Behind the Flash delay for iPhone: Pandora?
Apple may have many reasons for preventing Flash applications to work on the iPhone and iPod Touch, but I can't think of one more compelling than Pandora.
The free Music Genome Project-based service, which is fast gaining a cult following similar to that of Apple products for its simple user interface and innovative edge in music consumption, is sure to present some serious competition to iTunes on any mobile device.
Which will come first to the iPhone: Pandora or an Apple-branded music subscription service?
(Credit: Pandora Media)Sure, Pandora technically is Apple-friendly, letting users bookmark songs they hear on their customized radio stations, then buy them through iTunes. But when you've customized your "Paul Simon Radio" station to the point that you consistently hear more songs you really like--and ones you'll grow to love--through natural Pandora play than through listening to songs in your iTunes library in shuffle mode, there isn't much of a compelling reason to pay to further clutter your handset memory with more tunes.
It's no surprise that Pandora users are excited about the idea of using the service, through which users can hone what they hear by suggesting artists and songs, and giving a thumbs-up or thumbs-down (or bookmark) to any song they hear, on the iPhone and iPod Touch.
"Only problem with Pandora on iPhone is that iPhone doesn't support Flash," user Jase commented on the Pandora blog in June, referring to the Mac maker's resistance to letting its mobile iteration of the Safari browser support the Adobe Systems technology, upon which Pandora's service relies. "Maybe Pandora can come up with an iPhone-compatible interface. Now that would really rock!"
Months later, other users chimed in on the comments thread: "Pandora and the iPhone were made for each other," Bill said in August. "I NEED PANDORA ON MY IPHONE...I'm dying...Please design a simple interface that can be accessed online by iPhone--or a plugin, as per the YouTube/iPhone setup. Apple better help," Rab said in September.
"I would pay for this service," Ben Grey said. "Pandora on an iPhone would make me buy both! The iPhone already has the car interface and unlimited data plans. All we need is a compatible Web app. Please, please, please!" Thomas W. Watson said.
You get the idea: in terms of common enthusiasts, at least, this would be such a good match that Apple must be thinking to itself, gee, maybe we can create a Pandora-like magic for the iPhone on our own. And charge for it. After all, though recent research indicates that having a sheer scale of users helps iTunes generate a decent amount of cash, CEO Steve Jobs says iTunes--as well as the App Store--is not set up to make money.
So it's interesting to me that the same day Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen is publicly pushing the idea of Flash compatibility for the iPhone, we hear rumors of Apple negotiating with the record labels to create an all-you-can-eat subscription service for the iPod and iPhone.
Is there a connection within Apple's executive ranks? Perhaps not. But it seems logical that Apple would want to endorse its own subscription service before enabling a popular Flash-reliant music service such as Pandora to grace its mobile hardware.
Zoë Slocum is copy chief of CNET News and manager of the CNET Blog Network. She joined CNET in 2003, after two years at a travel start-up. She started in San Francisco, was based in the Boston bureau for four years, and is now back in the Bay Area. E-mail Zoë. 
The post was intended to leverage the fact the people are searching for news on the iPhone. Please just don't write posts to get traffic. We expect better from CNet.
searching for news on the iPhone. Please just don't write posts to
get traffic. We expect better from CNet."
we do?
what CNet do you generally read, and how can i get there?
got pandora working on (jailbreaked) iphones... along with other
stuff like streaming all your library on the go...lastfm, seeqpod,
mp3tunes, lala, etc. it'll even play DRM'd movies and songs if you
bought them... still in alpha testing, but if you're interested, check
it out and send us an email to try the beta...
http://ootun.es/ipod/
- Maybe there are better reasons...
- by Giant Ginkgo March 24, 2008 9:29 AM PDT
- I don?t see where Pandora can?t easily address this in at least two major different ways on the iPhone - First off, on today?s iPhone one can probably build an Ajax web application that uses Quicktime for streaming audio and video, using the same standards that Flash supports - H264 (MP4) and MP3. (Yeah, it?s not as simple as writing a little Adobe Flex app, but oh well...)
- Like this Reply to this comment
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(5 Comments)The better option would be to download the recently released SDK, and release a full Pandora client application in June. Since it is a streaming service, it isn?t going to have any storage problems, and it can utilize all of the advanced Audio Unit and Quicktime features that are available for it. It can easily sync back to the web, and everyone will benefit.
Now if Pandora writes this iPhone application, submits it to Apple for the App store, and gets turned down for some lame reason - then this ?story? would have more legs. But at this point, I really doubt that the upper management of Apple are keeping Flash off of the iPhone to spite Pandora. I don?t think they know OR care about it one way or the other.
I?m a Flex developer, but I can see why Apple doesn?t see Flash as being really ready for the iPhone - even ignoring the possible performance issues, there are bigger problems like UI integration (multi-touch, gestures, accelerometer, etc.) that need to be dealt with. Is Adobe going to provide a truly iPhone centric version of Flash, that provides new features that weren?t work on other platforms?
If you look at the iPhone?s SDK, which uses many of the same technologies as OSX on the desktop, notice how the Macintosh version of Interface Builder isn?t supported. I bet a lot of lazy Mac developers would LOVE to be able to just push a single button and have their current programs running on the iPhone. But it can?t (or shouldn?t) be done because of the differences between a desktop machine and a touch-based phone.