Perhaps you don't know it yet, but you are already in one of the two camps over how Apple refuses to allow Flash to work on iPads. If you doubt this because you haven't even heard of the issue, then you're in the half of the population that has simply never noticed the problem. If you do know it and you're reading this because you know it, then you are getting this problem a lot -- and you have been searching forever for a solution.
Photon Flash Player for iPad is a solution. It's a web browser, like Safari, but it comes with the ability to play Flash -- and you pay for that, in how its other functionality is weaker.
Flash is not just for video, though. One very important part of it is that websites can use Flash to create whole applications. They're graphically rich and detailed, they can come with animated controls, they can have videos slide in or dialog boxes explode.
There are entire businesses based on creating animated greetings cards in Flash. Hopefully, they also have entire departments focused on moving them on to HTML5, because otherwise these firms are not going to be around to pass on to the owners' children.
Photon works on these greeting-card sites, it works with the games on Facebook. In theory, it works with just about any Flash application anywhere, and certainly the process you go through is the same. Whenever you're on a website and you get an error message about how you can't play Flash video, just tap on the lightning bolt icon and Photon will do its thing. In moments, the Flash movie will just start playing, like it would on PCs or Macs.
It takes a moment to switch over to a Flash-enabled site, and there is a bit of a lag as you scroll around. The website is actually sent off to a cloud: the site isn't run on Photon itself, it's run on an external service, and the image of the site is sent back to your website. In theory, then, if you don't have an Internet connection this can't work – but if you don't have an Internet connection, you're not going to be trying to browse the web anyway.
You do need to fiddle with your Internet connection to get the best results. That is a chore, and the diagnostic panels suit techies more than anyone just wanting to browse sites. Really, though, the only problem with this solution is that it introduces a delay. Sites look just a touch poorer in resolution, they're not as crisp or quick. However, videos play and applications work: you can see a little circular cursor moving around under your finger as you tap on controls.
It's not perfect; for instance, we found the Flash version of Scrabble on Facebook had odd problems, with ads being displayed over the top of controls. That may be a Flash problem -- and actually, that's the thing. Flash has problems. It was the king of the castle for a time, but we now have alternatives that work better, that don't crash, don't have odd display problems and also don't eat your iPad battery life.
Your true best solution is to forget about Flash. Over time, you're not going to have a choice about it anyway, as the entire web is moving away from this. But if you need Flash now and you need it on your iPad, Photon does the job.
Photon Flash Player requires iOS 4.3 or later, and normally costs $10 but is
currently on sale for $5. There is also a version for the
iPhone, and for
Android devices.
Who Photon Flash Player is for:
Anyone who absolutely has to access a Flash presentation or app on their mobile device; those who are getting error messages on their mobile device saying "your version of Flash is out of date"
Who is Photon Flash Player not for:
Everybody else
-- William Gallagher (
@WGallagher)
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