Should Adobe Flash be made available on touch screen devices like the iPad? This is one question to which we will never receive a definitive answer. While there is obviously a case for incorporating a ubiquitous software platform like Flash on the iPad, issues such as the high resources consumption and other inherent flaws of the platform has meant that there are plenty of arguments against Flash as well.
This debate could also probably be the "flashpoint" in the fight for market share in the nascent tablet segment. A case in point is a recent demo video for HP Slate, which is scheduled to launch in the market later this year. In this video, Alex Tam from the Adobe Flash product marketing team demonstrates the capabilities of HP Slate in rendering Flash based content.
Apparently taking a shot at Steve Jobs' statements that Flash would bring down the iPad's battery life from 10 hours to a measly 1.5 hours, Tam asserts that hardware acceleration of H.264 encoded video on HP Slate ensures that users can watch "hours and hours" of Flash based videos on the tablet without draining out the battery. Tam also emphasizes on the ubiquity of Flash on the web and HP Slate's ability to let users play Flash based games, watch videos and use AIR based desktop applications and thus enjoy the "freedom to view and interact with content and applications" that they choose.
The HP Slate demo video however does not explicitly address the problems that have been voiced against Flash like frequent crashes and mouse-over problems. Here is the full video:
The debate surrounding Flash on the tablet makes us wonder if the availability of Flash alone could give Tablet manufacturers like HP an edge over Apple's iPad. What are your thoughts on this?
[via Engadget]
I sure as hell won't be buying an ipad anytime soon. With Apple's lack of accepting Flash, we lose half of the web capabilities and functionality. I might pick up a Slate!
After using Flashblock with Firefox I can see why Apple has decided not to bring flash to the iphone and ipad. Blocking flash dramatically increased the loading time of web pages and has almost entirely stopped firefox from crashing. Plus, there are only a couple of pages on which I have needed to allow flash to get the information I was looking for, such as Youtube and LaLa. And I'm sure these pages will/have create(d) pages that can run on the ipad/iphone. Good riddance to flash, the resource hog.
So are we going to see a post about FLASH every week? LOL ridiculous!! WHO CARESSSSSSSS wheres the INTERESTING NEWSSSS!!!!???
iPad not running Flash = fail. Most news and entertainment sites use flash. Very few less than a handful use HTML5. HTML will grow but will not be 15% until mid 2011.
Not to mention no easy way to hook the iPad to my TV. Lastly I work at a desk and holding a tablet or looking down all day is a drag.
i agree i'm so sick of hearing this same argument over and over if u really want flash and its a make or break for u get a slate and if u don't care much for it and prefer a device which offers a great user experience and form factor along with industry leading battery life get an ipad problem solved there are choices now lets all move on and complain about something new
http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2010/01/ipad-keyboard-dock-pr-1.jpg
UMmmmm. There is a keyboard and doc for that please refrain from speaking if u dont know what u are talking about
Dumb ass
It would be absurd to ever hear MS block software from be able to run on their OS like Apple does. Apple's claim that it's for security purposes are BS and the consumer should be able to decide.
i am getting the slate instead of ipad
Steve jobs is stupid if he is dreaming on **html5** then keep dreaming it may happen but not less then five years
buy then the ipad 5G will be released
it takes time to replace flash on the miilion of sites on the web
Slate seems to be shaping up to what we hear about it. iPad is lacking, and HP is taking advantage of that fact.
Will the slate be around forever? Probably not, but it's providing what consumers are demanding at this moment. I would take the slate over the iPad hands down for now.
same thoughts here, would buy a slate before I'd buy an ipad even though I love my iphone. I think it's just going to be a matter of time before apple finally gives in to flash though just like they have with many other things.
IE: ipods and itunes working on windows machines and mac computers running intel cpus.