Why Flash on iPad is a non-starter

If your experiences on the Mac are anything to go by, then mobile Flash is at best a questionable option. Further, there are a raft of touch-specific issues that need to be resolved, as well (here we go ’round again).

Enter our erudite friends at RoughlyDrafted, who’ve posted edited comments from Flash developer extraordinaire Morgan Adams on the vexing issue of this nanosecond in tech history — the blessed “lack” of Flash on the iPhone and, soon, iPad.

New Flash content designed just for touchscreens can be done, but people want existing Flash sites to work. All of them — not just some here and there — and in a usable manner. That’s impossible no matter what.

And, here are some of the reasons that’s true:

• Video players where the controls appear on mouseover and hide otherwise (This seems to be the norm, in fact. Whereas a click on the same video does something different: usually Pause. Try Hulu for instance)
• Games where you steer with the mouse without clicking (extremely common)
• Menus that popup subpage links when you mouse over a main button, versus going directly to a main category page when you click
• Buttons that have important explanations/summaries on mouseover, which you need to understand before deciding what to click
• Functions that use mouseover to preview and click to commit; such as choosing hair colors for an avatar: you mouse over the colors until your character looks the way you like, and then you click to commit
• Maps and diagrams that don’t use click at all, but pop up info as you mouse around
• Numerous other custom mouseover functions that “just work” with a mouse and need no explanation

These reasons get fleshed out in detail by Adams and Roughly Drafted, and it’s a clearly compelling series of arguments.

Here’s to the crazy ones…

Of course, Adobe’s working on a version of Flash designed to run on touch-based handheld devices, which is due this Summer. And, you know what, if they can actually innovate they’re way through this mess — rather than insisting that we just suffer the current malaise ‘cuz it’s somehow more convenient — then I’m all for Adobe.

In the meantime, gawd bless Apple and all its gloriously obnoxious fanboys for forcing the issue. Really, do you think Adobe would have agreed — even after years of bitter complaining — to finally agree to fix Flash on the Mac without this little dust up?

Heck, maybe they’ll actually create a new Flash that doesn’t drain batteries and humble even the fastest processors? Maybe we’ll get granular controls to manage when and where crapvertisements animations and videos can stomp on our music, movies and phone calls? Maybe…

What’s your take?

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• Another zero-day Flash, Acrobat exploit
• Adobe killing Flash for the rest of us?
• Adobe whinges about ‘missing’ iPad Flash
• No Flash for iPhone [maybe]
• Apple vs. Flash gets even hotter