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

[KnightWRX]

"supports most SWF v7 features and some SWF v8 and v9, SWF v10 is not supported by GNU Gnash."
Apple will always be 2 versions behind

The Gnash people's work is not a reflection of the actual specification documents. The specification is complete up to SWF v10. Only parts missing are the DRM server implementation.

The could basically roll their own and about the only thing that wouldn't work would be Hulu style services. However, why not let Adobe do it ? Apple has all the options in front of it, they chose to let the users suffer from a lack of real choice instead.

 

[ippikiokami]

It's amazing how misinformed people are about HTML5 and Flash and how they relate.

And with battery? the logic stream is amazing

Websites want to display ads to earn money -> Ad companies like the ability to distribute ads with animations -> Website with lots of ads with animations drain battery -> OMG it's FLASH that is causing my battery drain!!! Not all the ads that technically could use any type of code that can display animations!

It would be like me finding out that watching an episode of 30 Rock takes more battery than me reading it's script. OMG it must be the video format's fault!

I'm excited about HTML5 as much as anyone but it's not some magic code that makes cpu cycles disappear. Learn about exactly what it actually is before you anoint it the end all. I also agree HTML5 eventually (if they ever sit down long enough to standardized and get get all the browsers on board) will replace flash in many situations. But guys that's only going to mean you will see the same "battery draining" ads that you see with flash on html5. Are you going to blame HTML 5 (which would even be more wrong for many reasons) for it?

 

[orbitkiller]

Flash is rubbish...

Well the last statement of Lynch is typical, no king will disclaim his throne!
The most ridiculous thing is that he is arguing about Apple's approach to handle the incompetence of Adobe by initially blocking flash content on their devices, but in fact they do nothing else as denying bad technologies (unstable, slow..) on their future orientated products! This is scientifically right! Adobe instead only defend themselves to furthermore spread their software and to tighten their monopolistic position! So Lynch what is actually better, for you!

 

[AppleFan1984]

It would be like me finding out that watching an episode of 30 Rock takes more battery than me reading it's script. OMG it must be the video format's fault!

Best analogy yet. Too bad it'll be understood by relatively few here.

 

[cmaier]

Best analogy yet. Too bad it'll be understood by relatively few here.

It's a bad analogy. It's like trying to read a book, but the book has annoying blinking lights and speakers that make horrible noises. You just want to read a book, and you don't understand why doing so needs to suck down your batteries.

When browsing the web without flash, I still seem to find lots of ads. Seems to me all flash is doing is making the ads more annoying and battery-sucking. So unless I am going to a page doing something USEFUL with flash (games, video that isn't yet html5), why on earth should I keep flash turned on? There is zero benefit to the end-user.

And saying that HTML5 ads will be just as battery-sucking is just speculation at this point.

 

[KnightWRX]

Seems to me all Advertisers are doing is making the ads more annoying and battery-sucking.

Fixed.

And saying that HTML5 ads will be just as battery-sucking is just speculation at this point.

Except all the tests on Canvas animation sites that prove that it is indeed the case.

 

[frankly]

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. Anything involving complex raster graphics being animated at 24-30fps is going to eat your battery no matter what.

This is simply not true. Optimizations can take place. If this were not the case then please explain to me how an iPad is able to play video for 10 hours on one charge. If optimizations, hardware decoding, and other improvements were not constantly taking place then you could not do half the things that Apple is doing with their iPod line and iOS devices. Have you seen the size of the new nano? It plays music for 24 hours. We're talking about a minuscule device with a tiny battery. That would not have been possible 10 years ago. Hardware and software tend to improve over time, allowing us to do things we couldn't do before. The entire point of those of us who are against Flash is that Adobe has NOT been doing anywhere near the level of improvement to Flash that was possible. They have rested on their laurels and now it is smacking them upside the head. And because they own the standard an outside company that might want Flash content to display on their device is not able to make the improvements that would be necessary for them to still achieve the performance and battery life that they want. It is as simple as that. Flash sucks because Adobe has let it become that way.

because it's not using flash nor heavy html5 sites which don't exist yet. You're now talking in circles. The point is that it's 6 of one, half a dozen of the other as far as flash vs html5 now. Only different being is that there aren't html5 sites/ads/etc in nearly abundance.

ETA -= and h.264 video isn't the only purpose for flash.

You're right but it is/was by far the most popular use of it. Second most popular, games, which run much better in a native format on ANY system. Third most popular, lame websites that write most or all of their site using Flash. And those are becoming fewer and fewer as people realize that their customers don't want the site coded using Flash. It takes away from the way that people expect browsers and the Web to work. It makes them more cumbersome and it usually makes it harder to navigate, find what you need, and hard link back to a page within the site.

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.

This is such a straw man argument. I'm not going to say that there aren't any people in here making the claims you say but to act like it is EVERY Apple fan is ridiculous. And for you to act like the only reason Apple isn't using USB3 is because they think Light Peak is better demonstrates that you haven't done much reading on this topic.

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.

Apple didn't kick out Flash and Java. They are requiring the user to download Flash onto a new Mac, the same way it is done on computers from many other manufacturers. And as for Java, please explain to me why Apple should continue to be the only OS developer that is required to make their own Java runtime environment. I'd love to hear the case for this. And as someone that uses NetBeans I would like to see Sun release a JDK/JVM for the Mac but please provide me examples of just a few of the awesome consumer Java apps that people are going to miss out on if Java disappears completely from the Mac. I'll be waiting.

And I won't argue with you that it can be much faster to develop an app using Flash than Obj-C. But is that what you base the quality of an app on, how long it takes to develop it? Take all of the hours you spend to develop an app. If the app is popular that will only be a tiny fraction when compared to all the time your users spend in front of the UI actually interacting with the app. And 99.9999% of the time that user experience will not only be better but remarkably better if the app is created using Obj-C and Apple's developer tools than if you had created it using Flash and deployed via the Web or Adobe Air. Your comparison strictly from a development standpoint leads people to the stereotype that Flash developers are just lazy. Are quality development tools and environments important? Absolutely. Is a quality, responsive, fast UI more important? Absolutely.

And please stop with the claims that people are against Adobe. They are against Flash and Adobe's stance on it. Many of these same people still use Adobe's other products.

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.

This is ridiculous. You are demonstrating that you really don't understand what HTML5 is.

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.

I have no idea what you are doing but I just loaded ALL of those pages on my four year old MBP and the fans did not spin up at all.

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.

+1

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.

+1

Nonsense. A dude is constantly poking you in the eye with a stick. If you get rid of him, another guy might come along and start poking you in the eye with a stick. So I shouldn't get rid of the current eye-poker just because if I do, maybe a new eye-poker will come along?

The fact of the matter is, right now (as demonstrated by Ars), if you aren't actively intending to run flash (i.e. if the content you actually want to see isn't flash), you're better off disabling flash and earning yourself a couple extra hours of battery life.

I was about to reply to his post myself until I read your response. I could not have said it better myself.

Nonsense. If you are browsing Flash sites, you need Flash. And yes, animations demand more juice. Just like video demands more juice. Just like games demand more juice. Just like HTML5 animations demand more juice.

Technically, if you push your argument, why not configure your browser to just show you mobile versions of sites? Better yet, why not just plain text, without any graphic elements?

Hey, what about DOS?

It is soooooooooo ridiculous to sit there with a straight face and act as if a regular website, that in and of itself does NOT have any complex animations, should drain my battery 33% faster than it would if I uninstalled Flash. Just stop. You Flash-loving Apple-haters are getting so over the top now.

 

[spencers]

Adblock + Clicktoflash = one happy computer

 

[hayesk]

Ah, good old Video Decoding Acceleration framework. Released April 2010. It would be nice if Adobe used this in a release version of Flash. Oh wait, they did. If Apple had released it earlier, maybe Adobe could've added to Flash... err.. earlier ? As it stands, Adobe jumped on it as soon as Apple released it.

I'm not sure what your point here. Apple provides and API, Windows provides an API. Irrelevant to the fact that simply having a YouTube page up without even playing the video makes my fans run full blast. Sorry, but while it may have helped playback, there are far more serious performance issues with Flash than simple video acceleration. And what about non-video Flash? Why does that make my CPU run so much?

 

[cmaier]

Fixed.



Except all the tests on Canvas animation sites that prove that it is indeed the case.

Proves nothing, because these are not ads. Among the missing elements of proof:

1) absent flash, will advertisers continue to resort to these kinds of ads, but use html5?
2) by the time this occurs, will html5 be more heavily optimized in browsers?
3) are the performance and power characteristics of these sites similar to what would occur with ads?

There is, on the other hand, no doubt that the existing use of flash for ads has hugely detrimental effect on battery life and computer performance. You are pretending that something that may or may not occur is equal to that which has already occurred.

 

[KnightWRX]

I'm not sure what your point here. Apple provides and API, Windows provides an API. Irrelevant to the fact that simply having a YouTube page up without even playing the video makes my fans run full blast.

Have your fans checked then. I haven't had the fans go off on my Macbooks in ages, except when playing Portal.

If Flash not doing anything is making your fans roar, you have quite another cooling problem and it's not Flash's fault.

Proves nothing, because these are not ads. Among the missing elements of proof:

1) absent flash, will advertisers continue to resort to these kinds of ads, but use html5?

Err... is the sky blue in your parts ? Seriously, iAds ring any bells ?

 

[AppleFan1984]

It's a bad analogy. It's like trying to read a book, but the book has annoying blinking lights and speakers that make horrible noises. You just want to read a book, and you don't understand why doing so needs to suck down your batteries.

http://advertising.apple.com/

And saying that HTML5 ads will be just as battery-sucking is just speculation at this point.

http://forums.appleinsider.com/showpost.php?p=1746866&postcount=44

 

[samcraig]

It's a bad analogy. It's like trying to read a book, but the book has annoying blinking lights and speakers that make horrible noises. You just want to read a book, and you don't understand why doing so needs to suck down your batteries.

When browsing the web without flash, I still seem to find lots of ads. Seems to me all flash is doing is making the ads more annoying and battery-sucking. So unless I am going to a page doing something USEFUL with flash (games, video that isn't yet html5), why on earth should I keep flash turned on? There is zero benefit to the end-user.

And saying that HTML5 ads will be just as battery-sucking is just speculation at this point.

What? Your analogy is the one that doesn't make any sense. Flash isn't the issue. Advertising is the issue. You want to blame the format instead of blaming the advertisers/websites that display them.

The original analogy is correct. If you're going to do more labor intensive things on your computer or iPhone - expect less battery life. Period. It's a no brainer. It's like people complaining that using 3G is a battery killer vs Edge. Duh.




You're right but it is/was by far the most popular use of it. Second most popular, games, which run much better in a native format on ANY system. Third most popular, lame websites that write most or all of their site using Flash. And those are becoming fewer and fewer as people realize that their customers don't want the site coded using Flash. It takes away from the way that people expect browsers and the Web to work. It makes them more cumbersome and it usually makes it harder to navigate, find what you need, and hard link back to a page within the site.

[/QUOTE]

Pulling facts out of the air (or some part of your anatomy) are we? Do you have ANY hard evidence to support your claim?

 

[cmaier]

Who cares the source of the issue? The solution, proven by Ars, is disable flash unless you intend to use flash for something valuable (not ads).

Assigning blame doesn't solve the problem for anyone. Disabling flash does.

What? Your analogy is the one that doesn't make any sense. Flash isn't the issue. Advertising is the issue. You want to blame the format instead of blaming the advertisers/websites that display them.

The original analogy is correct. If you're going to do more labor intensive things on your computer or iPhone - expect less battery life. Period. It's a no brainer. It's like people complaining that using 3G is a battery killer vs Edge. Duh.




You're right but it is/was by far the most popular use of it. Second most popular, games, which run much better in a native format on ANY system. Third most popular, lame websites that write most or all of their site using Flash. And those are becoming fewer and fewer as people realize that their customers don't want the site coded using Flash. It takes away from the way that people expect browsers and the Web to work. It makes them more cumbersome and it usually makes it harder to navigate, find what you need, and hard link back to a page within the site.

Pulling facts out of the air (or some part of your anatomy) are we? Do you have ANY hard evidence to support your claim?[/QUOTE]

 

[KnightWRX]

Who cares the source of the issue?

Yeah, who cares if there's no witches, let's burn us some women!

Now where is my pitchfork.

 

[alent1234]

Proves nothing, because these are not ads. Among the missing elements of proof:

1) absent flash, will advertisers continue to resort to these kinds of ads, but use html5?
2) by the time this occurs, will html5 be more heavily optimized in browsers?
3) are the performance and power characteristics of these sites similar to what would occur with ads?

There is, on the other hand, no doubt that the existing use of flash for ads has hugely detrimental effect on battery life and computer performance. You are pretending that something that may or may not occur is equal to that which has already occurred.

everyone will have different html5 support depending on the browser and the version of the browser and it will be just like flash is now.

only difference is that SJ wants everyone to use javascript for everything so if you turn it off in your browser you might as well turn the whole internet off and you won't be able to just block ads

the whole flash crusade started right when apple was in talks to buy an ad network

 

[cmaier]

Yeah, who cares if there's no witches, let's burn us some women!

Now where is my pitchfork.

The reason you are all being nonsensical is that you all offer no solution. Since you disagree with me, and all I am saying is "if you don't NEED flash for doing something you actually intend to use flash for, disable it and take advantage of 40% extra battery life," you all must be saying "even if you don't need flash for anything other than fancier banner ads, leave it turned on - sure, you'll use up your battery in no time, but it's well worth it."

Or something. I can't really even figure out how you can honestly be espousing the position you are espousing.

As for the html5 thing, again, if you are just surfing and not actively seeking flash content, there is a 100% chance that using flash while surfing the web will reduce your battery life fast without providing you any benefit. In the future (not now - remember that Ars did have html5 "enabled" and saw superior battery life), html5 ads may be just as horrible. But in making a present decision as to whether to enable flash or not, you are comparing 100% to some number less than 100% (even if it is 99.9%). The rational thing to do is disable flash unless you are actively seeking flash content.

 

[KnightWRX]

The reason you are all being nonsensical is that you all offer no solution.

Uh ? I think I was quite clear my solution to all this was : FlashBlock (I use chrome). That way, you get on demand Flash. It's even coming to stock Chrome in the future because it's just the best darn solution there is.

And then I pile on AdBlock so that I don't get ads at all, either Flash or non-Flash, because frankly, I find all forms of advertising annoying.

Flash is not the culprit here, advertising is. Flash doesn't drain my battery by being installed, that's just ludicrous. The battery gets drained by advertising. Advertising.

ADS.

 

[Pilgrim1099]

As for the html5 thing, again, if you are just surfing and not actively seeking flash content, there is a 100% chance that using flash while surfing the web will reduce your battery life fast without providing you any benefit. In the future (not now - remember that Ars did have html5 "enabled" and saw superior battery life), html5 ads may be just as horrible. But in making a present decision as to whether to enable flash or not, you are comparing 100% to some number less than 100% (even if it is 99.9%). The rational thing to do is disable flash unless you are actively seeking flash content.

Let me reiterate this to you and all the HTML5 and blinded "1984" Adobe bashers.

http://mashable.com/2010/10/07/w3c-stalls-html5/

Secondly, the battery drain relates to those who use mobile devices or laptops. But when it comes to a desktop, it's not a problem. Battery drain on a desktop? Don't make me laugh.

The only problem I had with Flash was Safari when it crashed. Bur on Firefox or other, it's not an issue.

Why is that? I don't like Safari much these days as I used to.

So, you'll have to wait a very long time for HTML5 to be standardized. Don't play " lawyer " on this board. Save that for the court.

 

[cmaier]

Uh ? I think I was quite clear my solution to all this was : FlashBlock (I use chrome). That way, you get on demand Flash. It's even coming to stock Chrome in the future because it's just the best darn solution there is.

And then I pile on AdBlock so that I don't get ads at all, either Flash or non-Flash, because frankly, I find all forms of advertising annoying.

Flash is not the culprit here, advertising is. Flash doesn't drain my battery by being installed, that's just ludicrous. The battery gets drained by advertising. Advertising.

ADS.

So what, exactly, have I said that you object to? We seem to be saying the same thing? (Other than I disagree with "the battery gets drained by advertising. advertising. - Ars, I'm sure, saw just as much advertising with flash disabled - I know I do. And yet I get much better battery life.)

 

[KnightWRX]

So what, exactly, have I said that you object to? We seem to be saying the same thing? (Other than I disagree with "the battery gets drained by advertising. advertising. - Ars, I'm sure, saw just as much advertising with flash disabled - I know I do. And yet I get much better battery life.)

I disagree that Flash is a battery drain when installed. First that's just a darn ludicrous claim, "when installed". It's not Flash, it's animation based advertising, coming soon to HTML5 (and already here in the form of iAds).

 

[cmaier]

I disagree that Flash is a battery drain when installed. First that's just a darn ludicrous claim, "when installed". It's not Flash, it's animation based advertising, coming soon to HTML5 (and already here in the form of iAds).

In my second message I elaborated on "installed" and pointed out that i meant "enabled," or so I thought.

Forget iAds (which, by the way, do not seem to use nearly the resources that flash uses). The simple truth is if the average person goes websurfing today, with flash turned on, their MBA gets 2 hours less battery life. Period.

 

[leroypants]

The simple truth is if the average person goes websurfing today, with flash turned on, their MBA gets 2 hours less battery life. Period.

Then the MBA is an overpriced piece of garbage.

 

[samcraig]

Usage causes battery drain. Period. Video (no matter how it's delivered) will cause more drain than just reading a static web page with static images. Animated gifs will drain more resources than static gifs. Performing tasks in photoshop will drain more than typing up a letter in Word.

So again - kill flash. It won't matter because whatever comes to replace it is still going to suck the battery MORE than having whatever that technology is blocked on a page.

Forget iAds (which, by the way, do not seem to use nearly the resources that flash uses). The simple truth is if the average person goes websurfing today, with flash turned on, their MBA gets 2 hours less battery life. Period.

Let's not forget iAds. Let's see a benchmark to see if what you say is true. Take two COMPARABLE ads - one in flash and one in iAds's html5 and show the benchmark....

 

[KnightWRX]

The simple truth is if the average person goes websurfing today, with flash turned on, their MBA gets 2 hours less battery life. Period.

Only because currently, animated ads use Flash. The day they don't, that won't be true anymore.

The true ennemi is not Flash, it's animated ads (or more generally, ads period...).