My understanding is that Apple wants to control the quality of the applications on its phone using the iTunes app store as gatekeeper. Both Flash and Java have the ability to break this model because folks could deliver applications in either of those containers. I haven't checked on the current iPhone but ones in the past used an ARM processor which actually had extra hardware to make Java run faster, so this isn't a technical problem. Apple recognized that one of the biggest uses for flash is playing back video so they made the YouTube app but, as you mentioned, there are lots of other video sites besides YouTube. Hopefully this issue will slowly go away as we go to HTML5 which has native video playback and won't need Flash for that purpose. One little nitpick, Java has very little to do with JavaScript other than the name. So the iPhone will run web pages with JavaScript just fine. Embedded or downloadable Java apps will fail, but nobody really does Java on the 'desktop' these days. It's mostly used on the backend for servers.
As a side note, I heard some multiple arcade machine emulators got nixed for similar reasons. You could download chunks of arbitrary code to the emulator and make them into another 'platform' for un-approved applications. CB Jake wrote: > Hi > Only Apple knows the reasons Flash is not allowed, but I can > speculate. The first reason is that, on platforms other than Windows, > Flash is a resource hog and Adobe noticeably lets it lag behind. It's > a battery guzzler. > As for Java, the reason is stated in the app store policies. A java > environment could run arbitrary code on the device, which Apple does > not want. This could also be the reason Flash is disallowed in > addition to the reason above. Note though that Javascript is > supported, java and javascript are not even remotely related. Without > javascript, most webpages wouldn't work. > I for one am glad there's no Flash, and not just because it's > inaccessible on other platforms than Windows. The sooner the web > begins moving to the open HTML 5 standard the better off we'll be. > > > > anouk radix wrote: > >> Hello, I thought because everyone here is so up on things maybe you >> guys know this. My brother just got an iphone and he is in love with >> it, the only thing he does not like is that it has no java or flash, >> because it has no flash he cant watch a lot of movies that are on the >> web even though there are applications for youtube apparenlty he >> visits a lot of other sites that have no such applications and ust >> rely on flash. >> I guess javascript is not there because people can easily develop aps >> in it and apple wants to keep that right to a controlled group? >> Greetings, Anouk >> > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
