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

[frankly]

http://advertising.apple.com/


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

Your own link proves that HTML5 implementations are already improving so quickly that this could be a non-issue very soon. The IE9 image is almost the same as the Flash one. The bottom line that seems to be consistently ignored here is that Apple is in control of their HTML5 rendering engine. They can invest the engineering resources to improve it so that it works better on their hardware. They can not do this with Flash. They have no control over it whatsoever. Why is this so hard to understand?

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.

Your analogy is wrong because you are acting as if the same type of animations and content will be displayed if Flash is removed. That is NOT the case. Therefore, removing Flash means higher battery life. The Web designers display something different when they detect that Flash is not installed in most cases. That is what Ars did. They removed Flash. When they did they got 2 hours more battery life. I know that you Apple-hating Flash-lovers would like everyone to believe that whatever is used in place of Flash will suck the battery down too this simply is NOT the case.

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.

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...).

Not true. I know you really think this is the case but I recently uninstalled Flash from my system and I still get ads but they no longer cause pages to take forever to load and spin up my fans. They load quickly, efficiently, and without crashing my browser. At some point this might change but that is a big might. And during that time Apple and others will continue to rapidly improve their rendering engines. So even if the Ad companies do make similar ads using HTML5 and JavaScript the rendering engines will be better by then anyway. Because, and this is the key, Apple controls their rendering engine. They do not control the Flash plugin and therefore have no ability to improve it.

 

[samcraig]

Frankly - you've missed the point entirely. Several times. Congratulations.

 

[frankly]

Frankly - you've missed the point entirely. Several times. Congratulations.

Actually the opposite is true. The problem is that those in this thread that are Apple-haters only want to talk about conjecture of what might happen in the future. They can't seem to get over the simple fact that currently, as in right now, Flash will use more of your computer's resources when you are not even actively doing anything that requires it than anything else. A browser window in the background can kill your battery. That is ridiculous.

Ars and I have demonstrated how uninstalling it can change that completely. If you are too stubborn to see that then there isn't much more I can do.

 

[FloatingBones]

I suggest everyone install ClickToFlash. You will never look back. It even finds flash video and converts it to HTML5. I haven't clicked on a single flash element in weeks and my computer is thanking me. Anyone who monitors their system can easily tell that Flash uses more resources than HTML5 with or without hardware acceleration. Adobe is just blowing smoke.

Hear, hear.

Also take the time to do outreach to friends, co-workers, etc. to do the same.

The latest Adobe zero-day bug is talked about in last week's "Security Now!" podcast. The transcript is at http://www.grc.com/sn/sn-273.txt . If you search on

how is that quarterly update cycle going for you

in the transcript, you will get to the pertinent part of the discussion.

Note that both Adobe Reader and Flash are vulnerable to this exploit. If you're just using Reader to view PDF files, you'd be far better off to de-install it and use Preview to view PDF files.

If you have newbie friends on a Mac, help them do the same on their machines. Preview is faster, smaller, and far less vulnerable to these attacks.

 

[samcraig]

Actually the opposite is true. The problem is that those in this thread that are Apple-haters only want to talk about conjecture of what might happen in the future. They can't seem to get over the simple fact that currently, as in right now, Flash will use more of your computer's resources when you are not even actively doing anything that requires it than anything else. A browser window in the background can kill your battery. That is ridiculous.

Ars and I have demonstrated how uninstalling it can change that completely. If you are too stubborn to see that then there isn't much more I can do.

For one - people that don't agree with you aren't automatically apple haters. I don't agree with you and I'm not an apple hater.

Secondly - yes. you've most certainly missed the point. But we can go around in circles all day about it. I'll respectfully decline from that futility.

 

[satcomer]

I want to wave the replies if that ever click on one of those moving animation adds? In my case i make a point to use an Add blocker to block these because they are so annoying. However the static adds to support my favorite sites I use sometimes, especially if it is an Amazon link on my favorite web sites (the kick-back Amazon/others links).

 

[KnightWRX]

The problem is that those in this thread that are Apple-haters only want to talk about conjecture of what might happen in the future.

Can you point out these so called Apple haters ?

 

[samcraig]

Can you point out these so called Apple haters ?

Anyone that doesn't agree with his viewpoint is CLEARLY an Apple Hater. Clearly.

 

[MattInOz]

They can't seem to get over the simple fact that currently, as in right now, Flash will use more of your computer's resources when you are not even actively doing anything that requires it than anything else. A browser window in the background can kill your battery. That is ridiculous.

Isn't that partly the fault of the browser?

Well I say fault but only in the context of current days in that some browsers do it better. Some browsers already only render what is visible to the screen they may load the full website file to memory but only render parts visible, with a big a buffer to keep a head of the scrolling. That would kill off much of the Flash eating battery on a background window.

It would be interesting to see the same test with say Google Chrome on the same hardware which sandboxes pages better to not waste so much energy.

 

[Bernard SG]

Isn't that partly the fault of the browser?

Well I say fault but only in the context of current days in that some browsers do it better. Some browsers already only render what is visible to the screen they may load the full website file to memory but only render parts visible, with a big a buffer to keep a head of the scrolling. That would kill off much of the Flash eating battery on a background window.

It would be interesting to see the same test with say Google Chrome on the same hardware which sandboxes pages better to not waste so much energy.

It's not about rendering, it's about the runtime plug-in keeping on running whatsoever. It doesn't even have to be video.
AFAIK, the browser cannot control the runtime's behavior.

 

[frankly]

Can you point out these so called Apple haters ?

For one - people that don't agree with you aren't automatically apple haters. I don't agree with you and I'm not an apple hater.

Secondly - yes. you've most certainly missed the point. But we can go around in circles all day about it. I'll respectfully decline from that futility.

Anyone that doesn't agree with his viewpoint is CLEARLY an Apple Hater. Clearly.

This is really simple. They are everyone that posts in here referring to those that have disagreed with anything that the three of you have said as fanboys. Very simple and easy to spot.

Some examples:

Cue the apple fanboys recycling the turtle necked overloaded butt hurt over flash. I also have news about the MacBook air, when playing games (what few that are avaiable for Mac) battery life goes down.

Apple fanboys are making me pull for flash. Most of the hate is really because Steve doesn't like it because it cuts into Apple's bottom line, just like HTML5 will in the future, but since it's not ready yet, he promotes it to bash Flash. But if HTML5 replaced flash, Steve would hate it just as much, specially if it uses less resources. It's like with USB 3 now, Apple is pro Light Peak, so now there are some who talk about USB 3 in a negative way. I mean why would anyone here just all of a sudden have a problem with USB 3. The normal, non fanboy response would be to would be to support both. USB 3 because of all of all the USB devices out there, and Light Peak for all the cool things that it will be able to do. Just be happy that it's much better than what we have now. As for eSata. I have an eSata port on my laptop, I'm going to get an eSata dock because I hear I can boot from it, and that sounds cool, have an extra OS on a hard drive for testing purposes. Before I got a Mac I remember always reading about up coming technology, on different websites and everybody excited about the future, but here it's like wow. If it's not Apple, bash, bash, bash. If I go to a non Apple website, and read about USB 3 and Light Peak, comments would be different.

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.

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).

Funny you should bring up Bluray. 'Cause Steve Jobs has banished such "forward" technology from the Mac, for much the same reason he has banished Flash from iOS: Content control.

Of course, there are a boatload of fanboys yelling "I don't need no Bluray, just as they yell "I don't need no Flash" and just as they yelled "I don't need no Cut & Paste."

hahahaha, fanbois 'discussing' technology.... what a thread.

Isn't that partly the fault of the browser?

Well I say fault but only in the context of current days in that some browsers do it better. Some browsers already only render what is visible to the screen they may load the full website file to memory but only render parts visible, with a big a buffer to keep a head of the scrolling. That would kill off much of the Flash eating battery on a background window.

It would be interesting to see the same test with say Google Chrome on the same hardware which sandboxes pages better to not waste so much energy.

That would be ridiculous. Can you imagine only being able to load one tab at a time or not being able to set a window full of tabs to load while you continue to read the window you're currently in? That would defeat the entire purpose of the preemptive multitasking of OS X or any other OS.

 

[Bernard SG]

Secondly - yes. you've most certainly missed the point. But we can go around in circles all day about it. I'll respectfully decline from that futility.

I don't see how frankly misses the point.
Anyone owning a MB, MBA or MBP doesn't need a computer engineering degree to notice that surfing the internet with Flash enabled will bring your CPU activity to a point where your fans will run at full speed, while that never happens when you surf the internet with Flash disabled/uninstalled but including QT, HTML5 or Silverlight videos (unless you open several windows with several tabs at once).
Flash being proprietary it's Adobe's problem to fix and no one else's. Hardware acceleration, API and stuff are just poor excuses.

 

[frankly]

i don't see how frankly misses the point.
Anyone owning a mb, mba or mbp doesn't need a computer engineering degree to notice that surfing the internet with flash enabled will bring your cpu activity to a point where your fans will run at full speed, while that never happens when you surf the internet with flash disabled/uninstalled but including qt, html5 or silverlight videos (unless you open several windows with several tabs at once).
Flash being proprietary it's adobe's problem to fix and no one else's. Hardware acceleration, api and stuff are just poor excuses.

+1

 

[MattInOz]

That would be ridiculous. Can you imagine only being able to load one tab at a time or not being able to set a window full of tabs to load while you continue to read the window you're currently in? That would defeat the entire purpose of the preemptive multitasking of OS X or any other OS.

You could still have many many tabs or windows. It's not like the browser or each window is a single thread now that would be ridiculous. Look how your mac gets flash web content to the screen. Between quartz,webkit,flash there are at least three rendering engines involved add all the controllers involved plus the tools pulling data from the web all looking like a seamless app.

That doesn't mean the app couldn't tell threads involved to stall because they aren't on screen with the user being none the wiser.

Chromes design is meant to have some similar tricks, it doesn't loose any multitasking goodness. Which is why it would be interesting to see test in chrome.

 

[KnightWRX]

This is really simple. They are everyone that posts in here referring to those that have disagreed with anything that the three of you have said as fanboys. Very simple and easy to spot.

And you know they hate Apple how ? You're saying the people they were referring to aren't fanboys ? Yet you call them haters ?

You're doing the exact same thing you're accusing them of doing.

I don't see how frankly misses the point.
Anyone owning a MB, MBA or MBP doesn't need a computer engineering degree to notice that surfing the internet with Flash enabled will bring your CPU activity to a point where your fans will run at full speed,

I'm browsing the web right now, with Flash enabled and my CPU activity is almost inexistant and my fans aren't running full speed.

 

[samcraig]

This is really simple. They are everyone that posts in here referring to those that have disagreed with anything that the three of you have said as fanboys. Very simple and easy to spot.

Some examples:

That would be ridiculous. Can you imagine only being able to load one tab at a time or not being able to set a window full of tabs to load while you continue to read the window you're currently in? That would defeat the entire purpose of the preemptive multitasking of OS X or any other OS.

OK - so anyone that uses the phrase fanboy is an Apple Hater. Glad you clarified. Let me react to your "definition." It's ridiculous to define people who use that phrase as a hater. Period.

I don't see how frankly misses the point.
Anyone owning a MB, MBA or MBP doesn't need a computer engineering degree to notice that surfing the internet with Flash enabled will bring your CPU activity to a point where your fans will run at full speed, while that never happens when you surf the internet with Flash disabled/uninstalled but including QT, HTML5 or Silverlight videos (unless you open several windows with several tabs at once).
Flash being proprietary it's Adobe's problem to fix and no one else's. Hardware acceleration, API and stuff are just poor excuses.

Bernard - I'm not disagreeing with you - but in context of the thread and this discussion (if you read the entire thread) you'll see where frankly has missed the point that was being discussed.

 

[frankly]

And you know they hate Apple how ? You're saying the people they were referring to aren't fanboys ? Yet you call them haters ?

You're doing the exact same thing you're accusing them of doing.

OK - so anyone that uses the phrase fanboy is an Apple Hater. Glad you clarified. Let me react to your "definition." It's ridiculous to define people who use that phrase as a hater. Period.

Bernard - I'm not disagreeing with you - but in context of the thread and this discussion (if you read the entire thread) you'll see where frankly has missed the point that was being discussed.

It was meant to be an absurd exaggeration based on the dismissive way that people are treated for having an opinion. Once you dismiss someone as having valid input because they LIKE something then you are no longer having a real conversation. And in those cases those people need to be called out on it. So when they throw around stupid things like fanboys it does nothing but take away from the conversation. This is the same thing that occurs when samcraig dismisses my points out of hand without a response by simply saying I missed the point completely. He then dismisses Bernard analysis of my opinion by assuming that Bernard had not read the entire thread. In other words, he doesn't come right out and say that Bernard doesn't know what he's talking about but if Bernard has read the entire thread already then that is exactly what is being said.

I didn't miss any point being made. I just 100% disagree with the points you and others have tried to make. You are basing them on conjecture of what might happen in the future and we are basing ours on the reality of right now and the foreseeable future. That gives our analysis more weight. If your future speculation comes true then by all means come back and say I told you so. I'll eat crow if that happens. But don't sit there and dismiss me as not having a well thought out analysis of the situation based on what you think might happen. Give me a break.

 

[KnightWRX]

It was meant to be an absurd exaggeration based on the dismissive way that people are treated for having an opinion. Once you dismiss someone as having valid input because they LIKE something then you are no longer having a real conversation.

Goes both ways. Only haters call people fanboys, only fanboys call people haters. You are guilty of exactly the same thing you accuse these people of. Pot, meet Kettle, etc..

 

[frankly]

Goes both ways. Only haters call people fanboys, only fanboys call people haters. You are guilty of exactly the same thing you accuse these people of. Pot, meet Kettle, etc..

KnightWRX meet dictionary.

absurd |əbˈsərd; -ˈzərd|
adjective
(of an idea or suggestion) wildly unreasonable, illogical, or inappropriate

exaggerate |igˈzajəˌrāt|
verb [ trans. ]
represent (something) as being larger, greater, better, or worse than it really is

 

[samcraig]

How convenient that now you just claim it's an exaggeration.

Your OPINION doesn't hold more weight than anyone else's. Any attempt to imply that it does is farce.

 

[frankly]

How convenient that now you just claim it's an exaggeration.

Your OPINION doesn't hold more weight than anyone else's. Any attempt to imply that it does is farce.

When my opinion is based on factual information and things that can be observed it carries A LOT more weight than an opinion that is based on things that MIGHT happen. If you can't understand that then I can't help you.

 

[samcraig]

When my opinion is based on factual information and things that can be observed it carries A LOT more weight than an opinion that is based on things that MIGHT happen. If you can't understand that then I can't help you.

I don't need your kind of help. We're going on in an endless loop. Good luck and have a great afternoon. This (and your comments) aren't worth the time and energy. It's all been said before.

 

[surferfromuk]

Flash is accelerating the burn out of macbook motherboards - uninstall it completely and instantly gain 5 years machine life.