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Is this proof that Apple is allowing Flash on the iPhone 2.0 OS firmware?

By: , IntoMobile
Thursday, June 12th, 2008 at 12:12 PM

The best kinds of rumors come straight from the hardware source. The latest Adobe Flash rumor to hit the iPhone-scene is actually based on images shown on Apple’s own iPhone 3G webpage. It seems that a depiction of the website Lonely Planet on an iPhone 3G shows Flash-enabled content flawlessly rendered on the screen.

There’s a key Flash-component on the Lonely Planet website that’s hard to overlook – the interactive, two-toned world-map. The full-fledged version of the map makes use of Flash and offers cursor-activated animations. When viewed on a non-Flash capable browser, however, the map reverts to a non-Flash, single-color version.

Visiting the website’s homepage on your iPhone’s Safari browser running v1.1.4 firmware (as well as previous firmware versions) results in the following page-render:

iPhone shows lonely planet webpage

Visiting the site with the Flash-capable Mac OS X 10.5.4 Safari browser results in a world-map page-render that looks like this:

iPhone shows lonely planet webpage

Notice the two-tone map in the second picture. The dual-colored map also allowing for interactive animations triggered by cursor hovering. The first map uses just a single shade of blue, indicating the Flash is not in play. The second map shows that Flash is definitely enabled (which makes sense).

Now, check out this image from Apple’s iPhone 3G page:

iPhone shows lonely planet webpage

Notice the fully-rendered homepage with the Flash-enabled world-map in plain view.

What gives? Did the iPhone 3G artist simply slip-up or get lazy? Is this a case of the graphics artist simply resizing the full Lonely Planet homepage and depicting it on the iPhone 3G screen? Or is Apple seriously working with Adobe, on the down-low, to bring full Flash functionality to the iPhone’s next firmware revision?

We have no idea, but it sure is nice to think that iPhone 2.0 OS will bring with it Flash capability. Thoughts?

[Via: iPhoneAtlas]

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About The Author

Will Park

Will hails from The City of Angels - Los Angeles, California. He spends his time playing with his numerous gadgets and looking forward to seeing what future holds for mobile technology. An avid promoter of a fully "digital" life, he promotes the widespread adoption of truly mobile, paper-less living. He dreams of the day when he can go completely digital. No more snail mail, paper receipts, bound books, notepads/spiral notebooks, credit cards, hard currency. He's a digital warrior - fighting for the converged life. He is an idealist and a realist - he has a perfect view of what the world should be but knows that the world is not perfect. Can we ever hope to see Will's dream become reality? We'll see...

  • chingwa

    Most likely scenario:

    APPLE’S AD AGENCY:
    Director: “I need an online image of the new iPhone showing it’s web capability!”
    Marketing: “We have co-brand licensing agreement with Lonely Planet, make sure to use their website!”
    Photographer: “Had to shoot the product with it off in order to control the exposure!”
    Designer: “No Problem, I’ll just take a snap of the LP website and photoshop it onto the product photo… I’m not even going to add any highlights or color gradation or any realistic effects because I only studied graphic software in Art School, not art.”
    Director: “It’s been 5 minutes is it done yet?”
    Marketing: “Make the logo bigger.”
    etc etc. etc.

  • Will Park

    This isn’t as much about doctored Safari images as it is about Apple and their marketing-control process.

    Thanks for the link just the same.