Reason for Flash player not being installed? 33% of the battery's life.

[mynameisadam]

Google it. "Macbook air flash player decreases battery life".

Disappointed apple, was almost going to spend my hard earned money until I stumbled upon this. This just makes the macbook air a luxury product.

 

[aristobrat]

With a handful of websites loaded in Safari, Flash-based ads kept the CPU running far more than seemed necessary, and the best time I recorded with Flash installed was just 4 hours.

Who doesn't run a blocker for ads, esp. flash-based ads?

 

[rkb]

Google it. "Macbook air flash player decreases battery life".

Disappointed apple, was almost going to spend my hard earned money until I stumbled upon this. This just makes the macbook air a luxury product.

Install "clicktoflash" problem is no more

 

[neteng101]

I don't have issues and I have installed Flash. I don't buy the BS about Flash being all that bad, just like anything interactive, it requires a bit of processing to run. Still get 7+ hours easily on my MBA, and I run Firefox which is a bit of a hog at times too.

 

[aristobrat]

I don't buy the BS about Flash being all that bad, just like anything interactive, it requires a bit of processing to run.

I agree. The way I use my computer, Flash doesn't noticeably cause any battery problems.

Then again, unlike the Arstechnica battery test the OPs "google these words" article refers to, I don't sit at my computer doing nothing but surfing (in multiple tabs) to web pages that have Flash ads until my battery dies.

That being said, if there really is an issue with the 11.6" model where the CPU is needlessly staying high with Flash going, then I hope someone can quickly figure out if it's an Adobe issue with their Flash player, or an OS X issue, and whoever's responsible can fix it.

I just don't understand the OP's "this makes the Air a luxury product" comment. This forum is full of posts from real people who have been using both Airs for the last two weeks, and short battery life isn't something you hear about frequently.

 

[snorkelman]

I could see the point of the complaint if the battery life being quoted by Apple was based on flash not being installed, rather than real world use with flash active.

i.e. that the removal of flash from standard installation was to try and get a quart out of a pint pot

Thing is it isn't based on that; you can hit Apples claimed battery times during general browsing with flash installed and active, you just get more than Apples claimed times with it deactivated.

 

[NickFalk]

I don't have issues and I have installed Flash. I don't buy the BS about Flash being all that bad, just like anything interactive, it requires a bit of processing to run. Still get 7+ hours easily on my MBA, and I run Firefox which is a bit of a hog at times too.

It is a bit silly to refer to is as BS. It's a simple as tracking the CPU Load of your computer when playing flash. You'll see that it demands a lot more of your machine than both Silverlight and HTML5 video. This show that it is a lot worse than it needs to be, whether that makes it "all that bad" I don't know...