14 DAY TRIAL // Following reports that Apple's iPhone may indeed sport some sort of Flash support on behalf of Adobe, analysts are stepping into the spotlight claiming that the missing feature isn't really bad for Apple's image, even though Steve Jobs has claimed numerous times that their smartphone brings the "real Internet."
"There is no question the iPhone delivers a compelling Web experience and there are good reasons to want Flash in there, but Flash Lite [Adobe's scaled-down version for mobile devices] wouldn't give you the Web experience you're looking for," said Avi Greengart, Research Director for market research firm Current Analysis, according to Macworld.com.
Apple's CEO, as some of you may remember, once said the company needed something in between the Flash Player aimed at cellphones and the one used by laptops, which slows down the iPhone. The iPhone "needs something much better than the current Flash player that Adobe makes for cellphones. The Flash Player option that fits the bill is made for devices like laptops that are larger than the iPhone; as a consequence, it performs too slowly on the iPhone," Jobs said.
Greengart still reckons that iPhone users don't crave for Flash so much. In his opinion, it's the iPhone's touchscreen (multi touch) features that make it such a popular device, so the Cupertino-based company isn't likely to be losing any customers because of this exact lacking feature with the iPhone.
However, as the same man reveals, it is likely that things will not stay this way for a long time. See, Apple has claimed not once, not twice, but numerous times that it is bringing the whole Internet experience with the iPhone. And since the "real Internet" includes Flash (big time), Apple is somewhat overstating its achievements: "What people are upset about is that the iPhone makes promises to be the full Internet and that includes Flash - the iPhone does not deliver that today," said Greengart.