The day Adobe Flash was announced to be coming to the Palm Pre, there was a collective rejoicing from the community. Not since the old Sony Clie days had we seen flash running on Palm device. Interestingly, it was day before the official Adobe announcement that we, here at PreCentral, were discussing flash as a potential means of gaming on the WebOS. Now, after we've has some time to let "flash on the Pre" sink in, it only seems fitting to come back to the issue.
Back on February 15th, I posed that Adobe Flash on the Palm webOS could be a saving grace for game development on the Pre. It certainly seems like Palm realized this too. And while I do believe we may someday see native C applications for the Pre, I don't see it happening until next year at earliest. Flash can help fill that gap.
Palm has been stressing how much of an online, connected device the Pre is. In that sense, having flash support was inevitable. If Palm is able to integrate flash support as deeply into the OS as they've done with HTML5, CSS, and javascript, then I have high hopes. Adobe Flash provides an optimal platform to create some pretty nice games. Full integration of flash support, not only in the browser but the OS as a whole, would be huge, allowing for flash applications to be shown directly in the launcher, and possibly allowing third party developers to integrate flash elements into their own HTML-based applications. Plus, as it stands, there are potentially many thousands of existing flash games that could then run on the WebOS. Quite a boost to the Pre's software catalog.
The only thing left in question is when we will see this flash player released. At first, I was worried, as lately it seems Adobe Flash on the iPhone is on a TBA-schedule. For flash on the iPhone, Apple appears to be putting the onus on Adobe to deliver. This doesn't seem to be the case with Palm. During a PCMagazine article, it was noted:
"Palm is doing the work themselves with help from us, to make it happen as quickly as possible," Muraka said.
That speaks volumes of Palm's strategy with flash support. I wouldn't be surprise if Flash Mobile is released for the WebOS right on time, in Q4 2009, if not slightly earlier. One thing that seems to support this theory is a brief twitter communication between myself and Palm regarding flash support that seems to imply Palm has at least known there'd be flash support on the Pre since way back at CES. Yet another secret Palm has been able to keep quite well. I wonder what else Palm has up its sleeve.
Comments
It would of been nice to have this on day 1, but it's good to hear Palm is taking the lead to get this done asap.
This is some interesting news. I'm also wondering what is hiding under the cover! I really don't understand why they are holding so much for so long.
I'll just be happy to get the phone itself and install Fennec when available. That will give me flash support in a browser which is MUCH more important to me than flash support on the phone. If I want to play games I'll do so on my Xbox360 :)
I just want to be able to stream flash video via web browser on my Pre. IT CAN'T HAPPEN SOON ENOUGH!!!!!!!!
Has there been any hint that Fennec will be available on WebOS? All I've heard about is Win mobile and mobile Linux.
Granted there's a Linux kernel running below WebOS, but at least the initial SDK won't give direct access to that. So it's not obvious how they'd implement it.
I'm as hyped as anyone at the thought of the Pre, but Flash games as a secret weapon? Are you kidding me? Talk about taking two steps forward and two back.
y would it be a two steps back u would be able to play games like runescape(which is lame anyways)
It's two steps back because they gave the phone all this horsepower and made the OS sleek and sex, yet all the programs that will be made for it seem to be stuck in a web browser type environment and now we have to be talking about Flash games as something good.
Flash games are generally only good when they're basic in concept. This just doesn't seem like the revolution many sre hoping for and most expect after what we've seen with the iPhone.
I remember those Web Apps Apple tried to pawn off on customers are real applications and they were junk, even if Palm has improved the concept somewhat, it does seem unlikely that they'll be able to match real programs that every smartphone OS has always had.
Last time I played Runescape it was a Java applet. Do they have a Flash version now too??
o it is o ok i dont pay attention to runescape
Flash would be great to have on the pre. But it could never compete with the level of (most) games you get on the iPhone. Not to mention the fact that flash does not support multi-touch, it won't be able to use the accelerometer (without a special api that they would have to create), and although the performance in flash is pretty good, it is nowhere near as fast or as efficient as other alternatives.
Still, as a flash developer, if flash is released on the pre I will definitely be getting one :)
ofcourse palm will make api's for the accelerometer and other stuff, just like they do with the rest of the apps. I even think they are making flash api's right now.
If Palm is able to integrate flash support as deeply into the OS as they've done with HTML5, CSS, and javascript, then I have high hopes.
if they do that, it's no longer flash. flash is a cross platform specification. what you are saying is that they wont be shipping flash.
anyways, you are close to being correct. they support plugins that support the netscape plugin api.
therefore, the way game will be supported will be via a plugin that provides an SDL like canvas to work with.
It still is Flash, just with enhancements. It does create the potential for some things that are specific to the Pre, but that doesn't mean that it's not Flash.
except, can you point to any chance flash has been customized by adding APIs to it for a specific platform?
I can't. It's not what Adobe does with flash. it's not in their interest to promote a single platform over others. It be one thing if palm was developing the flash plugin, but it sounds like Adobe is the one.
"Palm is doing the work themselves with help from us, to make it happen as quickly as possible," Muraka said.
Seems to imply Palm is doing the majority of the plug-in work
You mean I'll be able to play Staggy the Boy Scout Slayer II on my PRE!!!
This is too good to be true!
In my lab we had a contest; the competition was intense!
I don't know, after the iphone 3.0 thing I really think Palm doesn't want to divulge too much info as to not let apple come and copy some of their stuff.
I'm pretty sure Apple has not disclosed everything it plans to do with the iPhone OS / iPhone hardware. The iPhone has been out for a while, the Pre will soon be finally out, but somehow the iPhone has now copied the Pre? I could bet that iPhone OS 3.0 did not barely start being developed the day the Pre was announced. Let's keep in mind that these two companies (as well as many others) obviously have great development teams that are trying very hard to introduce the "next big thing", of course some ideas will overlap, but to start saying that all Apple (or Palm) do is wait around to see what the other introduces and then copy it? c'mon, thats not realistic.
See Palm's tweet:
@trackizmy1 webOS developer community are a creative bunch See http://tinyurl.com/crdqhr
Response to the original from @trackizmy1:
@palm_inc so will palm make flash games in the palm pre
thats my tweet lol
The most played game on my iphone is bejeweled. LOL Let's keep this in perspective.
What perspective would that be?
Wow, Palm guys are not doing their homework. Apple supports full MS ActiveSync - TWO-way synching. I do push TWO-way today with MobileMe and Entourage (without Exchange ActiveSync) and I'm able to do everything I need on the enterprise level with PIM activities.
iPhone isn't a SmartPhone? Just because you can't edit 20 page Word docs or Excel files makes it less of a phone? Just idiotic. When was the last time you edited a doc (not just update two or three words) on a mobile phone?
Palm has a bit more than $216 million in cash, Apple has nearly $30 BILLION in cash. iPhone 3.0 and OS 3.0 will launch on June 8th, coinciding with a predicted sold-out Worldwide Developers Conference.
Finally, Flash on Pre won't make it a game device. You need native hardware level access to the GPU and CPU to build games like Rolondo, Metal Gear Solid, Pocket God or the Sims. Also, how do you package and SELL an application that has everything open to anyone in a index.html and a few .js files?
Everyone outside of the Apple ecosystem keeps forgetting, the iPhone is not successful because of it's hardware, software or App Store - it's the combination of all three that make it successful. if Apple didn't have an App Store, sales would be much less. If they had crappy software, no one would buy it. If the hardware was glitchy, it would be called Centro.
Pre is dead in the water. They'll get killed by the hundreds of thousands of developers, over 25,000 apps and nearly 1 BILLION downloads, just in the first TEN months! Apple makes more money in ONE month on the App Store than Palm makes in total for the same quarter.
Yikes.
FANBOI
Dude, get off the iPhone's nuttz!...
Ya posted the exact same post on this page's comments: http://www.precentral.net/palm-posts-q3-fy09-results
Please do not do repeat posts in on multiple pages' comments.
And I believe the processor Palm chose is capable enough to handle gaming. Not on par with full-fledged mobile gaming devices, but then again, that's not what the Pre's OS was designed to focus on. Flash, in my view, is an attempt to help rectify the situation until a full fledged native C SDK is available. As an iPhone user, you should be able to relat; the iPhone started out with even more limited third party app options (they all had to be server-side if I recall)
When was the last time I edited a word doc on my phone? I'm a paralegal & office administrator by day & a law student by night. I use dataviz docs to go every day on my 755p to not only edit but create word docs. E.g. Sitting in my car during lunch taking notes & briefing cases for class or sitting on the couch working on my outlines without needing a cumbersome laptop in the way. Moreover, you can even track changes now wich is great for negotiating contracts (excel helps here too) when you are on the go. This is something I would never attempt on my itouch...a physical keyboard is a must...something Pre will deliver. Pre will also deliver a complete web browsing experience...something my 755p certainly can't deliver...and something the iphone does a fantastic job at but can't truly deliver either without Flash. Pre is the complete package for people who need a smartphone.
As for all the apps for iPhone, too me, most of them are completely worthless (I do like ORB, Pandora & RDM+ remote desktop - the later is not found in the app store).
I'm already sold on the device. I'll be happy with whatever they have right now! Everything else is just butter. Gimme gimme gimme...
There's a lot of free game downloads available for the palm i just dont see how they are going to compete now with the iPhone out and all the apps people are making for it.
Please let me know if you have any questions or comments.club penguin cheats
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