Flash on the iPhone in 2010? An E-Learning Perspective
Everyone still wants Flash on the iPhone.
Nearly a year ago (last February, in fact) I wrote an article called No Flash on the iPhone? I’m cool with that. In advance of the heavily-rumored release of the Apple iTablet/iSlate/iGuide in late January this year, I feel that it is opportune to revisit this topic.
In the February ‘09 piece, I asserted that there is a convergence of historical, cultural and practical considerations to be accounted for when understanding why Apple have been less than enthusiastic about Flash content being deployed on their device:
- Historically, Flash has performed badly on Macs.
- Much Flash content is “badly-constructed …garbage.” (Beschizza, 2009)
- The iPhone is not a powerful computer: it is a Web-enabled Portable Digital Assistant (PDA). I would suggest that in many consumers’ minds that to be able to surf the internet in a full-featured Safari browser on the iPhone means that it’s a “real” computer. Apple surely want to manage users’ expectations.
The outcome of these (and other) factors is that Safari for iPhone does not display a significant portion of the content on the internet. Flash games aren’t supported, videos can’t be streamed from popular television and movie sites like Hulu and the BBC iPlayer, and websites that use Flash to render content or navigation won’t work on the iPhone.
Since I discussed it last, there have been developments. According to a number of sources including the Washington Post, CrunchGear, and even Adobe Systems, the latter have an Flash emulator for Apple’s PDAs in the works.
According to Adobe’s Labs site:
Adobe® Flash® Professional CS5 will include a Packager for iPhone that will let you publish ActionScript 3 projects to run as native applications for iPhone. These applications can be delivered to iPhone users through the Apple App Store.*
See the asterisk at the end of the quote? That’s important. Implementation of Flash on the iPhone is contingent on Apple playing ball, as the Adobe Labs site says succinctly:
Delivery through the App Store requires participation in the iPhone Developer Program and approval of the application by Apple.
Legal niceties notwithstanding, the Flash CS5 iPhone Packager is already in private beta, and running quite successfully by all accounts. Adobe again:
Flash Professional CS5 Packager for iPhone …will enable developers to build applications for iPhone that are then installed as native applications. Users will be able to access the apps after downloading them from Apple’s App Store and installing them on iPhone or iPod touch.
So no iPhone Safari plugin, but I’m still cool with that.
Here’s why: the ability to create native iPhone apps built in Flash has great potential for e-learning in general and for m-learning content developers in particular, as the capacity to re-factor extant materials created in Flash, and Flash-based tools like Presenter and Captivate (and developed in third-party tools like Camtasia that make use of Flash) may now be available to learners via the iTunes App Store.
Equally, once the iPhone is available as a ‘proper’ e-learning platform, content developers (me included) will queue up to provide new iPhone-specific materials for learners.
So as of January 2010, I would confidently predict that this is the year that Flash comes to the iPhone, iPod Touch, and – who knows? – maybe even to the iSlate/iGuide/iDunno – if the Adobe Flash CS5 Packager supports it.
If it exists.
If Apple allow it.
I await progress.
Next time: back to OSS e-learning content content production.
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References:
Adobe Systems (2010) Packager for iPhone. [Internet] Available from: http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flashcs5/appsfor_iphone/ Accessed 11 January 2010
Beschizza, R. (2009). iPhone Users: There Will Be No Flash Soup For You. Wired Magazine. [Internet] Available from: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2008/03/iphone-users-th/ Accessed 11 January 2010
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January 14 2010 04:00 pm | e-learning
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