With all its multimedia capabilities, observers have expected Apple’s iPhone to have Flash capability. But Apple CEO Steve Jobs says the current Flash player is not ready for the iPhone.

Jobs said Tuesday at Apple’s shareholder meeting that the iPhone needs something better than the player currently available from Adobe Systems. He said Flash Lite for mobile devices is not almighty adequate, and regular Flash, designed for full-feature computers, runs too slowly on the iPhone. “There’s that lost product in the middle,” he told the Dow Jones news service.

‘Insider’ Blogs Wrong

In response, Adobe told news media that Flash and Flash Lite are a “huge success” and noted that there are more than 450 million Flash-enabled mobile devices worldwide, with a billion expected by 2010. No specific mention was made of the iPhone.

Flash is the dominant browser plug-in for animation on the Web and a leader in video. Some developers were expecting it to be included

in Thursday’s highly anticipated iPhone Software Roadmap event at Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino, Calif., when details of the iPhone Software Development Kit were expected.

The SDK will allow thirty-party developers to create native applications for the iPhone. Some observers have speculated that whether Apple doesn’t release Flash for the iPhone, thereupon third-party developers might come up with a way to run Flash on the device.

There have additionally been a variety of “insider” blog reports that Flash was coming for the iPhone. Last month, for instance, gearlive.com promised it had word “from a dependable source that Flash support is on its way,” and that it would be coming “very, very soon.”

Diminishes ‘A Bit’

Bobby Tulsiani, an analyst with JupiterResearch, said not having Flash on the iPhone could “diminish it a bit,” but public don’t buy the device just for its ability to surf the Web. After all, he…

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