I wonder why Apple doesn't support flash video files on the iPhone

I'm not suggestion the iPhone support flash. I hate flash. It's the modern java. It just creates ugly, bloated, slow, non native apps. 99% of the time, a native solution is far better. Other than for cross platform games, there's no good reason to use flash on the web.

But I'm talking about flash video files on the iPhone, ".flv" files.

FLV files are just container formats around audio and video streams. Often, these streams use common codecs like h.264 that the iPhone already supports. So why doesn't Apple simply write a quicktime component that plays flv files?

Then, web developers wouldn't need to go out and re-encode all their videos to mp4. All they would need to do is detect the iPhone user agent, and wrap the flv file in a quicktime embed.

Instantly and easily the iPhone could play most (all?) web video! It seems like a super easy win for Apple: they support a ton of websites that simply don't work today, it's an easy change for the developers, and Apple can still hold firm to not supporting flash as a whole.

Some background info:

There seems to be confusion in the web world around what mp4 is and what h.264 is.

Audio and video codecs (compressor/decompressor). These are h.263, h.264, mp3, aac, etc.
File formats (containers). These are mov, mp4, flv, avi. They are the file that holds one of more audio/video streams that are encoded using a codec
The player you see on the web. This is almost always flash, but would also be quicktime, or any other piece of software that can take a container file (mp4), decode the streams, and display it.

I'm saying that given flv files are simply containers around commonly used and supported codecs, it's strange to not play them natively.

I guess Apple is winning the war against flash so there's little reason for them to do something about it now... Websites are encoding their video in mp4 files so they play on iPhones, and websites are avoiding flash whenever possible since that means no iPhone support.

Only Apple could choose to not support the biggest web video distribution platform, and win.

Jun 29, 2009

Zachary Fine said...

It appears there's a FLV-playback plugin for mobilesafari for jailbroken iPhones, FWIW:
http://imobilecinema.com/

Sachin Agarwal said...

ugly implementation, but it works. there are also QT codecs available for Mac that play flv files. that seems perfect

Susan Beebe said...

I wish flash worked on iPhones that are not jailbroken #Fail

All he's talking about is playback of flv files, not full-fledged flash support. I had a device that included mobile flash support and was not impressed with the performance, would rather have a fast browser than one that becomes dead weight when it hits a page that includes an embedded swf.

Jul 01, 2009

Roelant said...

My best guess is it's one of the concessions Apple had to make towards the providers they have their exclusive deals with. iPhone works and gets used so much because it comes with unlimited internet by default - no matter what country you buy it (as long as you buy it with the official subscription for the iPhone).

That was probably a demand Apple had, because it doesn't do much fancy stuff without it (think visual voicemail, app store, many of the apps and off course internet and e-mail itself). On the other hand, they wanted those special subscriptions to be affordable.

So they probably had to make give some guarantees towards those providers about their (Apple's) effort to keep things a bit within certain limits; e.g. YouTube App automatically selects the low-quality version when on 3G, iTunes download over 3G weren't allowed from the start and a 10MB+ download from the App Store still requires a wifi connection.

Allowing/supporting flash would basically open up the door for any type of video, in any kind of quality, and my guess is that's exactly what there trying to avoid (wether from obligation or for other reasons).

Jul 02, 2009

Alois Brinkmann said...

Cannot open my vimeo files on my I phone. http://alois.posterous.com/
Can I load a plugin ....?

Alois, no, vimeo videos aren't support on the iPhone. that is beyond our control. If you send the video file to posterous itself, then you will be able to play it on the iphone.

Jul 03, 2009

Anthony Martin said...

Could it be that sites that embed advertisements wouldn't work exactly like they would with a pure flash VM?

Jul 05, 2009

Stephen L. Harlow said...

thank you for the explanation of video formats and discussion of the issue.

Sachin’s Posterous

I wonder why Apple doesn't support flash video files on the iPhone

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