Virgin America Drops Flash Over Lack of iPhone Support

Virgin has replaced Flash with HTML on their website because of the lack of support for Flash on the iPhones.Virgin plans on moving their new site to HTML 5, Once it has gotten clearance from the World Wide Web Consortium.

Virgin's Chief information officer Ravi Simhambhatla told The Register: 'I don't want to cater to one hardware or one software platform one way to another, and Flash eliminates iPhone users. This year is going to be the year of the mobile [for Virgin].'

Since Apple decided to eliminate Flash from iPhone since it was launched in 2007.The relationship between Apple and Adobe has been relatively calm. Things change dramatically when Steve Jobs decided to announce the launch of iPad and again eliminating Flash and to top if off trash talking the Adobe team and calling them lazy in a town hall meeting.

He said his reason for eliminating Flash are due to it being unstable and buggy. Whenever a Mac crashes more often or so it's because of Flash, and that basically Flash is dying out and people are moving on to HTML5.

If that was not enough, a few weeks later he did some more trash talking about Adobe to the board of the Wall Street Journal saying Flash is a dying technology and likened it to floppy discs and CCFL-backlit LCDs.

With iPhone sales soaring with no end insight, the question is will Flash still thrive without Apple's support? As Apple is not the only one turning against Flash. Google is also committed to HTML5 and Microsoft has its own proprietary Flash competitor in Silverlight. Only time will tell if Virgin's dismissal of Flash is gonna be a domino effect.

Apple Suing HTC For Patent Infringement

The makers of the HTC phones and Nexus one phones are being sued by Apple. The lawsuits states that there are 20 different patent infringements related to the iPhone OS, anchitecture, and hardware.

In the release, Steve Jobs says, "We can sit by and watch competitors steal our patented inventions, or we can do something about it. We've decided to do something about it...We think competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours."

From The Business Insider,

Earlier, we supposed that Apple's multi-touch user interface could be the basis for the lawsuit. But after examining the complaint, it appears that Apple is NOT suing over multitouch, but rather a bunch of other software. (When Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone, he touted its multitouch screen, then said, "And boy, have we patented it.")

It will be interesting to see how things play out. It seems that Apple is involved in Lawsuits all over the board. They are also suing Nokia over patent infringement claiming they have stolen Apple's technology. Nokia is suing Apple in a counter claim, Kodak is also suing Apple for stealing their technology.

Flash Developer Explains Why Touchscreen Devices Cannot Use Flash

There has been a lot of discussion lately over the lack of Flash support in iPhone OS.

Most of the arguments presented have been about the technology being buggy, crash-prone and resource intensive. Steve Jobs has also called it a "dying technology".

However, one perspective that has largely been missed so far has been about a fundamental way in which most Flash applications operate that makes it unsuitable for use on not just the iPad or iPhone, but also for the most touchscreen SmartPhones that are available in the market.

According to Flash developer Morgan Adams, one of the biggest issues with Flash on touchscreen devices is the hover/mouseover event. Adams writes that most of the Flash applications available on the internet today are built with a mouse pointer based control in mind. As a result, these applications respond differently to mouse-hovering as against an actual click.

For instance, hovering your mouse pointer over a running video will bring up the media control options. However, on clicking the video, it may be paused. Adams explains that touchscreen devices are not built to recognize a mouseover as input, which means that most of the Flash files on the web today may not respond as desired to users accessing them from these devices. As Adams points out, Flash based games, maps, videos and advertisements are all prone to be affected due to this issue.

The pervasive nature of this problem means finding a solution to this for touchscreen users is both a complex and impractical proposition. Adams explains that alternate mechanisms for differentiating hovering from mouse clicks using gestures or tap based inputs needlessly complicate the experience. As he notes, even if users were to disregard the other issues with Flash, the mouse-hover problem is one that can be difficult to substitute on the touchscreen devices.

Ironically, this is also an issue that Apple has been working at. Our readers will recall a patent application filed by Cupertino earlier this year that sought to bring a proximity detection system to the iPhone/iPad touchscreen. Such a technology will enable touchscreen users substitute a simple mouseover event with an equally intuitive finger input.

An interesting perspective by Adams on why touchscreen devices like iPhone, iPad cannot use Flash. What are your thoughts on this?

Gates' Thoughts on the iPad

Here, finally, is one point on which the two giants of computing, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, completely disagree on. Steve says netbooks are better at nothing, where as Bill's view is the polar opposite:

'You know, I'm a big believer in touch and digital reading, but I still think that some mixture of voice, the pen and a real keyboard - in other words a netbook - will be the mainstream on that.'

He added “So it’s not like I sit there and feel the same way I did with the iPhone where I say, ‘Oh my God, Microsoft didn’t aim high enough. Unimpressed by the iPad, Bill goes on to say that he It’s a nice reader, but there’s nothing on the iPad I look at and say, ‘Oh, I wish Microsoft had done that.”

Don't tell that to Disney CEO Robert Iger though, who brings out the dreaded 'game changer' tag when describing the potential he sees in the iPad for the creation of 'essentially new forms of content.' Lest we forget, Steve Jobs also sits on the Disney board, so this could be just a friendly tip of the hat by Iger. Either way, we're curious to see what new content Disney might scratch up, as well as to find out who's right in this newfound binary question: keyboard-equipped netbooks or longevous, ultrathin tablets -- what say you, will a stylus make the iPad just what you want?