Adobe Releases Flash Player 10.3 Beta With Preferences Integration

[zim]

so does this mean that the flash will be supported from all iDevice??

http://www.techsangv.com/adobe-says-enough-and-enough-dont-want-flash-to-run-in-iphone-anymore.html

That's an old article.. it was talking about the ability to develop apps using Flash, nothing to do with Flash the plugin. I believe that more recent changes to Apple's app policies now allows for this but my understanding is that few do it.. I could be wrong.

 

[JAT]

Apple still doesnt have hardware accel? Windows uses less than 1% cpu 1080p flash.

And yet it still crashed for me yesterday on T-Mobile's site. WinXP.

Apple only released the VDA framework for 3 nVidia GPUs. If you have an Intel or ATI based GPU in your Mac, you're SOL. Plus they only released it last April.

10.2 still works better on both my Minis. One is GMA 950, one is 320M.

 

[bassfingers]

Yay update notification!

 

[zenio]

I keep getting update notifications for Adobe Acrobat and Flash (on windows) every other week.

Exaggerate much?

 

[The Phazer]

HTML5 has nothing to do with video performance. Were you watching a video played through the HTML5 video tag or the Quicktime Player? My bet is you are talking about Quicktime if it behaved exactly the same in three different browsers. Probably a bad install or an out of date version.

I think that's rather the point.

A lot of people who's system can't play video have fallen for innaccurate reporting that it's all Adobe's fault and somehow it will be magically better in HTML5. For most cases, that isn't actually true. It'll be just as bad, if not worse (for example: Flash Media Server allows for dynamic bitrate streaming, which HTML5 doesn’t support. If your internet connection isn't consistent then you're likely to see worse performance as a result).

I'm still waiting for people to notice that the HTML5 Canvas support in Mobile Safari is far worse, performance wise, than Flash would be on the platform doing the same jobs (it's also worse than Flash on a Mac Desktop now). SVG is better, but still also not very good. There are a few utterly bizare quirks of CSS3 layout in mobile Safari too.

Phazer

 

[mijail]

A lot of people who's system can't play video have fallen for innaccurate reporting that it's all Adobe's fault and somehow it will be magically better in HTML5. For most cases, that isn't actually true. It'll be just as bad, if not worse (for example: Flash Media Server allows for dynamic bitrate streaming, which HTML5 doesn’t support. If your internet connection isn't consistent then you're likely to see worse performance as a result).

Seems to me you are really trying to compare too different things. You are right in that HTML5 doesn't (still?) allow the same things than Flash. On the other hand, obviously HTML5 does enough things, good enough ... or even better than Flash.
If that was not the case, Flash would still be the unchallenged king.

Maybe Macromedia/Adobe should have focused (while they still had the chance) on having the basics right (CPU efficiency, speed, security, non-crashing) instead of growing lots of bells and whistles. Now who knows what will happen.

I'm still waiting for people to notice that the HTML5 Canvas support in Mobile Safari is far worse, performance wise, than Flash would be on the platform doing the same jobs (it's also worse than Flash on a Mac Desktop now).

Wow. So you know how would Flash behave on the iPhone?? Talk about magic!

 

[keypox]

Apple only released the VDA framework for 3 nVidia GPUs. If you have an Intel or ATI based GPU in your Mac, you're SOL. Plus they only released it last April.

ahh thats right i remember reading that. But I thought that was just for the beta drivers but 10.2 final is out. ?

It will be prob be fixed soon

 

[Daveoc64]

If that was not the case, Flash would still be the unchallenged king.

Umm... last time I checked it still is the unchallenged King.

 

[The Phazer]

Seems to me you are really trying to compare too different things. You are right in that HTML5 doesn't (still?) allow the same things than Flash. On the other hand, obviously HTML5 does enough things, good enough ... or even better than Flash.

HTML5 doesn't really do anything better than Flash at this point other than suit people's ideological convictions.

And I'm comparing watching online streaming video to online streaming video. Not different things.

If that was not the case, Flash would still be the unchallenged king.

Marketshare reality is that Flash still IS the "unchallenged king". Content using Flash reaches orders of magnitude bigger audiences more than HTML5.

And certainly for vector based content there is no question that Canvas and SVG takeup is very, very, very low.

Wow. So you know how would Flash behave on the iPhone?? Talk about magic!

It's not magic to be able to extrapolate Flash performance on other platforms with similar Arm processors, graphics capability and RAM to the iPhone. It's maths.

Indeed, given Android's fragmentation an iOS Flash would probably have superior graphics optimisation.

Phazer

 

[Michaelgtrusa]

Well with all the debate going on here, I can assume that everyone has tried this release.

 

[mijail]

HTML5 doesn't really do anything better than Flash at this point other than suit people's ideological convictions.

Yes, it does things better: it works without crashing. It allows me to see videos without unsufferable stuttering. Is that ideological?

For sure, I have only my experience with my Mac and my PC. But from what I read in this forum and other places, I am not alone.

Note: maybe the video is better simply because the playback is now done by Quicktime on the mac, or whatever. But the fact is, I still rely on FlashBlock and Click2Flash on my browsers.

And I'm comparing watching online streaming video to online streaming video. Not different things.

Not really; you mentioned a Flash SERVER for video vs the purely client-based HTML5.

Marketshare reality is that Flash still IS the "unchallenged king". Content using Flash reaches orders of magnitude bigger audiences more than HTML5.

Yeah, Flash had a head start of... forever? And despite that, look at the speed with which the so-young-that-still-is-unfinished HTML5 is making inroads.
Which in my mind again points to how needed an overhaul was.

It's not magic to be able to extrapolate Flash performance on other platforms with similar Arm processors, graphics capability and RAM to the iPhone. It's maths.

Indeed, given Android's fragmentation an iOS Flash would probably have superior graphics optimisation.

Yeah, in the same way that "Windows fragmentation" helped Macromedia/Adobe create a superiorly optimized Flash for the Mac, right?
I didn't think so.

 

[mijail]

Apple only released the VDA framework for 3 nVidia GPUs. If you have an Intel or ATI based GPU in your Mac, you're SOL. Plus they only released it last April.

I have no idea why things are like that; but maybe it is interesting that NVIDIA opensourced a library for accelerated video in Unixes(VDPAU), 3 months before Apple released the Video Decoding Acceleration framework:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VDPAU

Meanwhile, ATI and Intel seemed rather lagging to follow that kind of initiative. But, surprise: look what ATI did a couple weeks ago:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-Video_Bitstream_Acceleration

So... maybe that means that some video acceleration framework for ATI will be also released soon by Apple?

 

[Daveoc64]

Yes, it does things better: it works without crashing. It allows me to see videos without unsufferable stuttering. Is that ideological?

For sure, I have only my experience with my Mac and my PC. But from what I read in this forum and other places, I am not alone.

Judging by the benchmarks that have been carried out it would seem to be ideological.

Support for the Video tag is generally poor among browsers. It's simply not as mature as Flash is.

Flash is by no means the most efficient thing in the world, but in real world scenarios it performs better than HTML5 video.

 

[JAT]

Is winter in spring?

I'm in MN, what's spring?

I think that's rather the point.

A lot of people who's system can't play video have fallen for innaccurate reporting that it's all Adobe's fault and somehow it will be magically better in HTML5. For most cases, that isn't actually true. It'll be just as bad, if not worse (for example: Flash Media Server allows for dynamic bitrate streaming, which HTML5 doesn’t support. If your internet connection isn't consistent then you're likely to see worse performance as a result).

I'm still waiting for people to notice that the HTML5 Canvas support in Mobile Safari is far worse, performance wise, than Flash would be on the platform doing the same jobs (it's also worse than Flash on a Mac Desktop now). SVG is better, but still also not very good. There are a few utterly bizare quirks of CSS3 layout in mobile Safari too.

Phazer

Flash also sucks in Firefox. What have I "fallen" for? 3 weeks ago (and every day before that since Macromedia first made Flash), watching Hulu or other flash on a Mini was an exercise in patience for all the stuttering. Today, with 10.2, it is much smoother. Although Hulu doesn't support the new feature that finally brought Flash in line with Silverlight, proper fullscreen support. I mean, I guess I am assuming the feature works as advertised, because I haven't actually found an online player that works with it.

http://www.google.com/search?&q=sarcasm+on+the+internet+doesnt+work

Clearly you need to learn how sarcasm works in text because you think everyone is supposed to read it the way you're reading it. A happy face does not imply sarcasm. If anything it just shows that you were being smug. You want to talk about being light hearted but you were claiming that I have a disorder for not wanting a browser plug-in to be visible in more than one spot on my system.

I wouldn't say OCD. But these social skills are certainly implying something.

Well with all the debate going on here, I can assume that everyone has tried this release.

Nope, we just like mouthing off.

 

[moderately]

It would be a potentially marginal improvement, for me, if the prefs and uninstaller were combined. Though I would have to remember that the uninstaller was in the pref pane (or versa vise). So maybe a slight downgrade(!).

 

[mijail]

Support for the Video tag is generally poor among browsers. It's simply not as mature as Flash is.

I'm sure about that. As I already said, Flash has had a head start of essentially forever; surely it is between the most "mature" technologies in the current, everyday Web.
It's only a pity that for Flash "mature" only means "old", instead of "stable","reliable","safe", etc etc.

So, no surprise that HTML5 video is not as mature. As I said, it is not even finished, isn't it?

Judging by the benchmarks that have been carried out it would seem to be ideological.

Flash is by no means the most efficient thing in the world, but in real world scenarios it performs better than HTML5 video.

Can you please point to some "real world scenario" which would allow me to forget what I see everyday on my Mac?

Same thing for benchmarks, of course: do you have any link? Because part of my problems with the different browsers come from their behaviour with Flash content, so I would really like to see if things have gotten any better.

The really interesting question is: how would have Flash evolved if Apple/Jobs had not taken such an anti-Flash position? Would it still be as unusable on the Mac as it was?

 

[asdf542]

Yeah, I think they (oops, me too?) are winding you up a little bit. The original OCD poster was trying to be funny by his own statement. The kernel of truth is that you are putting a lot of energy into a complaint that most of us do not see as a big deal. I found the flash unistaller when I looked for it. Haven't seen/noticed it since. A preference pane would go unnoticed by me for the most part. I was just in sys prefs yesterday and I can't tell you what "other" pref panes are there crowding around the potential flash pane. Now, if somebody changed my wallpaper that would catch my notice. That is several orders of magnitude greater. Interesting that it seems comparable to you.

It would be a potentially marginal improvement, for me, if the prefs and uninstaller were combined. Though I would have to remember that the uninstaller was in the pref pane (or versa vise). So maybe a slight downgrade(!). This is why I think you have been off in your passionate condemnation of this implementation.

Seriously? Just lay off of this guy. He doesn't want the uninstaller or preference pane to be separate so that means he has OCD?

I agree with him, there's no reason Adobe should have them separate and if you do frequent your system preferences or utilities often then it CAN get annoying. As for forgetting the uninstaller, if anything people don't even know it exists in the utilities folder as it is so putting everything in one spot is a much better idea. Why everyone has such a hard time seeing his side of this is beyond me.

 

[JAT]

The really interesting question is: how would have Flash evolved if Apple/Jobs had not taken such an anti-Flash position? Would it still be as unusable on the Mac as it was?

Yes, it would be just as bad. Hell, it's only been what, 2 weeks since a usable non-beta version came out?

I'm not one to follow SJ himself, I just like the Mac OS. But in this case I fully agree with his grandstanding and bs he laid on Adobe. Flash has been so bad for so long, they needed something to kick their corporate pants.

 

[Mattie Num Nums]

Looks like everything is in working order around here. Carry on.