How to install Flash (Frash) on iPad

Posted on by xh

The Developer who brought Spirit, managed to port over the Adobe Flash runtime for Android to the iPhone (named as Frash). This allows iOS devices to view flash content on the default Mobile Safari browser.

Demostration Videos


Requirements

  • Jailbroken iPad (download Spirit from http://spiritjb.com/ and run the program to jailbreak)
  • Frash-0.01.deb , Frash-0.02.deb (mirror) – credits:  Grant Pannell
  • openSSH installed (Get from cydia)
  • UserAgent Faker installed (Optional. Get from cydia. Good to have to fake your MobileSafari as Firefox 3.0 so that websites will not redirect you to their iphone/ipad page which is non-flash)
  • SBSettings (Get from cydia. Recommended so that at least you can turn off/on SSH or UserAgent)

Installation

So assume that you have already got openSSH and it’s turned on (I believed it is turned on by default)

Method 1 (Expert users)

  1. SSH into your iPad and transfer Frash.deb to your iPad (e.g. I copied to /var/root)
  2. Type dpkg -i Frash-0.01.deb
  3. Open up MobileSafari and load a flash page (you should see a Flash icon like below where you can click on to load the Flash content)

Method 2

  1. Download and install WinSCP (windows) or Fugu (mac) or any ssh file transfer client you are familiar with (Refer to http://www.iclarified.com/entry/index.php?enid=3221 if you need the detailed steps)
  2. Connect to your iPad using the ssh file transfer client
  3. Navigate to /var/root/Media
  4. Create a new folder called Cydia (if not available)
  5. Create another new folder AutoInstall (if not available)
  6. Update Frash-0.01.deb to that path (/var/root/Media/Cydia/AutoInstall)
  7. Reboot you iPad (you iPad will auto install the deb files in /var/root/Media/Cydia/AutoInstall when your iPad boot up) (you might need to reboot this a couple of times)
  8. Open up MobileSafari and load a flash page (you should see a Flash icon like below where you can click on to load the Flash content)

Issues/Comments

  • Flash Video is quite smooth (some text colors, quality is not as good as the desktop version)
  • Sound works properly
  • Flash games works but I notice that’s some lag in the interaction. For e.g. when touching a button, it might be slightly misaligned, and you might need to press and hold to trigger the touch event)
  • Another issue with flash games is that, when you need to press-hold-move around the screen, safari might scroll the page thinking that you want to scroll the page which makes this kind of flash games pretty much unplayable
  • There are still some problems loading some flash. You might get things like “Socket error: Connection reset by peer” etc
  • Unlike Adobe Flash 10.1 Player beta on Nexus One (Froyo), I feel that frash on iPad is smoother than Nexus One  (At least when scrolling the page, it won’t feel sluggish)
  • It messes up embedded youtube videos (in apps and mobile safari) so you might not be able to view/expand youtube videos
  • This is not exact perfect yet, but still it’s really a leap off over previous Flash workaround like Cloud Browse or VNC into your desktop