Adobe: No Flash Plugin For iPhone After All

Adobe's apparent determination to get Flash on the iPhone seems to have dissipated. They have announced that the iPhone SDK really isn't enough to get it working on the platform after all, and that their previous statement about their intentions to do so may have even been misinterpreted.

Steve has openly stated that he doesn't think Flash is ready for the iPhone, explaining that Flash currently takes up too much processing power, and that their mobile version of Flash is inadequate.

Despite this, Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen made comments during a conference call on their quarterly earnings that were interpreted as an announcement that they would be porting Flash to the iPhone using Apple's SDK:

"We are also committed to bringing the Flash experience to the iPhone and we will work with Apple. We've evaluated the SDK, we can now start to develop the Flash player ourselves and we think it benefits our joint customers."

Now it seems that Adobe has either come to their senses or were misinterpreted. Narayen is now saying that the SDK is not enough to get Flash working on Mobile Safari, although they are trying to create a flash player application for non-web based media.

"Adobe has evaluated the iPhone SDK and can now start to develop a way to bring Flash Player to the iPhone. However, to bring the full capabilities of Flash to the iPhone Web-browsing experience we do need to work with Apple beyond and above what is available through the SDK and the current license around it."

An Apple official was asked for a comment on if such collaboration may eventually take place, and he's "looking into it." It looks like we're just going to have to wait, as usual.

[via One More Thing (CNET)]