Adobe CTO on Flash's Effect on Battery Life, Apple's Negative Campaigning

[morespce54]

So when Flash dies and HTML5 takes over and the users don't see any improvement in battery life, who will they blame next ?

Witch burning is sooo fun until the villagers start eyeing your wife.

Well, honestly, I don't (really) mind (that much) about battery life but I do mind about crashing desktop browsers...

 

[inlovewithi]

What are you on about The sole reason no Mac to this date has USB 3.0 is because Intel has not included support for it in its chipsets.
The costs of adding an extra third-party chip, just to be able to support USB 3.0, is not worth it for Apple, nor is it for the majority of their demographic.
The whole point of Lightpeak is to be able to use almost *everything* through it. Intel and Apple are trying to create something which would/will enable us to use one type of connector and one type of cable for just about everything except powering the computer.
There is no point (from their point of view), to hastily support USB 3.0, which is brand spanking new mind you, when Lightpeak is apparently just around the corner.
It's got nothing to do with "bash, bash, bash", it's just that most of the people here probably know the underlying story.

When did I criticize Apple for not having USB 3? My point was about the the defensive fanboys who automatically are against USB 3 simply because Apple is pro LP, and start making excuses about why USB 3 is not needed, simply because they get defensive at the thought of Apple getting criticized. I would say in general, people who follow the computer world, latest GPUs, CPUs, Memory, Apple, PCs, know more about LP and USB 3 than people who just follow Apple products, and for some reason the reaction towards USB 3 is different. Don't tell me they don't know the underlying story.

 

[pubwvj]

The Point

And the point is we don't need all these junky, glitzy moving, active ads. I run with Pithhelmet. It keeps Flash turned off except when I want it. Flash sucks power on all computers. Just get MenuMeters and watch.

 

[petsounds]

Why should someone inform Jobs? He isn't involved in this subject at all. Ars Technica, not Apple, pointed out the issue. Steve hasn't forbidden Flash from running on macs - he just stopped preinstalling out-of-date versions of Flash. You are, like Adobe, trying to distract us from the truth by raising false issues.

Come on man, look at the wizard behind the curtain for a minute. Apple doesn't do things on that scale for completely magnanimous reasons. Apple kicked out Java at the same time. And they recently announced the iOS-influenced Lion. Apple is trying to remove any possible content distribution methods besides the Mac App Store. They won't expressly ban Java and Flash, mostly because they'd get some Federal scrutiny, but they're going to do everything they can to make sure the Apple content garden(prison) is the easier choice for users.

As for this whole Flash Is Bad sycophantic waterwheel, I've developed for iPhone, as well as Flash and "HTML5". From a pure development platform POV, I find projects come together faster and with less headache in Flash than the other two technologies. Obj-C is a language dragged down by over-complexity and bizarre syntactical choices, and Javascript is antiquated, dogged by years of standards body in-fighting. Let's not forget that HTML5 is handled differently by each browser, versus Flash and iOS's unified runtime platforms. With HTML5 we're heading at breakneck speed back to the late 90s and fractured DHTML implementations. The only reason Javascript is fast at this point is optimizations to the JIT browser compilers. And hey, guess who contributed a free compiler to Firefox a few years ago to optimize JS execution? Oh, yes that's right, Adobe, your MORTAL ENEMAH! It's called the Tamarin Project, look it up. Finally, I assume you have seen the new version of Flash previewed at Adobe's MAX conference a couple weeks ago? It blows away anything HTML5's WebGL can dream of. Full OpenGL/DirectX hardware acceleration. 1080p @ 60fps with 0-1% CPU usage. Crank this up to 720p res: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgwi0lWgX8w No, Flash ain't dead quite yet.

I'm certainly not saying Adobe has no room to improve with Flash. They do, and they've already made some great strides. So kudos to Apple for forcing the issue, even if the reason was out of self-interest. But HTML5 doing the same animations? No, it's not a little Apple fairy spreading emotional pixie dust on your screen. It's going to tax your system and battery just as much if not more than the Flash animation you revile.

 

[oliversl]

This time Apple didn't do anything, the only thing Lynch could ask is for a "Install Flash" icon on the desktop on new Macs. But the browser should install it the easy way.

So, Lynch attacking Apple make no sense this time.

 

[inlovewithi]

This is the most ridiculous analysis I've read thus far. First, how does Flash cut into Apple's bottom line? Second, how in the hell with HTML5 cut into their bottom line in the future? Apple promotes HTML5 because they control the software that renders it, namely Webkit. They can improve the speed of Webkit or fix bugs in it if they need to. Their hands are tied when it comes to Flash. If they were to install Flash on the iPhone and then a bug were discovered they would have to wait for Adobe to fix the bug, then they would have to test it, and then release it. Does Adobe look like they move fast on things like that based on their development schedule for getting Flash to even run on mobile devices?

I'm sorry, I assumed it was obvious, so didn't waste time explain it. Basically for the same reason that Apple is against putting a simple Blu Ray drive into its Macs, it would drive a lot of people away from iTunes. It's simple logic really, the more alternatives there are to watching movies, playing games for free, the less people relying on Apple to provide these things. Very simple logic. So if HTML 5 could do all of those things, and more effectively, then it would be even worse than flash when it comes to Apple's bottom line. But right now HTML 5 is the lesser of 2 evil, since flash still dominates, so at the moment there's no harm in promoting HTML5.

 

[John.B]

That's because HTML-5 is using H.264-encoded video which your computer has a hardware-based decoder for (no need to use the CPU). Every iOS device has the same H.264 chip in it. Flash relies on software decoding which of course uses your CPU. Maybe Adobe should develop hardware-accelerated Flash.

FYI, the newest versions of Flash do make use of some hardware acceleration.

The difference is it is trivial to block gif and jpeg by scanning img tags (often by also looking at the dimensions of the image). It is much harder to discern ad content from non-ad content when the content is all in the form of pure html and javascript.

Look at Adblock Plus with the Easy List subscription: https://easylist-downloads.adblockplus.org/easylist.txt

 

[matthewjacob]

I am very impressed with the capabilities of HTML5, but I can't honestly claim it's less of a performance / battery hog after doing my own tests with some of the HTML5 canvas demos out there:


Sucking 99% of my CPU.
http://9elements.com/io/projects/html5/canvas/

Sucking 70-80% of my CPU.
http://www.chiptune.com/kaleidoscope/

Sucking 90% of my CPU.
http://cs.smu.ca/~c_adams1/3DEarth3/

Sucking 95% of my CPU.
http://www.openrise.com/lab/FlowerPower/


For all these demos I had one browser window open in Safari on a 1.33 GHz 6 core Intel PowerMac. I heard my fan go on every time. Also I can't get any of these to work on my iphone at more than 2-3 FPS.

 

[archipellago]

...he hasn't done much testing. HTML5 kicks flash's ass all over the place. Lying through your teeth isn't a good campaign.

apart from how HTML can't do most of the stuff that flash can eh?

 

[archipellago]

Come on man, look at the wizard behind the curtain for a minute. Apple doesn't do things on that scale for completely magnanimous reasons. Apple kicked out Java at the same time. And they recently announced the iOS-influenced Lion. Apple is trying to remove any possible content distribution methods besides the Mac App Store. They won't expressly ban Java and Flash, mostly because they'd get some Federal scrutiny, but they're going to do everything they can to make sure the Apple content garden(prison) is the easier choice for users.

As for this whole Flash Is Bad sycophantic waterwheel, I've developed for iPhone, as well as Flash and "HTML5". From a pure development platform POV, I find projects come together faster and with less headache in Flash than the other two technologies. Obj-C is a language dragged down by over-complexity and bizarre syntactical choices, and Javascript is antiquated, dogged by years of standards body in-fighting. Let's not forget that HTML5 is handled differently by each browser, versus Flash and iOS's unified runtime platforms. With HTML5 we're heading at breakneck speed back to the late 90s and fractured DHTML implementations. The only reason Javascript is fast at this point is optimizations to the JIT browser compilers. And hey, guess who contributed a free compiler to Firefox a few years ago to optimize JS execution? Oh, yes that's right, Adobe, your MORTAL ENEMAH! It's called the Tamarin Project, look it up. Finally, I assume you have seen the new version of Flash previewed at Adobe's MAX conference a couple weeks ago? It blows away anything HTML5's WebGL can dream of. Full OpenGL/DirectX hardware acceleration. 1080p @ 60fps with 0-1% CPU usage. Crank this up to 720p res: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgwi0lWgX8w No, Flash ain't dead quite yet.

I'm certainly not saying Adobe has no room to improve with Flash. They do, and they've already made some great strides. So kudos to Apple for forcing the issue, even if the reason was out of self-interest. But HTML5 doing the same animations? No, it's not a little Apple fairy spreading emotional pixie dust on your screen. It's going to tax your system and battery just as much if not more than the Flash animation you revile.

no need for such erudition, straight talking or common sense..

what were you thinking?

 

[inlovewithi]

Come on man, look at the wizard behind the curtain for a minute. Apple doesn't do things on that scale for completely magnanimous reasons. Apple kicked out Java at the same time. And they recently announced the iOS-influenced Lion. Apple is trying to remove any possible content distribution methods besides the Mac App Store. They won't expressly ban Java and Flash, mostly because they'd get some Federal scrutiny, but they're going to do everything they can to make sure the Apple content garden(prison) is the easier choice for users.

As for this whole Flash Is Bad sycophantic waterwheel, I've developed for iPhone, as well as Flash and "HTML5". From a pure development platform POV, I find projects come together faster and with less headache in Flash than the other two technologies. Obj-C is a language dragged down by over-complexity and bizarre syntactical choices, and Javascript is antiquated, dogged by years of standards body in-fighting. Let's not forget that HTML5 is handled differently by each browser, versus Flash and iOS's unified runtime platforms. With HTML5 we're heading at breakneck speed back to the late 90s and fractured DHTML implementations. The only reason Javascript is fast at this point is optimizations to the JIT browser compilers. And hey, guess who contributed a free compiler to Firefox a few years ago to optimize JS execution? Oh, yes that's right, Adobe, your MORTAL ENEMAH! It's called the Tamarin Project, look it up. Finally, I assume you have seen the new version of Flash previewed at Adobe's MAX conference a couple weeks ago? It blows away anything HTML5's WebGL can dream of. Full OpenGL/DirectX hardware acceleration. 1080p @ 60fps with 0-1% CPU usage. Crank this up to 720p res: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgwi0lWgX8w No, Flash ain't dead quite yet.

I'm certainly not saying Adobe has no room to improve with Flash. They do, and they've already made some great strides. So kudos to Apple for forcing the issue, even if the reason was out of self-interest. But HTML5 doing the same animations? No, it's not a little Apple fairy spreading emotional pixie dust on your screen. It's going to tax your system and battery just as much if not more than the Flash animation you revile.

Yeah, I saw the demo for that a couple of weeks ago, it's pretty impressive, with such little CPU utilization. That's why I never really thought that flash would die, since the logical part of my mind looked at the fact that it can always improve and have new features added, and I assume html5 is more static. Plus the fact that computers just keep on getting faster and faster, and eventually playing an HD video would be as irrelevant to the CPU as playing an MP3 is now. The only thing to really to worry about is bad programers developing ads. But I've had adblock for like 4 years now, or more.

One more thing, I don't think Apple had anything to do with the improvement of flash, since the world doesn't revolve around Apple, like so many here assume, and if I'm not correct, Adobe was redoing flash big time for a really long time, for the upcoming smart phone market.

 

[koruki]

This translates to

Flash has always drained battery, I don't know Apple is making it look like no one knows.

 

[LagunaSol]

Sometimes, I think Apple gets too much credit (or blame) for Flash's unpopularity. Flash had plenty of critics before Apple.

Yet the Apple haters love to use Flash as a talking point in their endless anti-Apple rants (not to mention Apple competitors trumpeting Flash support on their own devices as some sort of die-without-it feature).

I never knew there were so many dedicated fans of Flash until Steve Jobs started talking negatively about it.

 

[inkswamp]

Yet the Apple haters love to use Flash as a talking point in their endless anti-Apple rants (not to mention Apple competitors trumpeting Flash support on their own devices as some sort of die-without-it feature).

I never knew there were so many dedicated fans of Flash until Steve Jobs started talking negatively about it.

And the flipside of that is that people like me who have loathed Flash for almost as long as it's been around, are often accused of taking our marching orders from Cupertino. Nope. Not even close, but if Apple throws its weight behind getting rid of something I despise, you can bet I'll be on board.

 

[savar]

That's great but this still doesn't solve the issue that most interactive/animated websites are made with Flash and it's not easy overnight for creative types to become Java developers.

There will eventually be GUI tools for developing HTML5/Canvas content. Right now the landscape is not pretty, but that's because HTML5 is not a finished standard yet... the whole industry is still picking it up.

Unlike Flash, however, there will be a multitude of tools for authoring content with canvas or video with a variety of features and price points (ranging from free to very expensive, I imagine). Competition will spur innovation and push prices down.

 

[Piggie]

flash uses vastly more CPU resources to play video on my computer than html5. i've actually went to the trouble to test it.

stop blaming the rest of the world for your inefficient garbage plug-in.

Funny as I found the opposite and can prove it.

a 1080p video on YouTube.

Flash version vs the newer HTML5 version

The Flash version used 10% LESS CPU power.

 

[savar]

I'm sorry, I assumed it was obvious, so didn't waste time explain it. Basically for the same reason that Apple is against putting a simple Blu Ray drive into its Macs, it would drive a lot of people away from iTunes. It's simple logic really, the more alternatives there are to watching movies, playing games for free, the less people relying on Apple to provide these things. Very simple logic. So if HTML 5 could do all of those things, and more effectively, then it would be even worse than flash when it comes to Apple's bottom line. But right now HTML 5 is the lesser of 2 evil, since flash still dominates, so at the moment there's no harm in promoting HTML5.

So adobe is a competitor to Apple in the same way that printed books are a competitor to Apple? The more books I have to read, the less time I will spend buying music and movies on iTunes? In other words, Apple wants to dominate every waking moment of your life -- and probably the sleeping ones, too?

 

[macUser2007]

Come on man, look at the wizard behind the curtain for a minute. Apple doesn't do things on that scale for completely magnanimous reasons. Apple kicked out Java at the same time. And they recently announced the iOS-influenced Lion. Apple is trying to remove any possible content distribution methods besides the Mac App Store. They won't expressly ban Java and Flash, mostly because they'd get some Federal scrutiny, but they're going to do everything they can to make sure the Apple content garden(prison) is the easier choice for users.

As for this whole Flash Is Bad sycophantic waterwheel, I've developed for iPhone, as well as Flash and "HTML5". From a pure development platform POV, I find projects come together faster and with less headache in Flash than the other two technologies. Obj-C is a language dragged down by over-complexity and bizarre syntactical choices, and Javascript is antiquated, dogged by years of standards body in-fighting. Let's not forget that HTML5 is handled differently by each browser, versus Flash and iOS's unified runtime platforms. With HTML5 we're heading at breakneck speed back to the late 90s and fractured DHTML implementations. The only reason Javascript is fast at this point is optimizations to the JIT browser compilers. And hey, guess who contributed a free compiler to Firefox a few years ago to optimize JS execution? Oh, yes that's right, Adobe, your MORTAL ENEMAH! It's called the Tamarin Project, look it up. Finally, I assume you have seen the new version of Flash previewed at Adobe's MAX conference a couple weeks ago? It blows away anything HTML5's WebGL can dream of. Full OpenGL/DirectX hardware acceleration. 1080p @ 60fps with 0-1% CPU usage. Crank this up to 720p res: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgwi0lWgX8w No, Flash ain't dead quite yet.

I'm certainly not saying Adobe has no room to improve with Flash. They do, and they've already made some great strides. So kudos to Apple for forcing the issue, even if the reason was out of self-interest. But HTML5 doing the same animations? No, it's not a little Apple fairy spreading emotional pixie dust on your screen. It's going to tax your system and battery just as much if not more than the Flash animation you revile.

Excellent summary.

The problem is, it's way over the head of the fanboys, who spit fire on anything which contradicts their myopic world view.

Yes, ads use Flash, precisely because it is such a great platform: virtually universally accessible, very powerful and efficient to deploy. If HTML5 was all those things, all ads would be built in HTML5.

I guess every platform has its ignorant fanboy base -- just try to bring a Mac into some of the larger corporate environments, and you'll see the vitriol some IT troglodyte will poor over you.

Flash is here to stay for the foreseeable future, and will coexist just fine with HTML5.

Apple is playing a risky game in trying to build walls around its pay services -- I moved to Android because I wanted Flash, and I really doubt I'll come back to iOS, particularly with the UI revamp in Gingerbread.

Sadly, by the time Apple figures out that the lack of Flash is one really big club Jobs handed to Android, iOS will be a bit player, with declining user base and without any consequence in the world of advertising (which ironically is a large part of why Jobs banned Flash from iOS).

 

[severinggecko]

here is what I dont understand. Why does adobe continue to ignore the complaints of the customer? Why do they come out and say that a third party was making false claims and lying, when all they had to do was talk about what they were doing to fix the problem.

had Toyota come out and said that everyone having break issues was just making stuff up and it was being spread by Ford, and then did nothing do you think they would still be in business?

Adobe's CTO just came out and showed how much of an Ass he is and the rest of that company is.

 

[Piggie]

I am very impressed with the capabilities of HTML5, but I can't honestly claim it's less of a performance / battery hog after doing my own tests with some of the HTML5 canvas demos out there:


Sucking 99% of my CPU.
http://9elements.com/io/projects/html5/canvas/

Sucking 70-80% of my CPU.
http://www.chiptune.com/kaleidoscope/

Sucking 90% of my CPU.
http://cs.smu.ca/~c_adams1/3DEarth3/

Sucking 95% of my CPU.
http://www.openrise.com/lab/FlowerPower/


For all these demos I had one browser window open in Safari on a 1.33 GHz 6 core Intel PowerMac. I heard my fan go on every time. Also I can't get any of these to work on my iphone at more than 2-3 FPS.

Just tried these on my PC with my browser window open to full screen

1st one (HTML5 canvas and audio) between 43% and 50% (45% average)

2nd one (Kaleidoscope) varied between 5% and 35% depending on the pattern

3rd one (3D Earth) difficult to tell, around 25% when rendering

4th one (flower Power) if I move my mouse around fast, can get to 25% CPU

 

[PeterQVenkman]

Seriously? A decade of content? I have a decade of BetaMax tapes, but I still own a Blu-ray player. We can move forward. Every time my computer crashes, I can trace it back to Flash content. Prolific, yes, but it's also a disaster.

Blu-Ray perhaps not the best example of moving forward in a mac forum?

I never knew there were so many dedicated fans of Flash until Steve Jobs started talking negatively about it.

I never knew there were so many Flash haters until people started spouting Jobs' arguments word for word, either. Especially when it's so easy to block or disable entirely.

Well, honestly, I don't (really) mind (that much) about battery life but I do mind about crashing desktop browsers...

No matter how much I like Flash, I have to admit it is unstable in Safari. Not many problems with Firefox, but I don't use that as heavily.

 

[inlovewithi]

Just tried these on my PC with my browser window open to full screen

1st one (HTML5 canvas and audio) between 43% and 50% (45% average)

2nd one (Kaleidoscope) varied between 5% and 35% depending on the pattern

3rd one (3D Earth) difficult to tell, around 25% when rendering

4th one (flower Power) if I move my mouse around fast, can get to 25% CPU

What are the specs for your pc? I have a core i5 laptop with a Mobility Radeon 5470, Windows 7, and the 1st 2 I was getting 10 to 12% cpu usage. The 3rd one if I remember correctly went up to 25% when I moved the Earth around. And the 4th didn't work for me, so I just closed it.

 

[climbersaurus]

boo hoo

So, I've been using the iPad for a while now, and I can't say that my life is any better with Flash... if anything, I get to see less crap in a day. Granted, not every site has HTML5 videos but I usually just end up at sites that do. I don't think I'm missing out on anything.

I don't think my parents care either. They really don't see Internet life being enriched any more than if it had Flash. Of course, back in 1996, I'm sure I would be saying the opposite.

 

[iWonderwhy]

For its part, Adobe is looking at how to accommodate the growing presence of HTML5 content on the Internet,

I wonder why..

 

[matthewjacob]

Just tried these on my PC with my browser window open to full screen

1st one (HTML5 canvas and audio) between 43% and 50% (45% average)

2nd one (Kaleidoscope) varied between 5% and 35% depending on the pattern

3rd one (3D Earth) difficult to tell, around 25% when rendering

4th one (flower Power) if I move my mouse around fast, can get to 25% CPU

Just to clarify my 90-99% results above your post. I'm on a Mac and the CPU readings top out at 200% for my dual processor. My results should be comparable to a 2 year old PC reading 45-49% CPU. Interesting there's so many PC users on MacRumors.

In any case it would be helpful to test the exact same content side by side, one created with HMTL5 Canvas / JS and the other using Flash and see what the CPU usage and battery life comparison is.

It's good that people are starting to actually test HTML5 for themselves. It's not as low on CPU as some had originally thought.