flash content from crashing Safari on iPhone.

Nov 21, 08 - 02:47 pm Comment from: deepdish

I do wish the camera was better on the iPhone. It would be nice to only have to carry one "thing" when we go to our girls events.

Flash is bulky and hogs resources way to much for the iPhone. As someone who streams video and content over the internet (and iPhone), I only use Flash when I absolutely have to. H.264 and AAC works great and plays in the Flash plug-in as well as QT plug-in. I wouldn't even consider a Microsloth format, I would quit before using that multiple versions of hunk a junk.
Like others who make a living streaming, size of the file and quality of product is why we choose. We give our customers the best possible quality at the best price. Sure, I could lie to my customers and charge them more for less but then I would be like Balmer, a con-artist taking people for as much as I can.

Nov 21, 08 - 02:58 pm Comment from: Macintosher

There is absolutely no point in flash for the iPhone's camera until it gets a CCD quality upgrade.

As I see it, flash is only worthwhile above 3MP. The camera on the iPhone is only 2MP. I personally think this goes against Steve Jobs saying that Apple wouldn't ship junk. In any country in Western Europe or the Far East that has the iPhone, that camera is outdated and junk. Whilst Americans may be happy, quite a few other customers aren't.

I support the iPhone and I would love to get one, but I must say that I will hold off until they put at least a 5MP (natively video-capable) camera on.

For goodness' sake, even the Blackberry Storm has a 3.2MP camera!

On another note, and sort of @MacGenius - the iWork package seriously needs an upgrade to appeal to big corporations. It's not that it's bad - in fact, it's one of those timeless, infinitely usable pieces of software, and I love it - but that if you don't update something in some way on a regular basis, then the big businesses just aren't going to think the way they are being wanted to by the manufacturers.

MS Office (may it perish forever!) may be M$'s most popular software suite, other than their horrible OSs. Why? Frequent updates, making companies feel part of the strategy and in control (when in reality, M$ has no controller - it just rambles).

Nonetheless, I love the Mac.

Nov 21, 08 - 02:59 pm Comment from: NormM

This has little to do with preventing Web Apps: you can already write nice Web Apps for the iPhone without Flash. Flash is just a messy, inefficient and proprietary attempt by Adobe to take over the desktop. Fighting Flash is a good thing.

Could there also be some pay-back involved here due to Adobe's switch to creating Windows versions of their programs first and dragging their feet with Mac versions, even though the Mac platform established them and propelled them to the position they now hold?

That "My #1 iPhone Software wish" poll sucks. It's missing an option for a universal landscape keyboard. More people would select that than dumb ass stereo Bluetooth.

Instead of Flash plugin for iPhone I'd like a better battery life and settings for the camera (digital zoom, white balance, focus...)

As much as I love the iphone, Apple's going to have to face it. Flash will be around a lot longer than the iPhone, especially if other smartphones can run it - hog or not.

I cried today

Because no longer does Apple offer ANY matte screen computers.

This will be my last Mac.

Goodbye Apple...

That's great news! Enough proprietary technologies on the web! The way to go is javascript, the direction Safari and Google's Chrome are leading.
Accepting Flash would stop the evolution of the Web.

Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.

Nov 21, 08 - 03:47 pm Comment from: thethirdshoe

People DO sell matte films for the display...

Nov 21, 08 - 03:50 pm Comment from: Mo

Flash is an obsolete technology and it is shortsighted to think that it is going to be around forever. And why would anyone besides Adobe want a proprietary executable doodad to dominate the web?

"Just code them in Flash and put them on a web page. In so doing"

Sounds stupid, Isn't what web 2.0 just did? you already hasve web applications and Games, you don't need flash to make rich content or apps.

Nov 21, 08 - 04:07 pm Comment from: GranitW

Does this person know that Apple supports web based applications for the iPhone full-heartily? they even have a whole development section about it.

you crybaby acewipes who are wahhh, wahhhh, no more matte screen, wahhhh, wahhhh no flash, etc.

Hey, carry your asssss over to Microsoft products. No one gives a fat rats ace if you are unhappy and are leaving

Go ... git

Forever Mac Dude -- no worries: just get any of a zillion matt coatings and coverings for the glossy screens you dislike so much.

Personally, I like the glossy: chose it over matt for my present MacBook Pro, and I use Quark, Photoshop etc daily.

It's not the image sensor or the number of pixels that's the problem... it's the size and quality of the lens. It's hard to capture anything with a pinprick sized aperture especially in low light. Adding more megapixels is just going to make bigger, grainier photos; you won't solve this physics problem until you add a larger lens and better glass.

I don't care about "flash" support, but I REALLY, REALLY want the iPhone to support the .flv flash video codec. They're two different things, even though Adobe bundles them together for marketing purposes.

Nov 21, 08 - 04:58 pm Comment from: stryfe137

it is true that apple has a lot more to do with the iphone other than flash. but flash is going to have to be there sooner or later. every other phone os out there will eventually support flash and apple cannot afford to be left behind.flash is being used all across the net and the iphone is not going to suddenly stop it. eventually windows mobile (no matter how crappy it may be), android, blackberry, and symbian will all use it. there may be many iphone users but certainly not more than all of those users combined.
there is nothing wrong with having flash as long as there is some kind of ability within settings to turn it off. give the user the option. i realize that flash has a lot of drawbacks but it does have benefits as well. remember the iphone is supposed to be a computer in your pocket. as of now i'm still unable to access some websites on my iphone. is it the websites fault? Probably. But that dosen't change the fact that it can't be viewed.

flash is not going to take any money away from the app store. native apps always run better than web apps.


if the iphone is to be the dominant device of the future it is going to have adopt more of a tendency towards openness. i expect that over time that apple will start giving more acess to the iphone. if there are security issues that come up with flash then it will have to be addressed. It is a computer and it should be treated as such.

btw i'm sure if flash is suddenly adapted that MDN wouldn't suddenly comlain.

Nov 21, 08 - 04:59 pm Comment from: jds4300

Flash ! You must be JOKING ! The iPhone lacks MMS, voice dialing, video recording, and native document handlng to name but a few. Flash ! Forget about it! The folks at Apple could care less about transforming the iPhone into a true smartphone ! I am disgusted and can't wait until a REAL smartphone is released !

Nov 21, 08 - 06:49 pm Comment from: British Mac Head

They may not be introducing Flash on the iPhone but after today update Safari on the iPhone will display scalable vector graphics. That and javascript is all you need baby! Woop woop!

Google Mobile...launches executable code (check the settings it will launch Google Earth if installed)

This might have been the hold up for the latest release of Google Mobile

FLASH MUST DIE!!!!!!!

Flash brought videos to the masses on youtube, google video and countless other sites. Quicktime looks better but never hit the mark.

Flash is proprietary but so is the iphone, safari and the mac desktop so its just companies battling it out unless we the user and developers ask for what we want.

Now I go back to browsing mac gospel on Safari 3 on my MBPro hoping for these juggernauts to just let the people have a say.

Heck, forget about Flash. How about Apple supporting their own QuickTime suite?

QTVR in particular would be a killer app on the iPhone.

Seriously, it is sad to see relatively intelligent people talk about Mega Pixels in cameras without really understanding the sensor sizes. The 5 MP on tiny sensors inside these phones are as good a junk as are the 2 MP on the same sensors in those phones. If you want even decent quality (printable, presentable) you want a dedicated camera (hopefully non-cropped sensors on digital cameras). Matter of fact, some consider 12MP is the sweet spot for the digital camera and on the same sized CMOS sensors (gaining major grounds over CCDs these days), as opposed to, say, the 21MP found on those expensive Canons. I'm a fan of Canon and this is no bash. In a similar vein, people talk about RAM sizes in MB, as if all RAMs are created equal or even the MBs are the sole consideration in judging the memory stick. Consider the access speed, clock cycles, CL2 vs CL3, or the ECC availability etc and etc.

Anyway, my humble suggestion is this, stop complaining about iPhone's 2MP camera, as it is probably meant to snap photos mostly for the mugs on your contact list, or so how many use it. For anything remotely close to photography, I wouldn't trust that feature on my portable phone's form factor.

MDN MW: six. I got nothing on that.

who cares about Apple?

@ Macintosher

In those other countries in Europe and other corners of the world, data plans are NOT unlimited. They are limited to a certain amount of MB, depending on the country. Imagine emailing 5 MP photos to your friends and seeing that data plan drain out. Before you consider different technology for a different area, take into consideration the data plan.

Nov 22, 08 - 01:47 pm Comment from: Macintosher

To those people who have commented on what I have said:

I get your points, all of you, but what I was trying to make clear was that I believe that a better camera could be built in and that more megapixels would be a step towards that. I totally agree with the camera-related comments but I was trying to be concise! And I do understand - I really love my photography and I know quite a lot, if I say so myself. All I was trying to get across was that it could be better!

On the subject of data: I suppose the quality should be reduced for MMS (which isn't even provided yet) to a manageable file size, but email would be fine with 5MP over wifi, say, or WIMAX (fingers crossed). Also, 3G would handle it in some parts of the UK, Japan and Singapore.

Flash sucks.

The vast majority of Flash use on the internet is for 2 things, Youtube and annoying banner ads. Apple has a special arrangement for Flash-less Youtube and keeping annoying banner ads off the iPhone is a good thing.

Flashblock is my second favorite add-on for Firefox(Adblock Plus being the first).

The Flash player can play unmodified H.264 MP4 video files... therefore, all a web site owner would have to do to make files compatible with web browsers and/or devices that don't have Flash is detect the presence of Flash player (if it is there, play the video through flash), if it is not there, embed the video file directly in QuickTime. That simple... a few lines of JavaScript code can resolve this.

Of course, that holds true if your site is simply regurgitating static video files without the use of a streaming server (which provides live/streamable files). In that case, you are talking about encoding/storing multiple versions of files which wouldn't scale. If I'm not mistaken, when the iPhone originally came out, YouTube converted their video files to H.264 MP4 video files for this very purpose (and consolidated on the one format).

The only other reasons I can think of for a content owner to use the actual Flash player to provide video are:

1) Some control over the content (it is more difficult to a casual user though, by no means, impossible to download the actual video file itself when using Flash player than a direct download link of an MP4). There are some content providers who are obsessed with this type of control over content.
2) More visual design control over the player... you can easily design your own skin for Flash player and apply all kinds of real-time, hardware accelerated special effects to your video direcly within Flash player.

Of course, those same reasons don't necessarily matter on the iPhone/iPod Touch but that is what I think content owners are looking at.