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Adobe to End New Installs of Flash on Android as of August 15
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Here is what I don't understand.
Flash used to be considered great, and it grew over the years together with computing power.
Like anything Windows, OSX and even iOS as we are finding now, as time goes on and software gets more advanced it runs alongside the hardware that gets more powerful.
So as all of us realise software of today, needs hardware of today, and it's been this was sine the very 1st computers in the late 1970's
It's obvious and natural that both software and hardware keep together as technology (speed) moves forward.
So, years later, we have Flash that does great things and runs fine on computers of the day
(let's leave out the issue with Apple not wanting to let Adobe access to hardware acceleration as that's another argument about Flash not running as well as it does on PC's)
So, there we were, hardware and software balanced and working well, like most software does.
Then along comes companies, Apple included that say, Hey, we are launching this new LOW COMPUTING POWER device.
Which is fine, and they can code specifically for the low power these battery devices can only offer at the time.
But then, all of a sudden it's now Adobe's fault that something evolved to run on high powered computers, can't run on something with a fraction of the power.
That's crazy isn't it?
I mean, it's like saying OSX is a piece of bloated slow junk as it won't run on a iMac built 20 years earlier with a fraction of the power.
Flash was never designed or grew to run on low power machines it grew to run well and offer great things to computers it was coded for, which advanced in time.
Or to look at it another way, let's move forward 10 or 20 years, and THEN we will have in our hands, say a mobile phone or tablet that will have the same CPU and GPU power as the very top end iMac or PC Today.
So, THEN if you take Flash of TODAY and run it on that future hardware that has the same POWER as TODAY, then of course Flash will run perfect on it.
It seems bizarre
Flash used to be considered great, and it grew over the years together with computing power.
Like anything Windows, OSX and even iOS as we are finding now, as time goes on and software gets more advanced it runs alongside the hardware that gets more powerful.
So as all of us realise software of today, needs hardware of today, and it's been this was sine the very 1st computers in the late 1970's
It's obvious and natural that both software and hardware keep together as technology (speed) moves forward.
So, years later, we have Flash that does great things and runs fine on computers of the day
(let's leave out the issue with Apple not wanting to let Adobe access to hardware acceleration as that's another argument about Flash not running as well as it does on PC's)
So, there we were, hardware and software balanced and working well, like most software does.
Then along comes companies, Apple included that say, Hey, we are launching this new LOW COMPUTING POWER device.
Which is fine, and they can code specifically for the low power these battery devices can only offer at the time.
But then, all of a sudden it's now Adobe's fault that something evolved to run on high powered computers, can't run on something with a fraction of the power.
That's crazy isn't it?
I mean, it's like saying OSX is a piece of bloated slow junk as it won't run on a iMac built 20 years earlier with a fraction of the power.
Flash was never designed or grew to run on low power machines it grew to run well and offer great things to computers it was coded for, which advanced in time.
Or to look at it another way, let's move forward 10 or 20 years, and THEN we will have in our hands, say a mobile phone or tablet that will have the same CPU and GPU power as the very top end iMac or PC Today.
So, THEN if you take Flash of TODAY and run it on that future hardware that has the same POWER as TODAY, then of course Flash will run perfect on it.
It seems bizarre
Um, yes. It is absolutely Adobe's fault they can't make Flash work properly on mobile devices. Who else would be responsible for Flash's abilities? You? Me? Jared from Subway?
I'm not so sure you are correct about the power requirements, today's phone/tab cpus are plenty powerful. But regardless, they didn't address mouse-over. At all. Not even a little bit. Meanwhile, other mouse-over works. Go to woot.com, their mouse-over stuff works on my phone. There are many problems with Flash, like crappy devs.
And frankly, Adobe seems to think they screwed up. Why don't you?
Ok.
So you work for me, and You are my software writer, over the time we work together, 10 years, I keep giving you faster and faster hardware and you continually work on and enhance your software as I pass the new hardware onto you.
All is happy between us, and your software you write for me always works great and the hardware.
Now, I spring a surprise on you, and give you some new hardware that runs as slow as the hardware I gave you 10 years ago, and say to you. I demand you change your software now to run as good and as advanced as it does TODAY on the same hardware we were using 10 years ago.
As a software engineer you look at me like some idiot boss, dumb ass you think, of course this won't work, we've both moved on from that old tech we were using 10 years or more ago. Of course we can't make software of today run on 10+ year old systems as well as it runs today on cutting edge hardware.
So I just look at you, call you a useless programmer as you can't perform a miracle and perhaps fire you.
Who is the jerk here, You for doing your job well and as expected as time move on, or me for expecting the impossible from you?
Whether flash is good or bad on a mobile phone is irrelevant. That's all I know that there are many sites that I want to watch a video on and I can't because my stupid iPhone doesn't have flash. That's a fact. I want to watch it and I can't. Period. End of story. Until the entire web converts, these anti-flash arguments are ridiculous. Anything is better than nothing. 
I'm not a programming expert, so I find it difficult to analyze the possibility. However, it is evident that our 'crappy' phones and tabs can handle video, including codecs far beyond (in bandwidth, power consumption) what was available to the masses in 1996. So...I'm not sure why Flash can't handle crappy 320 line video on a phone.
I am in accounting, and companies, FASB, and the IRS spring s*** on us all the time. And if we don't keep up, White Castle needs people to make burgers.
The alternative is to say we can't do it and move on to something else. Which is what Adobe did. Apple said it first, Adobe went an extra year attempting it. But frankly, I don't see that they did much. Other than finally making an OSX version that works decently. (first time in 15 years)
I hear what you are saying, but I feel there is much more to this behind the scenes than we as normal people understand.
It's well known there were personal issues, which should not come into business between Jobs and Adobe.
It's also well known that Adobe did not have access to, I think I'm right in saying, certain key aspects of graphics hardware acceleration in Apple computers until very late, which meant Flash could never work as well as it did/does on computers running Windows.
Also remember please that flash was never build to be a video playback piece of software, it just happened that is was one of the "things on the side" it also did, and it just happened to become a easy standard was to present video over the years.
I have no doubt, and I'm sure many would agree that if Apple and Adobe acted the way they should of done and worked together, as opposed to almost fighting, to perhaps re-do Flash from the ground up, then we could be in the scenario where it ran superbly.
But history and issues mean that such a collaboration between the two companies was never going to happen.
Plus of course, we have to throw in the mix also that Apple, esp in the beginning naturally would much rather you buy an entertainment app from the app score where they can make money from you, than for you to play some online flash game as many children did/do on their home computers.
There is a LOT more to it, than just "Adobe are Idiots and Flash Sucks" which seems to be the sad dumb statement a few have on these forums.
Whether flash is good or bad on a mobile phone is irrelevant. That's all I know that there are many sites that I want to watch a video on and I can't because my stupid iPhone doesn't have flash. That's a fact. I want to watch it and I can't. Period. End of story. Until the entire web converts, these anti-flash arguments are ridiculous. Anything is better than nothing.
Actually, what's stupid is not the iPhone, what's stupid are:
1) websites which are relying on Flash to deliver video to phones in 2012
2) people who buy something which has never run Flash since its inception and then whining about it
All that aside, I'm glad we have some experts in the management of software and hardware development weighing in, I had no idea how bosses handed things off to software writers, amazing.
More than a year ago, several former Adobe Flash devs were quoted stating the company had long ignored their warnings of the public's growing shift to mobile and allowed the software languish on the vine. Whatever grudges existed between Apple and Adobe, I agree that blame falls firmly at the feet of Adobe.
I think Piggie is neglecting the fact that there were more players than just Apple and Adobe in Flash's demise in mobile. If Adobe had made a compelling enough execution on one of the other numerous mobile platforms, Apple would have had to eventually capitulate as the Internet clung to Flash as the default video streaming standard. Instead, Flash implementations couldn't avoid a hit to battery life, stability, or overcome its reliance on a mouse on any mobile OS.
P.S. "Jared from Subway?" That made me LOL, as did the later White Castle quip.
Seems that Flash was good, when Steve wanted to show it as being good:
http://youtu.be/xAVUf6rMsrU
Interesting.
http://youtu.be/xAVUf6rMsrU
Interesting.
Anyone else find it bizarre that the (ostensibly) free and open crowd advocate Flash which offers DRM while the proprietary "walled garden" types want HTML5 which doesn't? Welcome to Bizarro World.
Anyway, like others have already said, there's no protection that Flash offers that can't be sidestepped one way or the other. Given that screen recording software has advanced to the point where you can create high-quality video captures, it's almost irrelevant. It's like the new version of the analog hole. There's no "protected" format on the Internet, regardless of Flash offering delusions to the contrary.
It was only dropped from iOS, not from the Mac altogether.
And seems he was right about it not working properly on touchscreen devices,
why else would Adobe give up on it?
Black and white television had it's time, so did silent movies, and now Flash for
mobile devices joins the list.
That's fine, but colour TV's could also play back black and white content.
Let's hope we get a replacement for flash that can play back old flash content then. Yes ?
I don't know if you're referring to me specifically, but I'm advocating what works best for the most people.
Apple's decision to not include Flash was clearly based on a belief that they could manage without it in the long term and their market share allowed them to have an impact on the market by doing that. They know that their platform has sufficient pull with users and developers to get away with two approaches:
1) HTML5 Video in the proprietary h.264 format for video that doesn't need to be protected
2) Apps for video sources that need protection (like Netflix)
Other platforms aren't big enough or can't support those concepts for legal reasons.
Android is big enough for users to be (reasonably) covered, but then there are so many others out there, not just on mobile.
Apple likes to say that it supports an open standard (HTML5 video), but they know that:
a) They only support a single codec that they benefit from financially and that is patent encumbered
b) It does not support DRM
In reality, that means that the "open standard" isn't all that useful or open.
This may all be true, but the fact remains - a lot of content will not be offered in any format that doesn't provide DRM that meets the standards of the content provider.
Arguing about DRM here doesn't magically mean that Netflix works on Linux.
No what's stupid is people lik you who simply refuse to accept that whatever THEY think, flash is out there and will be out there for a LONG time. As for buying something that will never run flash, well of couse flash is a somewhat minor consideration in buying a phone, although a real irritant. I did just pre-order a Samsung Galaxy S3 though to get off the iPhone cycle. Not because of flash but rather 100 other reasons.
Actually, my point isn't affected by whether Flash content will be around for a long time. Also, since you grant that Flash is 'of course' a minor consideration for buying a phone, I'm sure you agree there is little incentive for Apple to accommodate it.
I hate flash on my PC ... there are so many updates that dont fix anything and just mess it up more.
If I am to assume you have a reasonably powerful modern Mac computer.
Why do you think Flash runs as smooth as silk with very little CPU loading on my PC I put together myself and terribly on your Mac machine?
As I said in a previous post, a 1080p YouTube video running at full screen 1920x1080 is using between 1% and 2% of my CPU.
Would you consider that bad? I don't think you would do.
If you like, I'm happy to run a .swf vector Flash animation full screen, full res 1920x1080 later tonight and report back the CPU loading for this type of file also.
Hi Kyrra...don't know if you have tried out Android or not, but here is my take when I tried to change to the HTC One X last week:
PROS
Camera was SMOKING fast.
Screen was really sharp, on par with the Retina display on my iPhone 4.
CONS
Email was a chore to set up compared to Mail on the iOS.
App store isn't as "clean" to search through.
Visual voice mail is an additional app that needs to be downloaded and set up, also not as "clean" as iOS.
When listening to music, sound quality was not up to par with the iPhone. Guessing this is more hardware related, but the HTC has Beats built in so I thought the sound would be better than it was.
Overall user experience seemed clunky when compared to the iOS, and the One X has ICS.
For me, the open source really didn't matter. I don't care what my wallpaper is, or if my screen displays the current weather. I prefer the iOS ecosystem. Of course, this is just my opinion. I was trying to be open about the change, but I only had the phone for 24 hours and it went back. Hopefully the iPhone 5 will get here soon so I can enjoy a larger screen and faster camera. I suppose that is what 5 years of using an iPhone will do to you.
PROS
Camera was SMOKING fast.
Screen was really sharp, on par with the Retina display on my iPhone 4.
CONS
Email was a chore to set up compared to Mail on the iOS.
App store isn't as "clean" to search through.
Visual voice mail is an additional app that needs to be downloaded and set up, also not as "clean" as iOS.
When listening to music, sound quality was not up to par with the iPhone. Guessing this is more hardware related, but the HTC has Beats built in so I thought the sound would be better than it was.
Overall user experience seemed clunky when compared to the iOS, and the One X has ICS.
For me, the open source really didn't matter. I don't care what my wallpaper is, or if my screen displays the current weather. I prefer the iOS ecosystem. Of course, this is just my opinion. I was trying to be open about the change, but I only had the phone for 24 hours and it went back. Hopefully the iPhone 5 will get here soon so I can enjoy a larger screen and faster camera. I suppose that is what 5 years of using an iPhone will do to you.
In related news: "Just days after Adobe announced they will no longer support Flash on mobile devices, today they announced they will be reviving the once highly popular HyperCard. Since it was originally created by Apple, they expect quick approval by Apple."
As a follow up as I promised, just as a test.
I ran this funny vector animation with catchy music .swf flash file, and selected full screen 1920x1080p
http://www.weebls-stuff.com/songs/Baby+Baboon/
Watching my CPU loading on my task manager, on my second attached screen, I'd say it averaged at approx 12% loading during playback of this music/animation at full screen.
What is the CPU loading on a Mac playing this back full screen 1920x1080 then?
I ran this funny vector animation with catchy music .swf flash file, and selected full screen 1920x1080p
http://www.weebls-stuff.com/songs/Baby+Baboon/
Watching my CPU loading on my task manager, on my second attached screen, I'd say it averaged at approx 12% loading during playback of this music/animation at full screen.
What is the CPU loading on a Mac playing this back full screen 1920x1080 then?
Don't really have a dog in this fight, but just a few random comments:
- Adobe didn't create Flash. They inherited it when they bought Macromedia.
- HTML had the same problem as Flash when touchscreens came out: most web/Flash apps didn't understand touch. HTML was often worse because it would pop-up a context menu to save a button image, instead of noticing a long press to fire your weapon
- Mobile Flash works pretty well these days. I'll be sorry if newer phones don't support it, simply because I often run across sites that still use it.
- Flash fulfilled a need for a rich cross-system app player. I'm all for replacing it with something like HTML5, but current browser implementations still have a way to go. HTML5 can be just as CPU intensive as Flash
I think I ought to stop you right there.
Vector Animation is rarely GPU accelerated.
In terms of Flash Player, it's hard to say how it was written by the developer.