Rating: No Adobe Flash support means no webcams
An enormous gap in the Windows Phone 7 (W7 Mango) OS which we thought had been fixed a long time ago has just caught us out. Unlike our rival publications, GoMobile News actually eats its own cooking. So we were trying to view a live webcam feed on our Nokia Lumia 800 W7 Mango smartphone. After hours of messing around, we discovered that Adobe still hasn’t created a version of Flash for WP7 – even though it was rumoured to be working on such an offering as long ago as 2010. The net effect was that we couldn’t view a webcam feed on our Mangophone despite our best efforts. If WP7 wants to oust Android, then it has got to do a lot better than this.The circumstances which cause GoMobile News to discover this particular gaping hole in Microsoft’s WP7 mobile OS centred around an attempt to view a webcam.
The webcam in particular we wanted to view can be found here.
Very quickly, however, we discovered that the vast majority of webcams employ Adobe’s Flash technology so we couldn’t even find a webcam feed viewable on WP7.
Previously, GoMobile News has criticised certain failings with the Nokia Lumia 800 handset but this is the first time we’ve noticed a major omission in WP7 itself.
We can only speculate that given stories about Adobe intending to support WP7 emerged back in 2010, everyone assumed that two years later the product would have emerged. No such luck.
You may be wondering how we got around the crisis? Bizarrely, we took advantage of the fact that the latest release of WP7 now supports tethering (which it calls Internet sharing).
So we powered up our trusty Samsung netbook and connected to the Net via the handset’s Orange 3G link.
Now GoMobile News is well aware of the tensions between Adobe with Flash; Microsoft with Silverlight; and apple with Quicktime over web display technology.
But a hole like this is inexcusable after two years. Microsoft & Adobe need to kiss and make up.
Incidentally, if you are wondering why we need to view that webcam, it’s because a close associate of GoMobile News was appearing in a performance of David Copperfield at the theatre.
And Cornwall is a long way away from London. Luckily the play is on for the rest of this week.
Really!!! You call this news!!!
It has been widely published that flash doesn’t work on Windows Phone 7 and never will. There will never be a version of flash for the OS, Adobe already announced this early last year! Besides what’s the point flash will cease to exist in most formats soon as most sites will now be moving away from flash content onto HTML5.
I agree with GrayT. I thought this was news about a security hole. Thanks for freaking out the entire internet and possibly causing a negative knock-on effect for potential buyers. Besides haven’t you seen a lot of the Apps on the market place that are capable of consuming the API of many web cam manufactures. Also, Windows Phone 7 supports the following codecs H.263, VC1, MPEG-4 Pt 2, and H.264 natively. Which is what most Flash players are wrapping to play the video in the browser. Please read a book or the THE FREE MANUAL on MSDN first before you go posting misinformation again.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/windowsphone/develop
What he said
Flash is dead. It’s a power-hungry, antiquated format, the impending death of which has sent Adobe folks scurrying to remain relevant in the mobile market. It’s all about HTML 5.
This is not news!!
Flash will be dead soon and was never intended to be supported by WP7, or WP8 for that matter!
As the previous poster states, the move to HTML5 means that this is all mute anyway.
Great journalism!!!
Adobe has dumped development of Flash on all mobile OS. It was removed from the Google Play store a few weeks ago.
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You miss my point entirely. Consumers don’t write their own apps or care about codecs. The vast majority of webcams can’t be viewed from the standard Nokia browser. It’s a major flaw. The fact that Microsoft stops supporting old versions of Windows and Internet Explorer doesn’t mean that consumers suddenly change their PCs overnight. So Adobe giving up on Mobile is irrelevant.
This article could have just as easily taken to task all of the web cams that still force users to have flash support in order to view them. Instead you decide to jump all over this issue as a unique problem to Windows Phone 7.
It’s not a problem.
If you want to view a web cam on your phone, then get a web cam that supports something besides flash. If you don’t control the web cam then take your complaint to someone who does. Instead you want to blame your phone.
This is not a hole in the windows phone. This is a hole in all mobile devices across the board. There are sites with streaming silver light and flash and many mobile devices have no access to them. The tech world is very aware and eventually sites will catch up and use HTML 5 but we are growing fast into mobile devices and it will take some time for businesses to adjust and HTML 5 to be adopted as it still has it’s own problems being the new kid on the block.
http://forums.adobe.com/message/4507997
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It has nothing to do with Windows not supporting flash. It is Flash that is no longer supporting the mobile market…ANY mobile market.
Your statement, “The fact that Microsoft stops supporting old versions of Windows and Internet Explorer” just shows that you are trying to say in a nice way, that you do not like Windows.
For the record, even though Windows XP is over a decade old, they still put our vulnerability patches. Yes, they will not upgrade the browser and other portions of Windows XP, but you also don’t see Apple still supporting an operating system from 2001 either.
Saying it’s Windows fault for the phone not having Flash, is like saying it’s Windows fault that Roxio hasn’t made Angry birds in Space for WP7 either.
All the consumer wants is a phone that works. The Lumia 800 is incompatible with the vast majority of web cam feeds. What would be more helpful than criticism is a useful work around which we could publish. Incidentally, lack of Flash support means we can’t listen to helpmechill via the Net, either.
Actually, under pressure from bodies like the BBC, Adobe has made Flash for Android available again on Google Play. See our article here http://www.gomonews.com/bbc-confirms-you-cant-watch-f1-on-a-wp7-phone/. Criticism can work wonders, despite what you appear to believe.