RSSFlash 10.1 to bring rich Web apps to Palm Pre, WinMo, making iPhone an island
By Tim Conneally | Published October 5, 2009, 11:51 AM
It's quite easy for Adobe to throw around statistics about Flash, and you'll frequently hear members of the Adobe team say such things as "Adobe Flash is installed on 99% of PCs," or "75% of all online games are built in Flash," or "80% of all Web video is encoded in Flash." Though these statistics are dubious, there is little doubt about Flash's ubiquity.
But as mobile Web consumption has dramatically increased, mobile Flash technology has been struggling to deliver the full Web experience to resource-constrained devices. As Apple CEO Steve Jobs famously commented in mid-2008, the full version of Flash was too big, and Flash Lite was too small. What Flash lacked was a product "in the middle" that could fully deliver rich Internet content without also consuming a lot of CPU cycles.
Today at Adobe MAX 2009 in Los Angeles, Adobe announced the upcoming beta of Flash Player 10.1 -- the first full version of Flash to run on mobile operating systems such as Windows Mobile, Palm webOS, Symbian S60, BlackBerry, and Android as well as Windows, Mac, and Linux operating systems. Not a separate mobile Flash, but one Flash to rule them all...at least on the surface.
"The browser-based runtime leverages the power of the Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) for accelerated video and graphics while conserving battery life and minimizing resource utilization," the company said this morning. "New mobile-ready features that take advantage of native device capabilities include support for multi-touch, gestures, mobile input models, accelerometer, and screen orientation bringing unprecedented creative control and expressiveness to the mobile browsing experience."
Yet it's not going to be the magic bullet that brings all rich Internet content onto the mobile platform just yet. As Flash senior product manager Justin Everett-Church said in the ADC blog today, "The majority of improvements going into this release are ones that you will never directly reference, but from which you will benefit all the same...For video content, this means hardware acceleration...For vectors and images, Flash Player is similarly going to take advantage of hardware capabilities whenever possible.
"We have made many more subtle improvements that are all geared to make your content run well," Everett-Church continued, "but there are going to be cases where we will run into the reality that some content simply needs more memory than a mobile device can deliver. No matter how well optimized the system is, Flash Player is still a platform that lets developers write whatever type of application they want. In the end, each data type consumes a certain amount of RAM that can't be changed. For complex applications, there simply may be a need for more memory than is available."
It's certainly a step in the right direction, however, and early demos like the following video really show off the possibilities in the mobile realm:
A public developer beta is expected to be released on Windows Mobile, webOS and desktop operating systems by the end of this year, and the first smartphones shipped with the new runtime will be coming in mid 2010. A beta of Flash Player 10.1 for Palm Pre is expected to be among the first versions available.
The iPhone has always been an island... giving users completely new and innovative ways of not being able to do common simple tasks that other phones have been able to do for years (without jumping through hoops and using clever trickery to accomplish).
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|Calm down guys =)
If your a Flash guy your not SOL when it comes to iPhone, just gotta take a slightly different angle:
http://labs.adobe.com/te...flashcs5/appsfor_iphone/
As many have already stated here though, alot of Flash appears to be targeted towards use for advertising and such, a mobile device just isn't going to have enough battery juice to effeciently keep this up. All the DOM/JS rendering mixed with Flash, it's sometimes a drag on a desktop, it'll most certainly be a drag on a mobile device to try and do all that at once. Maybe someday, not today. People are already gripping about Netbooks not keeping up smoothly with Internet video, but a phone will be smooth?
What Adobe is doing here though is pretty damn nifty with CS5. Props to Adobe on this work.
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|Your comment here is a bit ingenuous. "a mobile device just isn't going to have enough battery juice to effeciently keep this up" - I have an Nokia N86 and use YouTube and other video streaming sites that use flash and don't have an issue with battery life. Flash runs as smoothly on the N86 as it does from my PC with the exception of higher bandwidth streams running over a 3G connection.
I bet in a poll of 100 people with an iPhone; asked whether being able to view YouTube or something like BBC iPlayer live streams (or any broadcaster that uses Flash) would greatly improve the iPhones desirability to their friends and would also be good for marketing the iPhone to play live streams using the most prominent streaming engine, I reckon two thirds would agree.
To suggest that the iPhone does not suffer from not having flash is being blinkered to the point where “some” people with iPhones would never admit something is beneficial when they can’t get it on their device.
If it is so that the iPhone does not have the capability to support or run Flash fast enough then I would be quite amazed when an old Nokia N95 can!
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|philuk2000:
There's no way around flash decreasing power for everyday browsing. You may be able to browse youtube and hundreds of sites, but installing flash versus not having flash has a certain measurable impact on battery life, because it requires significant CPU cycles to render flash content. Your phone tech or manufacturer doesn't matter.
flash = increased CPU on already taxed mobile CPUS.
Most website flash content are useless ads that do not add to user experience
much of the content available via flash you can write an app for the phone and pull out the flash layer. See pandora or any of the tens of thousands of apps that do this.
iphone users can already view youtube videos, obviously you have never used an iphone?
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|The iphone currently supports YouTube via h.264 out of the box. The iPhone seems to be selling very well without Flash. You should applaud Apple for not supporting the proprietary Flash, proprietary Silverturd, etc... The iPhone should just support the open web. Sure h.264 is not open, but it is just a video/audio codec, not a platform like the proprietary Flash and proprietary Silverturd.
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|Heh..
iPhone and Open in the same sentence. Now that is rich.
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|"As many have already stated here though, a lot of Flash appears to be targeted towards use for advertising and such, a mobile device just isn't going to have enough battery juice to effeciently keep this up."
Bull - well, almost. Yes Flash is used in advertising, but a lot of sites are Flash based and currently unviewable on the iPhone. There will never ever be Flash for the iPhone, no matter how optimised it is. The bottom line is Flash has security issues that Apple just aren't willing to live with. Every Flash exploit would have to result in an update for the iPhone. And Apple aren't willing to go down that road issuing update after update for what is essentially a flaw in someone else's piece of software.
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|This site:
http://europe.nokia.com/...-n86-8mp/specifications
Claims you have "Adobe Flash Lite 3.1" not Flash as in the desktop version.
YouTube exists on iPhone, and others can easily pipe their video to the platform. What needs to occur is providing the streams in a multiple of formats as YouTube does.
The future is headed that direction anyways with the video tag in HTML5. The safe bet will be to have your content pushed in a variety of formats.
I am not saying these sites should be excluded from being used. I am saying the site owners need to start taking mobile into account. What works on desktop does not necessarily work on mobile. Both the interface and the power consumption of these devices needs to be taken in consideration. I feel that Apple is attempting to set a precedent that sites need to account for these mobile devices.
The fact that there is a Flash Lite and a Flash 10.1 on the horizon should tell us something.
Also note the link I talk about in my previous post, I think the direction Adobe took THERE, is a nice way to go.
BTW rating you up for engaging in the conversation, I look forward to your response.
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|I think primarily it's the battery issue and less the security but I could be wrong. The CS5 route they're taking is pretty interesting though, I actually look forward to seeing that.
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|I have never owned an iPhone but I have used one owned by a family member and found it quite a pleasent experience. I may be a bit ignorant of it's capabilities so I "assume" it does not distract from the fact that even though iPhone users can already view YouTube using pandora, does this also mean they can view all other websites that host Flash streaming content?
If the answer is yes, can they do it on the fly seamlessly via a browser without having to meddle with the device quicker than someone with Flash player on their non-iPhone mobile that has flash installed?
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|"What needs to occur is providing the streams in a multiple of formats as YouTube does."
Yes, let's support multiple standards, incurring the high costs of transcoding one video into multiple formats as opposed to a single, standard stream that nearly every online device in the world is capable of rendering...
Sounds like a plan. You're going to foot the bill for that, right?
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|"Yes, let's support multiple standards, incurring the high costs of transcoding one video into multiple formats as opposed to a single, standard stream that nearly every online device in the world is capable of rendering...
Sounds like a plan. You're going to foot the bill for that, right?"
No but apparently the hosting guys will since people can't come to a consensus on which codec to use for the video tag at the moment. YouTube already does it, others need to follow suite. If this is not the direction people want to go, then people need to speak up and get involved in the standard that's being formed right now, and not complain later about it.
It's reality.
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|It sucks they can't get their act together and agree on a format for HTML5. Fortunately, that has nothing to do with my point. Flash is a default"standard" on the web. Lack of support for it in an "online" device limits it greatly. Youtube is but one site on the web. A site backed by a huge amount of cash. Your example of them does nothing for the vast majority of flash-based sites out there, who cannot afford to cover the cost involved in multiple streams/formats.
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|I can agree that not having it can certainly be painful for these site owners. However, the mobile smartphone platform explosion is something of a new phenomena. So many site owners have not had time to design for this in mind yet. Flash is the default "desktop standard", but if it proves to be the default standard for smartphones remains to be seen. It may become one if Adobe plays it's cards right, but it clearly is not at the moment the "standard" in this space.
Right now the dominate mobile Flash platform is Flash Lite, so lets not confuse this with with what Adobe is proposing here of having full on Flash as is announced in this article. I have a difficult time believing there will be a minimal impact on battery life on your average media site. For example, a site such as follows:
http://www.trutv.com/vid...ows/operation-repo.html
This would rip a mobile battery to shreds. I still think what needs to happen is design needs to be thought out and these sites need to account going forward for the mobile experience, and yes, this is going to cost site owners more in light of the lack of agreement by web standards bodies on a codec. (I do wonder though, since Google bought On2, and Google is generally open, wouldn't it be an idea to work somehow to bring the codec used there as a stand... nevermind can of worms ... can of worms :)
Of course there's every possibility that Adobe continues to come up with interesting solutions to this problem. Flash CS5 is one such step, perhaps they have more ideas coming in the future that could assist in this. I feel they have the right idea in mind there.
This concept that "nothing needs to change, just make the mobile browser suck up the desktop experience" just needs to go away with time.
I am just looking at the reality of it here. Flash isn't on ALL mobile smartphones and I doubt that will change anytime soon. The new HTML standard appears to propose that we have multiple streams to support multiple users. So either:
A.) You just do it in Flash and cut out all iPhone users and any other current or upcoming smartphones without full Flash (keep in mind that not everyone upgrades their phone like we do... we're geeks! :P)
B.) You do put out your site using the new HTML standard (talking in the future here) but only offer one stream and cut out anyone incapable of playing that stream).
Neither option sounds particularly appealing. Hence is why I suggested what I did. Anything short of it and we need to get involved to get these standards and what not changed.
-unrelated to the response-
It'd be a blast to sit down for coffee/beers someday and debate some of this stuff with you guys in person. You guys go to any events or such?
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|"but if it proves to be the default standard for smartphones remains to be seen. It may become one if Adobe plays it's cards right, but it clearly is not at the moment the "standard" in this space."
Heh...
Read what you wrote.
Now read the headline.
Now read what you wrote againa nd see if you can keep a straight face. ;)
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|Oh yeah I think I can keep it together. It's a BIG damn island! =)
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|lol...nice.
Man, I love it when find a commenter with a decent sense of humor...even if he is dead wrong. ;)
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|"This would rip a mobile battery to shreds."
Then I guess this would be right out:
http://www.2advanced.com
Fire that up on the iPhone and see how long the battery lasts... sorry, forgot. =)
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|"It'd be a blast to sit down for coffee/beers someday and debate some of this stuff with you guys in person. You guys go to any events or such?"
Sounds like fun. There's a small handful of users on this forum that I'd love to be able to do the same thing with (and yes, PC_Tool is one of them... would hate to hurt his feelings). =P
About the only "events" I ever attended in the past couple of years were recycling events for our company, where I would usually always end up increasing my personal inventory of vintage computer equipment, game consoles, and electronic testing equipment when it was time to go back home.
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|"and yes, PC_Tool is one of them... "
Oh, you poor thing. Normally I would suggest a trip to the psychiatric ward but I think in this case you should just jump right to the straight-jacket/padded room. There's no help to be had for you.
(I just kicked my PC and now it's buzzing....is this a bad thing? Jango just played Hootie and the Blowfish. That's grounds enough for a temporary insanity plea, right?)
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|I am here to serve as the entertainment :)
"...even if he is dead wrong."
I kind of hope I am actually. Sounds like a mess to me, multiple codecs, some sites using Flash other sites using the HTML video tag. Some sites optimized for mobile, while others aren't and either don't care at all about the mobile community or expect you to go grab their app of the Apple/Android/other AppStore.
If it really does come to these other platforms and it performs (aka I am wrong =) then I hope it forces Apple's hand to let Adobe in. If it brings on the usability nightmare I fear it might, then I believe Apple made the right choice, at least for the time being. That could change with improvements from Adobe's side.
Fun times ahead.
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|I kind of wanted to attend the Windows 7 launch party being hosted by Leo LaPorte/TWiT guys but it appears I won't be able to make it. =/
Have to repair PC_Tool's dented computer from all the kicking. =P (and other work /sigh)
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|Heh... It stopped.
No, really. It's not doing anything anymore. It just stopped.
Good thing I have the trusty laptop. I will be sending Jango the bill for that one. ;)
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|Both YouTube and the BBC iPlayer use H.264 when streaming content to iPhone and iPod Touch.
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|They ought to build an app profiler into Flash that can take a look at the application's resource use and set a minimum system requirement. Then at least users can get a friendly "Your system does not have enough resources to display this content" message instead of attempting to run it and crashing, freezing, or otherwise behaving badly. In the case of video players or other apps where the resource usage depends on the content being viewed through it, they could make the app itself aware of its own resource use and thus the remaining available resources on a given platform and again trigger such a message when a video of larger size/bandwidth/whatever is attempting to be played.
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|I have flash on my wintel, and mactel, but not my iphone :(
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|I don't want Flash on my iPhone...and I hope it never comes. That opens the door to Silverturd which I definitely do not want touching my iPhone. Just give me the video in h.264 and couple that with Apple's Adaptive Bitrate streaming which they submitted to IETF
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|The iphone browser is simply handcuffed by it's flash deficiencies. It is so bad, I rarely launch Safari on purpose!
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|I'm perfectly happy joining the iPhone camp and not running CPU-heavy/battery draining flash on my smartphones only to get ad-laden web pages.
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|If you ignore totally that flash does so much more than display ads on webpages. Apps, games, video...to name a few of it's capabilities.
You may not use any of those things, but I would hazard to guess the "typical" iPhone crowd would *love* it.
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|The vast majority of flash on pages is ad-based. I'm curious why users would be clamoring for CPU-zapping ads to drain their weak batteries. iPhone Users already have a youtube app that is far better designed than any web page with flash. Even WM, blackberry, Andrioid have youtube apps to bypass Flash.
I manage a network where users have iphones and I've never heard a complaint about where is flash. Anecdotal, yeah, hence why we comment and give opinions. I think Apple is on point for excluding it. I won't be installing it on any phone now or in the future. noscript blocks it by default on my machines, and I rarely miss it.
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|"hence why we comment and give opinions."
Hence why I gave ya the, "You may not use any of those things,"...
Personally, I use Flash all the time. Silverlight, too. The radio sites I use are Flash, netflix; which I use constantly, is Silverlight to name just two examples. Sure, there are alternatives, but any "online" device without Flash support simply doesn't support a very large portion of the internet.
...whether you personally choose to use those portions or not.
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|Flash runs poorly on a dual-core computer at 2 GHz, so imagine how well it's going to run on a phone at 25 % of that speed.
If Adobe can't make Flash efficient, then we don't need it.
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|Watch the video. :)
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|