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Adobe Retracts Claim Suggesting Lion May Lack Support for Flash Hardware Acceleration
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I see a lot of talk about flash. Now I may have missed this so I apologize. What about Photoshop droplets not working? Droplets were still based on PPC code. Apple has been Intel for about 6 years now. Still using PPC for a 'current' product? That is inexcusable.
http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/907/cpsid_90706.html
http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/907/cpsid_90706.html
But Adobe is lazy, no one can deny that.
Seriously though, I love Adobe, and I've been a Photoshop user since before it had layers. But I can't help but feel that they've become a complacent and incompetent behemoth. How long has Flash performed poorly under Mac OS X? How long has Acrobat Reader been a pain to use? Why can't they fix the bugs and usability issues that existed for years in their professional applications? It's not too much to ask when their users are paying premium prices for their products.
Really? "clowns of the industry", I thought it was Microsoft, or was it Samsung, or Google, or does it simply depend on whatever thread you're currently viewing (non-Apple == clowns of the industry)?
I think you mean "couldn't care less"
I tend to agree.
Apple makes the user experience 'harder' for the average user to enjoy the computing experience.
Just like not supporting other video standards in QuickTime...with the user having to know what to do when they can't play a .avi file, a user has a sub standard experience when flash doesn't load.
I'm the first one to admit flash performance deserves ridicule and that the tablets just don't/can't interact the same with flash( can't mouse over, etc.) ... Just let them give us flash mobile already and worry about other things
Flash will slowly die in this new mobile/HTML 5 world anyways....
Flash on Android is completely optional. You know, the way it should be.
If that is your only reason to get an idea, it's not one of the best I've ever seen.
You are buying in to Adobes FUD. Hardware acceleration of Flash only came about in Flash 10, the previous 8 versions (and Future Splash) all performed worse than their Windows counterpart. The differences werent as readily apparent in versions 2-4, but once the complexity of Flash work started to explode with version 5 and the introduction of a more powerful scripting language we started to see the difference.
Having said that Apple hasnt made it easy, not necessarily blocking Adobe, but they have had to transition Flash Player from to OS X, then to Intel thats two pretty big lifts for a comparatively small team (Adobe has less than 100 employees per product, Apple has more than 500 non-retail employees per product).
Adobes problem right now is three-fold:
Flash isnt really an ideal format for mobile devices, Adobe is effectively hoping/waiting for the mobile CPU/GPU to reach a point where Flash is viable. Heres the thing when Macromedia owned Director and the web came along the paradigm of multimedia delivery shifted immensely. We went from limited storage and fast bandwidth (650MB on a CD-ROM) to unlimited storage and narrow bandwidth (The Internet and 56K modems). Macromedia tried to shoe-horn Director on the web, but it met with limited acceptance, because Director simply wasnt designed to work within the confines of the Internet. So they bough Future Splash which was ideally suited for Internet delivery, small, vector based instructions sets that could offload the heavy lifting to the CPU. Well mobile has changed all this again, the delivery platforms confines are now battery life and interaction model are the constraints. The sad part about all of this is they should have seen it coming. Ive worked with Flash on mobile devices for nearly 10 years and its always been a compromise.
Secondly they lack focus, they have too many products and too few employees to properly support them. They need to sell/spin-off 80% of their product library and basically support the main products of the CS suite (e.g. no fiddling with the minor apps like Bridge or Contribute - there are better solutions) and the Flash & Acrobat platform.
Flashs fate is outside of their control. It all depends on how the tablet market plays out. If it follows the iPod model where Apple effectively creates a market and goes on to dominate then Flash will go the way of Director. If it goes the way of the phone market and if they can get Flash running reasonably well across all phones but iOS its got a shot.
Ironically Google and Adobe could prove to be the ideal partners moving forward. Google desperately needs a designer-centric developer community for Android and the only one larger & arguably more creative than Apples is the Flash community. Best chance for Google is to deeply integrate Flash into Android at the hardware level and make an official Android/Flash Development environment.
Considering Apple doesn't have that many GPU configurations to begin with, they might have initially thought the problem was more widespread. Anyhow, it disproves what others alleged against them : Not testing on the beta versions. Which was obvious they did.
Google is much too busy and invested into HTML5 to do that. Google is very much about pushing the Web everywhere in a standard fashion in order to push their webapps into as many households and corporations as possible.
The only people that should be posting a public apologize is Adobe for posting misinfromation about a Apple product. How difficult would it have been for Adobe to actually find out the facts of the situation before releasing a statement like they did. There is a good reason why Apple does not jump to making statements about problems right away, they investigate first to understand the nature of the problem and what is the best course of action to solve the problem.
I don't like Adobe products for good reason, based on experience with the products. For one thing there installers and updaters are horrible. There flash player is a disaster piece of software.
I assume the GM was identical to the final version of Lion - does this mean Adobe didn't test with the GM?
Nothing's "obvious." They claimed to have tested against beta versions, but whether or not they started with the GM or the initial developer preview is a mystery.
I'd guess by this late discovery of (non) issues after Lion is already released, they probably started with the GM.
Could anyone find me the Adobe quote that suggests "Lion May Lack Support for Flash Hardware Acceleration"? One point mentioned a CPU usage issue could have been related to a (genuine) hardware issue.
It seems to me it's TUAW / Macrumors (and others) who have taken that statement and made it into a criticism of Apple.
Adobe is lazy, probably endemic to their company culture ever since Bruce Chizen left.
They've had the Lion developer preview for many months and their products still have major issues with Lion? Then they accuse Apple of breaking Flash hardware acceleration without doing a couple hours of basic testing, followed by a meek retraction?
They've had access for years to the iPhone, Android OS devices, etc. and still can't get Flash to work decently on handheld devices without massive battery drain? Years to stomp out bugs on the Mac Flash plug-in?
ADBE: 14.5B market cap
AAPL: 361.5B market cap
Adobe isn't doing a good job at increasing shareholder value.
Adobe is fundamentally lazy, not just in how they deal with the OS X or iOS platform, but basically with all platforms.
They've had the Lion developer preview for many months and their products still have major issues with Lion? Then they accuse Apple of breaking Flash hardware acceleration without doing a couple hours of basic testing, followed by a meek retraction?
They've had access for years to the iPhone, Android OS devices, etc. and still can't get Flash to work decently on handheld devices without massive battery drain? Years to stomp out bugs on the Mac Flash plug-in?
ADBE: 14.5B market cap
AAPL: 361.5B market cap
Adobe isn't doing a good job at increasing shareholder value.
Adobe is fundamentally lazy, not just in how they deal with the OS X or iOS platform, but basically with all platforms.
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This kind of thought process always kind of baffled me. It's well known that iOS never has had Flash, and likely never will. There are many tablets out there that do support Flash.
If you need Flash so badly, vote with your wallet and buy a different tablet that supports what you need it to do. Or jailbreak your iPad.
The whole "Apple doesn't give you choice" argument is kinda silly, when there are a ton of very capable alternatives out there, whether you're talking computers, phones, or tablets.
You're doing it again. Yes, it is obvious. If you've ever worked in software development, you'd know the Mac team at Adobe is probably the same kind of geeks we are and they would have started playing the with the DPs as soon as we did.
And since the issue was reported on "pre-release" versions and the statement is retracted, it can't have been a GM issue. That much is obvious, well, except to those who just want to bash Adobe.
Go on hating my friend. I hope you don't lose sleep over it.
You are free to buy a non-Apple mobile device if flash is that important to you. It has been proven over and over that flash is not well suited for mobile devices. I can see all the complaints now from people using flash on their Apple mobile devices. Apple is right not to open that can of worms.
Apple has the right to control how they produce, release and market what they build. What you think Apple *should* do will not change that. Both Google and Microsoft have shown the world that a uncontrolled, unrestricted OS is a disaster in the making.
You really have to be an Apple hater to excuse Adobe's behavior over the past two days.
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Why must it always be black and white here ? Why can't someone not be a hater at all ? You know, as in : Not hating Adobe, Not hating Apple.
Geez guys, this is not a "us vs them" thing.
Why must it always be black and white here ? Why can't someone not be a hater at all ? You know, as in : Not hating Adobe, Not hating Apple.
Geez guys, this is not a "us vs them" thing.
While I agree with this, I think it's pretty obvious there are a ton of Apple and Adobe haters here.
But then someone wouldn't be a fanboy would they?Why must it always be black and white here ? Why can't someone not be a hater at all ? You know, as in : Not hating Adobe, Not hating Apple.
Geez guys, this is not a "us vs them" thing.
What really gets me is people are reacting as if the post was "Flash blows up your computer if you run it on Lion." Good grief, they posted a retraction to a human error no less than a day after it was made. Perfectly reasonable.
I suppose nobody else on this forum has ever made a mistake or jumped to an incorrect conclusion before eh? Haters gotta hate I guess.
But then someone wouldn't be a fanboy would they?
What really gets me is people are reacting as if the post was "Flash blows up your computer if you run it on Lion." Good grief, they posted a retraction to a human error no less than a day after it was made. Perfectly reasonable.
I suppose nobody else on this forum has ever made a mistake or jumped to an incorrect conclusion before eh? Haters gotta hate I guess.
And let's face it, there was an issue, they did find a Mac configuration where the hardware acceleration wasn't working as intended in the Betas. It's not like it was a completely non-existent issue. The internal Q&A guy that reported it just goofed on the scope of it.
Now everything is cleared up and anyone that got worked up over it just lost a good night sleeps over a total non-issue. This is why you need to learn patience with these things. In the end, we'll find out what is going on. No OS upgrade is ever 100% trouble free (thank god I'm waiting for August and the USB version of Lion).