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Adobe Releases Flash Player 10.1, But Hardware Acceleration on OS X Not Supported
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You really need to post this more places, because this is one of the arguments apple-haters (or just pro flashers) use quite often; blaming Apple for the lack of H.264 support until recently. That's not to say one side is right or wrong though, they both have obvious flaws in their logic.
Something that I dont get is this.
All you Mac owners moaning that Adobe sucks, and that flash is crap.
Why not uninstall Flash altogether?
Forget the pop-up blockers you so love to use, if you dont install it you wont have system issues and crashes on sites that use flash.
Surely thats the solution?
Then you can view pages like the iPad and iPhone does.
That's the way to stick it to Adobe, isnt it?
All you Mac owners moaning that Adobe sucks, and that flash is crap.
Why not uninstall Flash altogether?
Forget the pop-up blockers you so love to use, if you dont install it you wont have system issues and crashes on sites that use flash.
Surely thats the solution?
Then you can view pages like the iPad and iPhone does.
That's the way to stick it to Adobe, isnt it?
I know. If you think about it, it's really weird to be so passionate about disliking flash. It's really like one of those who cares things. But in reality it's the typical patter of certain people here. No one thinks about Nintendo here, but if Apple goes against Nintendo, then Nintendo is such a horrible lazy company. Fact of the matter, in 3 years flash video cpu usage will probably be too low to even matter. If a 720p flash video uses 12% CPU power on certain computers, then imagine in 3 years with smaller and faster computers.
No, because Nintendo makes an excellent product... and doesn't blame the competition when they fail.
The passionate dislike for Flash (for me at least) pre-dates the iPhone and iPad. I've long hated it for two reasons: it needlessly hogs resources and it's become the favorite crutch for mediocre Web developers.
The reason I brought Nintendo up was because a month or so ago there was an article here on MacRumors saying that Nintendo now sees the Iphone as it's biggest competitor and not the PSP. As expected certain Mac users who have no idea about video games or Nintendo started bashing them.
Then how come this only works on 10.6.3 (after Apple shipped an update ) and only on the latest GPUs ?
http://developer.apple.com/mac/library/technotes/tn2010/tn2267.html
If it existed long ago in the general Cocoa API why does Apple only support this on the latest bleeding edge OS drop and a limited subset of GPUs ?
There is a huge difference between dragging in Quicktime and sticking an additional layer of abstraction (moving your software and the decoder farther apart ) and simply being able to pump data through and getting a simple decoded buffer ( which can do overlays , etc. on).
The OS is suppose to give apps access to shared resources. Apple did that by hiding it behind a think layer of Quicktime. Very similar to providing an "fopen" as a low level interface to a file and the more complicated Cocoa interface to a file. There is little reason should block/cripple the standard 'C' library access to a file. Some apps need something that is low level, lightweight, and direct.
That's kind of odd. I generally block Flash, but for those times I view it I've been using the hardware-accelerated beta version for several weeks and haven't noticed any issues.
Not true. In order for Flash to support anything, the browser first has to support it in the plugin framework. This support varies by browser and by browser version. There is a chart on some Adobe employee blog somewhere.
Unless he works for Apple PR, it isn't his job to spread FUD.darkplanets said:
Actually, there are a lot of overdue performance optimizations in 10.1. Hardware acceleration was not the only thing wrong with it, as any number of Jobs boys' will be happy to tell you.Max(IT) said:
Only if want to keep your head buried in the sand. There is an active Flash security advisory out. Installing 10.1 is one of the most important steps to fix that. (defect doesn't exist in 10.1 but does in older versions. )
If Apple just released the API a couple of months ago little change any update has gone though the normal stable release cycle. It is better for Adobe to do it right rather than rush some hasty hack out and then have to repair it later.
If anything the steady drumbeat of holes in Flash indicate the are not following good testing methodologies. Shipping fast is not particularly a good indicator of quality.
No hardware acceleration? Oh yah, smooth move adobe, this is sure going to make apple think twice about letting you guys on the iDevices, NOT.
LOL! Apple Fanboys make me giggle... hehe
As a long time Mac user I don't get this whole cult of personality edict that many mac users have but too each their own.
Now to the Facts about Flash Player 10.1 for OS X.
1. Hardware Acceleration.
Is available, but for H.264. The whole player is not hardware accelerated but certain key parts are thanks in part to the use of the core animation API. Having said that, these performance improvements to the drawing core are only available to browsers that use cocoa ( Firefox users are out of luck )
2. H.264
Is not avaialble in this release but will be available later as the post suggest. This is INDEED due to the newly made API's that Apple released for H.264 decoding in 10.6.3. "matticus008" is wrong! While having the ability to decode H.264 was a available as a high level API it was NOT available as a low level API which is what Adobe needed to integrate Apple's hardware available into their own display stack ( this is not rocket science but just how software works )
3. Performance
Lot's of under the hood enhancement make 10.1 play content faster.
4. Security
Addresses the last security issue and is the most secure version of Flash up to date. Both virtual machines ( AVM1 for AS1 and AS2 and AVM3 for AS3) have been tightened up for security (specially AVM1)
5. Peer-2-Peer
This release has built in support for fast peer to peer computing opening new avenues for things like video chat and broadcasting.
6. Multi-touch support.
This has been known for sometime that 10.1 supports multitouch on portable devices but it also supports it on the desktop. Windows 7 only for now, I'm sure when Apple adds touch support to OS X Adobe will make it available for the Flash Player. 10.1 for Android, Palm Os will support touch when 10.1 is release for those platforms.
7. Memory Management
10.1 has better memory management than any of it's predecessors, specially when dealing with a lot of bitmap data.
8. Video Playback ( software engine )
Improvements here where most notable on the Mac platform which has seen a double digit reduction in the amount of CPU used for decoding H.264 content. In full-screen mode Flash Player 10.1 is now using OpenGL to blit the video pixels on the screen adding a significant amount of video performance while watching fullscreen HD content. Is it as good as a full Hardware accelerated solution, no but it is a marked improvement over the software decoder in 10.
This isn't a light weight release and is an absolute must for Mac users since this is the first Flash Player release ever with so much focus added to the Mac Platform ( mind you about 90% of the installs for Flash Player are on Windows ).
I have been working with the internal and public betas for more than a year now ( specifically on the mac platform ) and I can attest to all of the aforementioned improvements. No Bull$#!t, just real talk.
Cheers.
As a long time Mac user I don't get this whole cult of personality edict that many mac users have but too each their own.
Now to the Facts about Flash Player 10.1 for OS X.
1. Hardware Acceleration.
Is available, but for H.264. The whole player is not hardware accelerated but certain key parts are thanks in part to the use of the core animation API. Having said that, these performance improvements to the drawing core are only available to browsers that use cocoa ( Firefox users are out of luck )
2. H.264
Is not avaialble in this release but will be available later as the post suggest. This is INDEED due to the newly made API's that Apple released for H.264 decoding in 10.6.3. "matticus008" is wrong! While having the ability to decode H.264 was a available as a high level API it was NOT available as a low level API which is what Adobe needed to integrate Apple's hardware available into their own display stack ( this is not rocket science but just how software works )
3. Performance
Lot's of under the hood enhancement make 10.1 play content faster.
4. Security
Addresses the last security issue and is the most secure version of Flash up to date. Both virtual machines ( AVM1 for AS1 and AS2 and AVM3 for AS3) have been tightened up for security (specially AVM1)
5. Peer-2-Peer
This release has built in support for fast peer to peer computing opening new avenues for things like video chat and broadcasting.
6. Multi-touch support.
This has been known for sometime that 10.1 supports multitouch on portable devices but it also supports it on the desktop. Windows 7 only for now, I'm sure when Apple adds touch support to OS X Adobe will make it available for the Flash Player. 10.1 for Android, Palm Os will support touch when 10.1 is release for those platforms.
7. Memory Management
10.1 has better memory management than any of it's predecessors, specially when dealing with a lot of bitmap data.
8. Video Playback ( software engine )
Improvements here where most notable on the Mac platform which has seen a double digit reduction in the amount of CPU used for decoding H.264 content. In full-screen mode Flash Player 10.1 is now using OpenGL to blit the video pixels on the screen adding a significant amount of video performance while watching fullscreen HD content. Is it as good as a full Hardware accelerated solution, no but it is a marked improvement over the software decoder in 10.
This isn't a light weight release and is an absolute must for Mac users since this is the first Flash Player release ever with so much focus added to the Mac Platform ( mind you about 90% of the installs for Flash Player are on Windows ).
I have been working with the internal and public betas for more than a year now ( specifically on the mac platform ) and I can attest to all of the aforementioned improvements. No Bull$#!t, just real talk.
Cheers.
Frankly, what most of us would like is if Adobe could take the time to get it to run right on Mac OSX.
The fact that blocking Flash by default means far fewer ads and annoyances while surfing the web, well, there's a reason why FlashBlock software is popular on Windows as well.
Gotta suck being a Flash (so-called) "developer" though. That's usually who gets offended by FlashBlock software. I'm guessing we hit a nerve?
Fact of the matter is is that Adobe makes a killing off its Mac clientele. From student copies of Adobe Suites to retail sales of the Mac line, they make a grip of money. It is truly insolent that they peddle their wares (really good wares too, I love CS4) and neglect other software for the same platform.
I would absolutely love it if they recoded Flash from the ground up to fully utilize OSX. But it seems like as always they are more interested in peddling Creative Suite CSwhatever than making the overall OSX computing experience better.
Shame on you Adobe.. seriously. Although thanks for Photoshop.
I would absolutely love it if they recoded Flash from the ground up to fully utilize OSX. But it seems like as always they are more interested in peddling Creative Suite CSwhatever than making the overall OSX computing experience better.
Shame on you Adobe.. seriously. Although thanks for Photoshop.