Development tidbits, struggles, revelations, and still some Flash

After the AppleTV and iPhone were released, I had some key questions about both which would impact my decision to buy either product. Looks like I may have my answers. I found David Pogue’s iPhone FAQ on his blog (via MacRumors) and it looks like neither product will fill my needs.

 Apple TV: It can play MP4/H.264 (protected and unprotected). So it won’t play my other video files. This is a major issue (for me). I would rather pay the extra $$ and just get a Mac Mini.Â

Apple iPhone: Can it display Flash or Java? No (according to David Pogue).  Ack.. That just about kills it for any web page and web app.   Hopefully this will be fixed in the future. Will Apple provide a SDK for it or allow 3rd party development? This also looks like a big “no” from Apple. They will provide additional apps (ala iPod games), but not allow us to develop our own stuff. Ugh.. Apple has such a great product and they will kill it (for me and others..) by not allowing us to develop our own apps/widgets.

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Apple TV – Can I watch movies other than just those purchased from iTMS? What codecs does it support?Â

Apple Phone – Can it display Flash content? If so, what version (hopefully FP9)? How much built-in memory? Will Apple provide a SDK for it?Â

And its says I’ll be switching to Cingular this June and getting the new Apple iPhone (iPod, phone, camera, and it runs OSX). You must always obey your inner-geek.Â

I just saw this on MacCentral. Wow! And Encore is coming too. I like competition and this is a good thing, but its been a long time and Adobe has a lot of ground to make up. They’ll need to mend a lot of fences to get ex-Premiere users to swap back from FCP (or offer some really great competitive upgrades).

“Adobe will announce on Thursday that it will revive a Mac version of Premiere, the software maker’s video program aimed at professional editors. The new Mac version will only run on Intel-based Macs and will be part of a larger Adobe Production Studio suite that will include Adobe Encore DVD and Adobe Soundbooth.”

Other announcement links:

Mike Downey blog

Steve Kilisky’s AE blog

By the way, in case it’s not clear, I’m very excited about this news.Â