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iPhone Will Not Offer The Full Web

Forget all the hype we've heard. It seems that the iPhone will not offer the full Web, after all. At least not according to Apple's developer specifications.

Here is a deeper look at the issue:

Near essential applications such as Flash and Java will not be viewable at all on the iPhone and JavaScript applications will be limited to just five seconds runtime when using the built-in Safari browser.

Although YouTube has announced videos will be available for the iPhone, they are having to be recoded into Quicktime rather than Flash based as per the desktop version.

Apple will need to rethink their advertising campaign before it hits the UK as the ASA will surely have something to say.

I am sure that the marketing team at Apple will claim that Flash and Java aren't necessary for a "full" Web experience, but frankly, I don't see how you can claim you offer a complete experience without them. Java in particular is vital to many mobile Web sites and its pretty important for the desktop Web too. I am interested to see how the Safari browser on the iPhone will render many sites without Java access or some kind of JVM.

While the iPhone won't offer the whole Web, it will at least have YouTube and so far it looks like access to YouTube on the iPhone will be free.

What do you think? Will the lack of Flash, Java and other applications on the iPhone make it less usable?

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