“Yes, but no but yes”

Well there actually isn’t any short answer on this one yet. There are many sources on the internet speculating that “Yes it is possible to run flash on an iPhone” and  “it will be here very soon“  to “as soon as Adobe will make it publicly available”. Although Adobe has officially announced that they already have a running version and will release it, there’s still no word on the street when that day might actually be.

Concerning Flash on the iPhone. Most of the times when you read how much people are disappointed by Apple by the absence of Flash and how that sucks, people actually mean “What the crap Steve. Why the hell can’t I still watch my daily dose of streaming video delights”. Especially after the firmware 2 update. What about the iPhone sporting a fully capable browser on a cell phone. The first in its kind. Not without Flash it is.

But folks, where will all this crazy talk get us. Nowhere, at least certainly not closer to flash support or streamy delights as I like to call it. So that’s why we decided to find out the following questions:

Is the iPhone capable of running flash?

Computer says yes. It is possible, but like Steve Jobs mentioned not the full flash player found on most computers. This version of flash is to memory hogging while the flash lite player, made especially for mobile devices is too simple and slow. Something in between has to be released and when or whether that will happen at all is still unclear at this point. Another thing that points out that the absence of flash isn’t a technical hurdle can be seen by comparing it to the Archos Wi-Fi media player. This player easily plays Youtube and other video on sites (like Hulu, Sidereel, and many other) using an Opera browser with a flash plug-in. When looking under the hood and comparing muscle power the Archos 605 doesn’t have more power. When looking under the hood by the iPhone it shows the iPhone sports a sufficient processor capable of doing all the same things.

Why hasn’t Adobe released their so called ‘working’ flash player yet?

Well this is a more complicated matter. There are numerous good possible explanations found on the interwebs [appleinsider, counternotions] But no matter how you look at it, it always ends with relying mostly on Apple whether they would allow Adobe to write a plugin for Safari. A plugin is needed in order to make Flash ‘just work’ like it does now on most computers. Unfortunately, Apple is fencing off all third party developers to write direct plugins. So end of story. Either Apple will allow it or Adobe has to come up with something new.

Will there be a separate player for flash movies? Is that even at all possible?

Chances are big that a stand alone player will surface. If Adobe isn’t going to do that, somebody else will. But this goes against the mere principle of Flash. That it’s integrated and works straight into your browser. Having to download every movie stream you find is a cumbersome and not user friendly way.

So what are the forecasts? Well whatever Apple decides to do.