Whatever the official or unofficial reasons may be that Flash isn’t running on iPhones or iPads, apparently Flash is running all that well on Android phones. Ian Betteridge in Technovia:

Pretty bad. In fact, if you’re thinking video, utterly unusable... Ignoring the broader reasons for Apple wanting to keep Flash off its platform, it’s clear that Flash is simply too processor-intensive to work properly on mobile-class processors as currently specified.

Great video demonstration of Flash on Android.

Nicole Martinelli reports in Cult of Mac on the success of an iPhone stethoscope app:

So far, some three million physicians have downloaded the $0.99 iStethoscope to be able to monitor the heart rates of patients on the go.

It’s an impressive number but there’s no mention on how many of the iStethoscope apps are in actual use.

80 percent of doctors say they expect to be using a smart phone by 2012, this inexpensive app definitely quickens the pace of many. Although the heart-monitor app is undoubtedly handy, it does sound slightly awkward to use without a bit of practice.

How long before our doctor’s appointments are face-to-face via FaceTime?

Hit whoring is alive on major online publications and from notable technologists. Dan Frommer in Business Insider on why he dumped Hulu Plus (hint: it’s not what you think it is):

While Hulu did a fine job technically getting the service up and running, it just wasn’t worth the $10 per month I was paying.

Why?

Mostly because I never used it.

Why not?

Again, my personal preference plays into this a lot, so I’m not saying that Hulu Plus won’t be better for some/most people.

Sigh.

Jonny Evans in Computerworld on six of Apple’s most notorious failed products.

1. The Puck Mouse
2. The G4 Cube
3. iPod HiFi
4. FireWire
5. Pippin
6. Steve Jobs Challenge

#6 is stupid. #1, #2, #3 and #5 are spot on. FireWire has a successful niche and prospers, but it’s not ubiquitous (USB).

Amar Hanspal in The New York Times on Autodesk bringing AutoCAD to the Mac.

This is an endorsement from our side that design and engineering customers are taking the Macintosh seriously again.

Indeed.

Gartner’s Tom Austin joined the iPad party.

My iPad hasn’t replaced my Tablet PC. And it hasn’t replaced my company issued notebook computer, my personal photo and music editing machine or any of the other computers in my apartment. It’s just made them more secondary.

Confirmed. And…

The iPad is transformational because it just simply works. It comes on in a couple of seconds. Reboots? You’re kidding, right? I am sure I will want to or have to reboot my iPad someday. That day hasn’t come yet.

Confirmed. And…

The iPad is a mortal threat to most user PCs in existence today. I’m sure Microsoft and Google can come up with their own iPad equivalents. And I hope they’re more competitive than Zune.

What’s a Zune?

Fool’s Anders Byland foolishly declares a Truce in the Online Video Format War.

The format war over online video standards is over. You may not have realized there was a war at all, but this is a big deal. This is not a cease-fire, but a peace treaty with every relevant John Hancock firmly aboard.

Why? How? It’s still a mess despite the shouts of victory.

Now the MPEG LA technology licensing body has announced that the H.264 standard will join WebM on the royalty-free side of the fence until the end of time or until the standard becomes obsolete, whichever comes first.

Outside of Adobe’s Flash player, the de facto video standard, there are two main camps lining up. H.264, supported by Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Opera, but not Mozilla’s Firefox. Google’s WebM video format is supported by Google, Opera, and Mozilla.

How about if we declare victory when a single standard video format is officially supported on all major browsers?

From Reuters:

Nearly five months after the iPad’s launch, Apple has finally matched supply with demand. Apple’s online store now shows iPad orders will be shipped within 24 hours , the first time the tablet has been available for next-day shipping since its early April debut.

Is that meeting iPad demand or diminishing iPad demand? Apple’s iPhone ship date remains three weeks in the Apple Store.

App Store Metrics reports that apps in Apple’s App Store crossed the 250,000 mark:

• Total Active Apps (currently available for download): 253,694
• Total Inactive Apps (no longer available for download): 50,285
• Total Apps Seen in US App Store: 303,979
• Number of Active Publishers in the US App Store: 50,585
• This Month (Games): 2,580 ( 83 / day )
• This Month (Non-Games): 16,897 ( 545 / day )
• This Month (Total): 19,477 ( 628 / day )
• Current Average App Price: $2.88
• Current Average Game Price: $1.24
• Current Average Overall Price: $2.64

When does many become too much?

The handwriting is on the wall, the handwringing has begun. WBZ reports on USA Today’s radical overhaul to move from newspapers to mobile devices. Editor John Hillkirk:

We have to go where the audience is. If people are hitting the iPad like crazy, or the iPhone or other mobile devices, we’ve got to be there with the content they want, when they want it.

It’s atoms vs. bits.

Quotes from LG’s vice president of marketing regarding the company’s late entry into smart phones and tablets:

• “The race hasn’t started yet.”
• “Our tablet will be better than the iPad.”
• “It’s going to be surprisingly productive.”
• “We think it’s reasonable for us to provide this to people who hesitate to buy or don’t have enough experience with smartphones. This is a clear answer to them.”

Clear?

Clearly vaporware.

Remember John Cougar Mellencamp? I don’t either, but I think my parents listened to his music. He says the internet is dangerous. Dean Goodman in The Globe and Mail provides a few choice quotes:

I think the Internet is the most dangerous thing invented since the atomic bomb. It’s destroyed the music business. It’s going to destroy the movie business.

And yet people continue to record music and buy music, make movies and watch movies.

Avram Piltch in Laptop reports on Flash for Android smart phones and how it performed (crashes, freezes, slow video streaming, etc.):

Adobe needs to have a better answer to whether or not Flash is still relevant in a world where other technologies have rapidly started displacing it.  Based on my early experience with Flash Player 10.1 for mobile, it could soon join the floppy drive in the tech graveyard, something else Steve Jobs helped kill.

Missing Flash on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch? Nope.

Philip Elmer-DeWitt on a study of when and how Americans tune into public radio. From Fortune:

[more] than 8,000 Americans who listen to National Public Radio on their iPhones (rather than, say, their car radios) between 8 a.m. and 10 a.m. on a typical weekday morning—one of the more surprising results of an hour-by-hour study of listener habits released by NPR Wednesday.

Guilty. Instead of radio I stream all kinds of shows on my iPhone while riding the subway into Manhattan.