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1. chas_m

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   03/17, 08:58am | report spam | close reply

   Flashlight?

   Heh ...
   
   Anyway, I think Steve is correct. Flash Lite (heh heh) is only good for basically one thing: ads. This has never bothered MS or Symbian so they go right ahead, but this time I think Apple is right to wait.

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1. Sondjata

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   03/17, 09:03am | report spam | close reply

   Nokia N8x0 Series

   Has had Flash for some time now..

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1. wings_rfs

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   03/17, 09:14am | report spam | close reply

   Misleading Headline

   Why would you say that MS beat Apple to the Flash & PDF party when MS hasn't even said WHEN they would have it? When they DO have it, that's when you can say that one company beat the other. All they did was "beat" Apple to the announcement that some day it may be coming, for whatever that's worth considering it's MS. Anyway, like chas said, Flash Lite is for the ads mostly, something that MS is well known for wanting. And PDFs can be viewed in iPhone email today, with browser support coming soon I would expect.

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1. jimothy

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   03/17, 09:19am | report spam | close reply

   Congratulations, MS!

   Microsoft beat Apple in a race in which Apple isn't even running. Apple has repeated stated they have no intention of bring Flash to the iPhone, unless customers demand it. So far, they don't.

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1. mrturtle

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   03/17, 09:21am | report spam | close reply

   RE: misleading headline

   I agree. How can Win Mobile beat Apple in a race they aren't running right now? MS plans on incorporating a technology that was passed over for the iPhone. That's like saying Win Mobile beats Apple to half-featured, semi-compliant browser (with IE Mobile). It's true, but it's no great feat either.

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1. wowok1234

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   03/17, 09:22am | report spam | close reply

   safari supports pdf

   Err? Unless i've been hallucinating since last June Safari on the iPhone already supports the viewing of PDFs. I know because I've been using it to access bus schedules in PDF format.

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1. lololexter

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   03/17, 09:22am | report spam | close reply

   inaccurate

   Just wanted to clarify - you can already view PDFs on iPhone outside of mail.app. It's native OS X functionality. Go to any web page offering PDF links and click on them. They will open in a new Safari page. There is no plug-in necessary.

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1. mrturtle

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   03/17, 09:22am | report spam | close reply

   re jimothy

   We were thinking the same thing. I hope customers don't demand it either...

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1. danviento

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   03/17, 10:01am | report spam | close reply

   wake up people

   If you haven't figured it out yet, apple is trying to KILL FLASH for mobiles. With its continuing growth towards martket dominance, it can substitute real web standards instead of this resource-hogging c*** they call flash in Web 2.0.
   
   So far they've gotten youtube and a bunch of other sites to get rid of their flash only-concept and convert to standards like AJAX. Notice all those sites "made for iPhone"? Goes to show that Apple is IN COMPETITION WITH Adobe. The real race is to see if standards or ad bloatware will win out here.

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1. imagine engine

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   03/17, 10:02am | report spam | close reply

   Re: congratulations, ms!

   Apple iPhone customers have been repeatedly requesting on the Apple user forums for Apple to work with Adobe to port Flash to the iPhone. Though Apple has repeatedly denied access to Adobe stating performance concerns with the Flash player for use with the mobile version of Safari. I've experienced difficulty surfing some film studio websites that use Flash in their website design due to the iPhone lacks Flash support. I can easily view them on my Macbook Pro which runs OS X Leopard but unfortunately not on the iPhone which is supposed to be an all in one smartphone solution.

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1. danviento

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   03/17, 10:02am | report spam | close reply

   futher details

   If you want a good analysis of the situation with apple & flash, this is a very good article to read:
   
   http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2007/07/08/gone-in-a-flash-more-on-apples-iphone-web-plans/

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1. dynsight

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   03/17, 10:41am | report spam | close reply

   Flash apps

   I do not know the features of Flash Lite (yea, the name is silly...not clevre), BUT actionscript is a nice object oriented language, and there are many good flash web apps that deliver what AJAX cannot (video for one). Also, as far as web based HTTP streaming goes, nothing beats FLV and Flash. Not every site uses a streaming server, and flash manages this well.
   
   Also, many sites use flash buttons (with not alternative for non-flash enabled browsers) Why? Most desktops have a version of Flash, because it is useful.
   
   For this reason alone, Flash should be on the iPhone.

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1. dliup

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   03/17, 10:45am | report spam | close reply

   Enjoy your pop up Ads!!!

   Can you say: annoying pop up ads, and battery consuming flashing ads on windoze mobile??

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1. testudo

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   03/17, 11:44am | report spam | close reply

   Re: wake up people

   So far they've gotten youtube and a bunch of other sites to get rid of their flash only-concept and convert to standards like AJAX.
   
   Actually, all YouTube did was convert their videos to H.264.
   
   The real race is to see if standards or ad bloatware will win out here.
   
   Some would argue that software that is probably on 95%+ PCs as it stands, and is available for a variety of platforms, and is used far and wide, in itself makes it a 'standard', whether or not it is 'officially' christened by some almighty institution.
   
   As for ads, don't expect the advertisers to stick with flash if people are going to be not using it. They also can switch to AJAX for animated ad-goodness.

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1. ender

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   03/17, 12:02pm | report spam | close reply

   re: imagine engine

   If the film studio websites you are going to are using Flash that extensively, there's a chance they still wouldn't work with Flash Lite. I don't know about v3, but previous versions were very, very limited compared to Flash on your laptop.
   
   Oh, and in the article..."more vibrant with media" should really read "more annoying with ads" as that's 90+% of the usage on the internet.

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1. BelugaShark

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   03/17, 12:36pm | report spam | close reply

   Flash ON/OFF

   I don't miss Flash on my iPhone, if Apple is looking at incorporating Flash into the iPhone I'd request they include an ON/OFF button in the Settings.

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1. Jittery Jimmy

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   03/17, 12:53pm | report spam | close reply

   Important for commerce

   Flash is an important vehicle for web commerce - without it, many web sites that otherwise depend on revenue from Flash-based content don't get any REVENUE, and will have to close their doors.
   
   It seems that Microsoft recognizes this, and Apple does not.

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1. elroth

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   03/17, 02:30pm | report spam | close reply

   re:important for commerce

   The first rule in advertising should be this: don't annoy your potential customers.
   
   Advertisers can use non-blinking, non-flashing, non-moving ads. People can click through to the flash content if they want to.
   
   Until then, I have no sympathy for advertisers who use flash, and I will continue to block flash ads. Safari needs something like Flashblock (standard in Camino, an add-on for Firefox) - it puts a placeholder in where there's flash content, and you can click on it or not.

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1. testudo

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   03/17, 04:25pm | report spam | close reply

   Re: just let me say...

   Except what could MS do, with pulling in Yahoo, that would somehow thrust "proprietary technology" on the world? All that would do is drive people from Yahoo (since nothing would work with it), not drive everyone to them.
   
   Oh, and mimic, Google can't buy Yahoo because of antitrust concerns. If you can imagine, the resulting company would basically control most "oo" online traffic, theereby setting up a virtual monopoly. Following that, other sites would not be able to compete with the quadruple 'oo' of Yahoo and Google.

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1. testudo

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   03/17, 04:28pm | report spam | close reply

   Re: important for commerc

   Until then, I have no sympathy for advertisers who use flash, and I will continue to block flash ads.
   
   What? Block flash ads??? If you do that, you'll never win a free iPod for picking out the picture of Tom cruise, or by hitting the deer with the mouse pointer, or knowing that you could save so much refinancing your mortgage!

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1. designcouch

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   03/17, 08:03pm | report spam | close reply

   OH! What a SURPRISE!

   Goodness gracious me. I fail to see why this merits a story-Apple has clearly stated where they stand on Flash for the iPhone. This was not them barring Adobe from providing content for it-to put it simply, they have placed the ball firmly in Adobe's court. As the iPhone grows as a mobile platform,(1/3 of all mobile internet throughput already belongs to the device) Adobe will have more and more pressure to develop a more efficient build of Flash that fits within the parameters of the iPhone. Either that, or they can wait for another year or two until the iPhone is fully capable of handling anything a computer can handle today.