Beware a man who buys pixels in barrels - Bill Jackson
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Flash 10.1 is Android’s new best friend forever
Adobe Systems has triumphantly demoed its Flash Player 10.1 running on Motorola’s Droid X handset, with the corresponding leg up on Apple.
Ted Patrick, one of the company’s senior technology evangelists, is seen on this 2:43 minute Youtube video of Motorola’s upcoming Droid X Android-based smartphone, running some nifty Flash 10.1 applications. As an exercise in “rubbing your nose in it”, it’s all there. A clever World Cup app to tell us how England washed out in the World Cup 2010, a few flash-based games and some simple vector management that scales graphics to full screen (all 4.3-inches) with the tap of a finger. However, we must point out a few caveats:
First is the fact that Ted Patrick is an evangeliser, no harm in that, but his job is to draw in new converts based on the features and capabilities of said devices, that is, the eye candy. Despite the Droid X’s 1GHz CPU muscle, it does seem that Adobe's Flash Player is pretty calculation intensive. This becomes clear when you’re left gawking at the stuttering World Cup app. One can only imagine that other, more feeble smartphones won't like it too much.
The other detail worth mentioning is that it looks like a battery-vampire, that it is, a permanently intensive app, so we have absolutely no idea how this will wreak havoc on your device’s battery life, and believe us, battery life is not something you're willing to gamble on. We'd say this calls for a demo in and of itself.
On the other hand, it’s good to see that Motorola, almost having hung up its handset boots early last year, has come up with the likes of the Droid X and simultaneously stuck it to Apple with the inclusion of Flash Player 10.1 on its devices. Adobe hasn't submitted to the fact that Steve Jobs shut it out, and with Android devices on the rise this looks like a sound strategy.
On a side note, Adobe’s serial evangeliser said that Android 2.2 will be capable of Flash 10.1 playback, come late summer, which is when Motorola will launch the Droid X. So maybe, just maybe, if Adobe plays its cards right, come back to school time, kiddywinks will be looking at the Droid rather than the latest fruit themed device as their preferred plaything. µ
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I was going to post a very similar comment, but you've nailed it. So, I will only concur and add the fact that Flash runs very, very, very, well indeed on Tegra CPUs. Search for Tegra at CompTIA or Computex 2009 on YouTube and see for yourselves. nVidia actually claims 8-10 hours runtime while playing HD video in Flash, on a single charge. Bite that Apple.
Been waiting for the ARM smartbook revolution for a while now. WTF are the vendors waiting for? Smartbooks are the true Apple killer as they will show that nearly ANY device running ARM, as opposed to x86, is very power efficient and powerful in the hands of talented engineers and developers. Apple doesn't have a monopoly on engineers and ARM is the most proliferated CPU on the planet.
Adobe - give us configuration options (flash & java) or die, now.
Adobe add - We Enable malware just for you"
Flash is all about eye-candy, there're so many alternative ways to achieve the same functionality. And the REAL reason that Flash is a resource hog is because it is, like EVERY Adobe product, poorly engineered. Reading fairly complex PDF files in mobile devices isn't also the smoothest experience in the world.
Fortunately I'm noticing a decrease in websites that have that sluggish Flash animation as their "welcome" page (which makes you instantly hunt for a "skip" link), and Flash is slowly being reduced to small-sized ads (which a no-flash add-on takes care pretty well). You really don't need this crappy plug-in to interact with most websites. Now give web developers a good alternative to video streaming and Flash is gone.
Historically, bad IT endeavors might get some years of attention when well advertised, but they all fade away and vanish eventually. That's natural selection.
Hopefully Java will also face nature's wrath very soon for the same reasons.
Really Flash should run on mobiles. The problems are a result of Adobe's laziness and crappy coding, and the phone OS developers laziness and crappy coding.
On the other hand my N900 runs flash sites pretty well. So if the Maemo open sourcers can do it why can't Google and Apple.
In one sense, the whole debate about Flash is pretty much academic when talking about phones. Who really cares if a flash site doesn't work no my phone - I am not going to do that much browsing on a phone anyway.
Where a user really misses Flash is on the iPad. I have an iPad and I love it, but it really annoys me when I hit a site that I can't use because Apple are not bothered supporting a ubiquitos technology like Flash.
Whether you love it or loathe it, Flash is all over the web. So if you want to provide a proper web browsing experience, you HAVE to support it.
It doesn't matter if lots of other technologies can to the same or similar things as Flash can. Flash is already in place. It's already a dominant technology.
Apple, Adobe, and Google need to get the finger out and get to work. At the end of the day, they are in business to serve consumers, not tell us what we can and can't do.
Even on my desktop, flash is a power vampire, it seems to just run in a permanent non-yielding CPU loop. No chance for the CPU to drop down into a lower power state. Irritating on a laptop, highly problematic on a mobile phone.
My desktop has a temperature controlled fan, the loud whirr as the fan kicks in at max rpm is a sure sign I have just navigated to a webpage with some flash on it.
Dunno why iphone owners bother to comment.
Your god says your never gonna have to experience it :D
As well as it roots the Androids
http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/06/latest-evo-4g-root-uses-flash-lite-exploit-to-do-its-deed/
Hate Adobe all my life. Put it down, Steve
Flash is not calculation intensive, never really has been. What makes it bog down is the large amount of DATA that Flash consumes, or passes. While CPU chips in just about most smart phones today would handle Flash with no problem, the amount of data needed across the cellular networks would choke most of them. Not to mention the memory and video subsystem needed to allow the data to flow evenly. Flash is hungry. Far too hungry for a handheld device. I commend the Android guys for trying so hard, but the result is not that great. Ask any Android user. Sure it works, but it's not worth much.
Hulu works on Nexus One running 2.2
Flash 10.1 is GPU accelerated, this is where it gets its extra UMPH over previous versions, CPU speed has little to do with it.
The amount of battery therefore depends on the power of the mobile's GPU and the efficiency of the chip.
I suspect this will run well on a Tegra.
Does anyone believe the iPhone doesn't use more power watching uTube, than it does viewing a static web page? Thought not.
FYI, just because flash is installed doesn't mean it always has to be enabled. Clicktoflash is available on OSX safari, surely if would be developed for iOS if flash were allowed.
I don't get the hate here. It's sort of like when someone announces a 3D telly and a bunch of people start posting, "3D tv is stupid." Ok, don't buy the 3D TV and don't install flash. But why do you need to post on the net every time you see a bit of tech you're not interested in?
As far as power consumption, we don't have any numbers to compare flash to no flash; I think running a phone with flash would HAVE to use more power than using a phone without flash - but then again, using a phone with 3G and wifi enabled while surfing the net uses more power than with wifi/3G turned off and the phone on standby in your pocket. So why not hate on wifi and 3G too?
What a fail. So, it is a battery hog, doesn't work very well on the sites the EVANGELIST chose, and as far as I know, still doesn't support sites like Hulu.
All this, a mere ****3 YEARS**** after Adobe finally got notice that flash on mobile devices sucks. 3 years is, like, infinity in the tech world, and this thing still can't do it?
If flash is replaced by the equivalent html5 technologies, I wouldn't be surprised if the replacement sucks up a similar amount of power/cpu cycles.
I actually have android 2.2 with flash beta and it works fine with no issues with battery. It is quite handy to be able to play a video in the website and be able to re size it to your liking instead of having to play it in you tube or not at all. You may want to actually try using flash on a flash enabled phone prior to saying how bad it will be. All nexus ones w/t 2.2 can do flash as of today.
Just watched that YouTube video. The performance isn't great is it? If it's also a battery hog then it might not be the killer app I thought it would be.
My biggest gripe with my iPhone is the lack of Flash, but if Adobe can't get it running decently on a 1GHz ARM, then I suppose I'm not missing out on much.
One thing Apple has right is the notion that Flash is a genuinely appalling piece of crap - though I think their description of it is a little less, well, rude. It might be everywhere now, like the AIDS virus, but there's no getting away from it being a hideous thing to develop, incredibly slow when run on smaller, energy efficient processors (e.g. the UGH-UGH-UGH jerk-o-scroll interface that was clearly failing to keep up with the Adobe chump's dragged finger in that YouTube clip), and in addition drinks your battery dry when seemingly not doing anything. May it be rapidly superseded by something less awful.