Adobe: Flash 10.1 Will Silence Apple’s Criticism, Tablets Have More Appeal Than Netbooks

March 15th, 2010 by Avram Piltch, LAPTOP Online Editorial Director  

With all of this anticipation of Flash coming to smart phones, do you think consumers will find it worth the wait? How will it really change the user experience?

Think about the fact that 85 percent of all websites and all of the top 100 websites on the web are using Flash. Maybe somewhere around 75 percent of casual games on the web are written using Flash, and some 75 percent of video on the web is delivered in Flash. That’s a huge body of content that you have to go through some significant workarounds today to get to. With Flash Player 10.1 all of that content then becomes much more broadly available. You’re not going to see empty frames on web pages. It’s a great experience, and there’s sort of this sense of no compromises to getting full access to the full web.

Do you have an update on when Flash Player 10.1 will be coming to Android, webOS, and other platforms?

Not much of an update. Obviously we’re in March now, so we only have a remaining three months to the end of June. The update is still on track for the first half of the year to deliver. Undoubtedly, it’s going to go up on our website for desktop use first.

We have to deliver Flash 10.1 through OEMs and device partners so you can imagine that the device releases will naturally lag the desktop releases by days or weeks–in a few cases maybe even months. Because we’re working with so many partners, we don’t always have day-to-day visibility on exactly where each one is.

So some of the promised smart phone platforms might not get Flash during the first half of the year?

That’s what’s hard for us to know because a number of our partners have had source code and they’ve been working closely with us for many months now. But it really depends on their product schedules and not ours.

One of the concerns that people have about Flash is battery life, especially when playing video. Will smart phone owners be able to watch an hour-long Hulu episode without having to plug in?

I think the biggest thing is being able to access and use hardware acceleration. It has a tremendous impact on battery life, and it has a tremendous impact on the overall experience. And you’re starting to see a couple of different folks starting to write about and do some analysis of where the hardware acceleration framework CPU load is, and that directly translates to battery life. So on those platforms where we’re getting access to hardware for acceleration of video for acceleration of vector graphics battery life is good and for those platforms where we don’t have that access it can suffer.

We have spent a lot of effort in this release to find ways to have Flash make better use of hardware and also to be a better citizen or a limited resource in terms of battery life and processing power. So as an example we do more in this release to look at what’s off screen versus on screen within a browser page and we actually pause rendering of off-screen elements page.

Is hardware acceleration support part of the reason why Android phones with slower processors won’t be getting Flash?

It’s really more tied to some of the great work that the Google engineers have been doing with us on new APIs going into the OS. And so it’s really been a question of what release do those APIs show up in on what devices, and how they’re going to make use of those news APIs. We want to have Flash running in as many places as possible so we’re asking all of our partners, Google included, to get these APIs going into the OS available on a previous generation of devices. That’s where it’s not just that clear yet.

You recently announced Adobe Air for Mobile, but couldn’t Flash 10.1 enable better web apps without developers having to use a separate set of tools?

It’s kind of the same thing as saying do we need general applications on a desktop. I think there’s a variety of interesting and useful and purposeful applications that aren’t ideal within a web browser particularly on a small-screen device. The navigation metaphor and the resources of the HTML overhead can be significant in terms of processing and rendering and displaying HTML pages just by themselves. That’s why you see a lot of games–particularly on mobile–written to take advantage of all the resources on a device versus living within a webpage for everything. So Air is simply our approach to how do we take web skill sets and apply those to building applications that feel native on a given device.

So how would people get Adobe Air apps on their phone?

The existing marketplaces are in many cases the only means to get apps on the device. So initially we intend to work within the existing app marketplaces. For example, in allowing Flash developers to build apps that will run on the iPhone, we compile from within our tools to generate the program in the iPhone format, .ipa. So developers can put that app in the App Store, and there are probably dozens of apps there already that were developed using Flash and Adobe tools.

We’d certainly love to see other distribution mechanisms. If a developer wanted to build an app, test it out, and share it with their friends– that should be something we can enable versus having to spend on a centralized program. We believe that open distribution of applications of content in general is better for the community and for the industry than lots of little walled gardens.

If your roll-out is successful do you think smart phone shoppers will consider Flash support a check-off item?

I don’t know that it will be there this year. I think it will be a consideration for some number of designers and developers. I don’t know if it would be a mass-market consideration this year. I think some of internal estimates have been along the lines of 5 to 10 percent of the smart phones that are going to be sold this year. Next year we’re looking at somewhere around a third of all smart phones sold will have Flash support on them.

Just as there are ardent supporters of one platform or another, we’re going to have our share of folks who really do want to go out and buy a device because it’s going to have Flash on it. And I’ll think they’ll have some options this year. I think it will be a similar trend over time as what we’ve seen in Japan, where you get to a point that it’s hard to find a phone that doesn’t have it.


Comments (15 Responses) 

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15 Responses to “Adobe: Flash 10.1 Will Silence Apple’s Criticism, Tablets Have More Appeal Than Netbooks”

  1. Brad Says:
    March 15th, 2010 at 7:32 pm

    I don’t want flash on my iphone. We need to keep the web pure without plugins!!

  2. Joe Says:
    March 15th, 2010 at 8:01 pm

    What’s with the Adobe ad?

    Everyone knows that Flash is bug prone, a security risk and eats CPU cycles like candy. I’ve checked it on several Windows boxes as well as Macs and it’s using well over 50% CPU power – even when it’s not doing anything.

    If Adobe can fix it, fine. I’m sure Apple would consider using it if it didn’t drain batteries in minutes. But you have to ask – if Adobe can fix it, why did it take Apple’s visible actions to force them to?

    More likely, it will only be marginally better (the betas I’ve seen are still greatly limited and slow on smart phones) and you’re just feeding Adobe vaporware.

  3. James Katt Says:
    March 15th, 2010 at 9:51 pm

    I prefer a web which only uses open, official standards. Flash is NOT an open NOR an official standard. It is a CLOSED platform that only Adobe controls, which Adobe is always changing, which introduces tons of bugs, crashes and breaks security in a computer which the computer manufacturer or operating systems manufacturer cannot fix.

    Adobe is being very bitchy when complaining about Apple and its “closed garden”. Flash itself IS A CLOSED GARDEN.

    The ONLY way that Apple will every allow Flash on the iPhone, iPod, or iPad is for Adobe to submit Flash as an open standard and to give up its IP in Flash. Simple.

    But then, Adobe will NEVER do this. They, like everyone else, is thinking about the bucks it can make by keeping Flash proprietary and NOT an open standard.

    Flash is a parasite platform on other systems. It causes crashes on the host system. It causes massive security problems for the host system.

    Flash causes almost ALL THE CRASHES on Mac OS X. That alone is why I prefer to BLOCK FLASH with ClickToFlash then use it only if direly needed.

    It is SO MUCH MORE PLEASANT TO BE FREE OF FLASH.

    Flash is dead like the Floppy Disk.

    Less than 10% of iPhone users even tried to contact Adobe about Flash on the iPhone. The vast 90+% could give a damn about Flash. They are happier without Flash and all the crashes and headaches it causes.

  4. kawaiigardiner Says:
    March 15th, 2010 at 9:51 pm

    Like so many Adobe representatives in the past, he refuses to acknowledge just how horrible, bloated, slow, inefficient, crash prone, bloated, battery hogging piece of crap Flash actually is. Once again Adobe blames everyone else for their incompetency than actually doing something about the 2 tonne elephant sitting in the corner of the room.

  5. Brett Says:
    March 16th, 2010 at 2:04 am

    If Apple was “afraid of free content” they wouldn’t currently allow free apps in the app store…but they do. Likewise they wouldn’t encourage development of web apps for the iPhone… but they do.

    Apple’s boycott of Flash is all about maintaining quality pure and simple. Flash is a slow, power hungry, crash-prone vector for malware that is beyond Apple’s control to fix. Apple is wise not to surrender a portion of the iPad user experience to Adobe — or any third party for that matter. Controlling the whole widget is the only way to preserve Apple’s stellar reputation for products that just work.

  6. JonGl Says:
    March 16th, 2010 at 4:54 am

    Here’s a question that needs to be asked Adobe. Do they really think that the whole world of the web needs to be dependent on them for all their content delivery? And a question for everybody else… Do you really want to dependent on one company for your web content? Flash is not really free. Right now, it’s just given away, but that is dependent on a so-called benevolent dictator, called Adobe. I cannot understand the willingness of people to turn everything over to them, especially when those same people are crying out against Apple for the same thing.

  7. Dave Says:
    March 16th, 2010 at 7:36 am

    Ever since John Warnock left Adobe the company has been going down hill. SC4 is a total waste of money, nothing new there. Adobe blames the lack of CS4 sales on the economy, thats not it. Adobe really screwed up buying Macromedia just to get flash. Flash is dead! HTML 5 and H.264 is here today and taking over.

  8. Kevin Martin Says:
    March 16th, 2010 at 12:49 pm

    Brad, Joe, James Katt, kawaiigardiner :I’m sure, you have installed Adobe flash in your pc, sure you love youtube, hulu and free internet , because adobe flash advertising. So! right now or tomorrow, please DELETE your FLASH PLAYER on your PC. Then… i will believe in your comments. Have a nice Navigation..without Flash!!

  9. John Says:
    March 16th, 2010 at 4:39 pm

    Yeah it is so nice when some company just makes all your decisions for you and you don’t have any options to choose from. Man it will suck that Android users will have to choose whether or not they want to add flash support to their phones. Luckily Apple is keeping all their iphone and ipad users safe from evil old flash which isn’t useful for any web content. I wouldn’t want the option to download a free flash game online when I can just pay for a similar game in the app store. All those choices of where to get games and apps would be too confusing not to mention the problems of being able to watch video on sites like Hulu. Keep us safe Steve Jobs!

  10. Porter Says:
    March 16th, 2010 at 9:21 pm

    I completely agree with Adobe when it comes to HTML5. HMTL 5 will likely be great, but as HTML advances, so will Flash Player and other technologies; it’s kind of silly to think that HTML5 will completely replace flash any time soon, if at all.

  11. josh Says:
    March 19th, 2010 at 9:55 am

    Apples exclusion of flash has nothing to do with it being “buggy”. The mac is designed to be a pro with graphics. Why would it have such a hard time with flash?
    This is more about control. Apple wants all sold apps to go through their store without the possibility of apps being sold in other markets. I don’t blame them.

  12. amused Says:
    March 22nd, 2010 at 12:52 am

    Man, those Mactards came out in full force to defend Stevie! I can’t wait to have flash on my phone so I can experience the full web….or maybe I’ll choose to disable the flash plugin. I love choices, why do the Mac using hippies always want Steve (and Obama) to make decisions for them? The iPhone is still a good music player, though. ;)

  13. Bob Todd Says:
    June 7th, 2010 at 2:35 pm

    What’s with the first couple posts? And what’s with all caps guy? Sounds angry.

    I know Flash very well and your anti-flash sentiment is unfounded. I would bet money that ajax, javascript, php etc. causes many more crashes in browsers than flash does. And the few times I’ve seen flash cause a browser crash, it’s ften when it’s invoking javascript or php to do a server side function or browser window function.

    Secondly, I have an iPod touch, I’ve downloaded apps, and I have had several apps freeze my ipod touch. I have also had the safarai web browser freeze several times. I’ve had to reinstall the ipod OS twice.

    The idea that it’s more stable than flash is absolutely preposterous.

    You guys complain the flash isn’t “open source.” Yet you don’t complain that Apple’s app store and itune store is not “open” This flash debacle is because Apple is so analy controlling over the content and how you pay for it. And who you pay for it.

    Go in to an apple store and try and purchase an iphone or ipod touch with cash. Not gonna happen, they want your credit card so they can link it to your itunes store and suck you in. All they want is your money. They don’t want to give you a choice at all.

    And is Flash really a battery hog. Absolutely not if it’s a well programmed APP. If you get an amateur who’s running onEvent checks every millisecond sure, but that type of programming is not what the pros do at all and on it’s way out.

    And you know, even if you think Flash is a battery hog and I can’t change your mind. No problem, don’t use flash. Just don’t tell me I and hundreds of millions of others can’t use flash because your had a bad experience one time. I want what I want, I don’t want what a selfish CEO tells me what I should want.

    I’m absolutely DONE with apple unless they let Jobs go and completely change course. I will never buy an ipod, iphone, ipad or apple product again. They are really insulting and hurting a huge base of their core users with this personally motivated policy.

    Goodbye Apple.

  14. fdp Says:
    June 11th, 2010 at 8:41 pm

    Flash 10.1 has completely hosed the web for me. Most video content will not display, including tutorials on Adobe’s web site. I’ve had serial plugin failures and today after three of them in a row my CPU crashed: the first time my Mac has been taken down entirely in a very long time.

    So, no, I don’t think version 10.1 is going to silence Apple. It’s going to make lots of Mac user’s how. Especially after they try to navigate Adobe’s byzantine and ultimately useless customer support pages.

    fdp

  15. Trent Says:
    July 9th, 2010 at 6:19 am

    I recently upgraded to 10.1, yeah it silenced their criticism all right. No more is needed. Now instead of opinion, Apple has facts to back themselves up with. 10.1 outright SUCKS.

    It is super bloated, and dear god it causes my system to hang for serious periods of time! I am seriously considering removing it soon.

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