…are dumb.
With web content as it is currently, anything Flash-less is almost like time-warping back to 1993. Almost. Anyone really want the Cello Browser on anything? *heh* Sure, there is a lot of crap Flash (ads, especially), but a mature mobile browser can block things like that granularly when one wants to (Opera Mobile could do so up until version 10, but reports have that feature AWOL in recent Mobile builds for some strange reason), and since some of my essential sites use Flash well, anything Flash-less is simply not on my horizon.
Just one more reason why–for me–the pickin’s are slim on the “smart” phone menu. Still waiting on a compelling reason to buy a so-called “smart” phone and data plan (some might rightly say I’m just too cheap *heh*). Somehow right now, being unplugged (except for the inevitable calls-only throwaway cell phone–so when the number gets around too much and I become too accessible, I can simply toss the thing and start over) for large chunks of my day seems a Good Thing.
This post brought to you as a result of
- Someone griping in my hearing about slow-loading Flash on his Android phone (little wonder, since the software’s still in beta) and
- Someone else discovering, as I watched in amusement, that his iPhone couldn’t access work-related web content because it’s Flash-less.
I think it’s really an issue of people’s expectations. A small screen like you have on a smart phone and low bandwidth data connections aren’t really the best medium for some types of content. Use the right tool for the purpose and all that.
I don’t miss flash all that much when I use my iPhone on the web (like now). Most of the time I use it for e-mail and reading blogs and news when I don’t have a lot of time.
For anything else I use my laptop or my desktop machines. Streaming video and flash both use bandwidth that I don’t really want to pay for on my data plan.
Well, sure, Perri. Different strokes and all that. Until more of the web (and particularly those well-crafted Flash using sites I rely on for big chunks of stuff) uses other technologies other than Flash, web access from a phone would be less than useful for me. Different strokes.