Want Flash On Your (Jailbroken) Apple iPad? Here’s How To Do It!
Written by John Thompson on July 7, 2010 · Filed under How To, Tech
It’s official! Anyone with a jailbroken iPad can now enjoy Flash content in the browser (don’t kill the messenger, Steve!), thanks to a plugin that’s been developed called Frash. At the moment, you can’t play Flash video on your iPad, although that is definitely arriving in a version in the not so distant future. For now though you can still play games, which is certainly a good starting point.
So how does one install Frash on to an Apple iPad? Check out the instructions below to find out!
The Guide
These instructions were gathered from Engadget, full credit goes to them.
First things first, you need to make sure you’re doing this on a jailbroken iPad, as it will not work if you’re using a stock version of the device.
You’re going to have to download a file named Frash.deb from here, and keep it in hand for later on. Next, you’ll need to access the file system of your iPad. Depending on your operating system, there are different ways of doing this. If you’re an OS X user, you can use an application called Netatalk. Windows users can use this guide to SSH in to their iPad using WinSCP.
Keeping track of this so far? Good! Now you have access to the filesystem of the iPad, you’ll need to navigate to /var/root/Media in your Finder / Explorer window. In the media folder, create a directory named “Cydia”, and another folder inside the Cydia directory named “autoinstall” (without the speech marks, of course).
Don’t worry, things are now significantly easier from here on out! Do you remember that file you downloaded earlier, named Frash.deb? You’re going to have to place this in to the auto install folder you just created. Once it’s uploaded, just restart your iPad a few times, and you should be good to go!
If you want to test it out, you can simply navigate to a web page in Safari with Adobe Flash content (no video yet, remember!) and hit the Flash logo to try it out. This should work without any issues, but it’s still an experimental application, so it may not all be smooth running just yet.
The Verdict
I’ve managed to grab myself a salvaged iPad (jailbroken, that is) to test this out on for myself, and the results are certainly promising. As I’ve already stated, you shouldn’t get your hopes up for video playback, as it simply won’t work yet, although it’s certainly cool to see Flash working on the iPad’s Safari browser for the first time ever!
I’ve tried it out with a few simple Flash-orientated games, and although the performance hasn’t been exemplary as of yet, it’s most definitely a step in the right direction. Hopefully, we’ll see better support arriving in future versions of Frash, and I for one cannot wait!
Obviously you’d be doing this at your own risk, so we can’t be held responsible if you break your iPad, but if you have done it, tell us whether or not having Flash really does improve Apple’s iPad tablet device, as not having Flash is something a lot of people criticise about it.
If you ever needed an excuse to jailbreak your iPad, this is most certainly it, so what are you waiting for? Let us know if you hit any bumps along the way in the comments, we’d love to hear what you think!
Via – Engadget
