I’m trying to play some Flash games on my iPhone, but I can’t get it to install. How do I install Flash?
As of this writing, Flash does not work on any version of the iPhone. Excluding Flash support was a conscious decision by Apple. There has been a great deal of speculation as to why that decision was made. Suggested reasons include:
- Time constraints — Apple developers have not yet had time to implement it.
- Technical constraints — Apple does not believe there is a version of Flash that would run well on their mobile platform (source).
- Business reasons — Apple is pushing video codecs that play well with Apple TV (source).
Speculation aside, demand continues to build for Flash on the iPhone, so I’m sure it will eventually be released. Rumors of Flash coming to the iPhone started flying back in February and March of ’08, and they’ve started making the rounds again as of July. Technology columnist Walt Mossberg recently mentioned that Flash would be coming to the iPhone in the form of a software update sometime in the next few months.
