Flash Player Performance on Droid 2 Found to Be Hit-or-Miss at Best

[dernhelm]

Seems slow on the uptake

So what we are seeing here is the realization that most Flash games on the web are not designed with multi-touch input in mind, so you couldn't play them well on a multi-touch device no matter how fast it is?

Well - duh. Who didn't already know that?

And we also see people measuring that Flash is slow on non-windows, non-x86 platforms? Like Mac users haven't been experiencing that for the last 5 years.

And finally we learn that people will end up needing to transcode their video for optimal performance on mobile devices. There's a strike of genius - again, anyone in the industry could've had told you that.

If you have a web site with a lot of video content coded into FLV containers and you want it to work on mobile devices well, then you have two options: 1) wait until the mobile devices get fast enough to play it in it's current state, or 2) transcode it into a codec optimized for mobile devices (apparently, with Flash 10.1 you can leave it in FLV containers, but why?).

What I don't get is how this is news. We knew all this. The problem people had with Apple's stance on Flash has nothing to do with how much sense it makes trying to develop Flash applications for mobile devices, or playing crummy Flash games on your iPod. It has everything to do with people scathing about living in Apple's "walled garden". They want to run Flash for one reason - because Apple told them that they won't support it. If Apple did support it, and the experience was awful (which is would be), these same idiots would be ranting about Apple's lack of support for Adobe, and how they are trying to kill Flash insidiously.

The only newsworthy thing about this article is that apparently someone else in the industry actually agrees with Jobs about something.

 

[steviem]

Why is that? This number tells are two stories:

1. How reliable PCs are. Vista was released in 2006 so we have a lot of PCs that are more than 4 years old but still run strong. I am not sure Macs have the same claim.
2. Most of the PCs still running Windows XP are enterprise PCs. Big companies can not witch OSes as fast as consumers do because they have huge application base that requires a lot of time to port to new OS.

I sold an original mac mini in may of this year for a bit over £100. It cost me £360 (or £380) 5 years ago and let me tell you, it still ran Tiger really nicely. Better than the 1 year old PC I had at the time ran XP.

People still use old G4 powermacs and they are over 5 years old. How much would a 5 year old pc get you if you were to sell it today?

 

[Žalgiris]

I don't think you understood single word I said there

No one did. Nothing out of the ordinary though...

 

[dernhelm]

People still use old G4 powermacs and they are over 5 years old. How much would a 5 year old pc get you if you were to sell it today?

That's me. Running Leopard on a 17" Powerbook G4. I've owned it since Feb 2005. Still does everything my wife and kids need it for and works great. I've never owned a windows based laptop that lasted longer than 3 years before it was ready for the scrap heap.

 

[ranReloaded]

The Secret to Thread Success (in terms of reply count):

Mix a dose of Controversial Topic (say, Flash on iDevices) and Posting the thread on a Friday (Giving it three full days of exclusive front-page exposure)... And you're set!

 

[shadygrove]

That's me. Running Leopard on a 17" Powerbook G4. I've owned it since Feb 2005. Still does everything my wife and kids need it for and works great. I've never owned a windows based laptop that lasted longer than 3 years before it was ready for the scrap heap.

I did that until April when the new of the mbp were announced. I also used a Mac Mini 2Ghz Intel at work, and thought I was getting by...then I got the new one and now suddenly the old machine "feel" like they don't work. Internet is super slow to load pages (in comparison), apps take seconds to load, and hulu routinely crashed the system... God love those PowerBooks though. Those were the best machine I ever bought until the new MBP.

 

[Kevin Winsness]

Follow the leader

Look, who would EVER want to go against Steve Jobs suggestions?? The guy is spot on 98% of the time!!

 

[nixiemaiden]

Sweet! I can't wait until html5 can replace popcap games!

 

[darthraige]

I don't get it. I guess it's just luck of the draw? I got the first generation Motorola Droid, only because Verizon is more superior than ATT in my area. Can't wait for the day iPhone hits Verizon, if that'll ever happen.

Anyway, Flash on my rooted Droid is not an issue. It streams just fine. Hulu, Fancast, no lags, nothing. Flash is kinda overrated, but it works on my end. Weird.

 

[MorphingDragon]

I don't get it. I guess it's just luck of the draw? I got the first generation Motorola Droid, only because Verizon is more superior than ATT in my area. Can't wait for the day iPhone hits Verizon, if that'll ever happen.

Anyway, Flash on my rooted Droid is not an issue. It streams just fine. Hulu, Fancast, no lags, nothing. Flash is kinda overrated, but it works on my end. Weird.

Try playing on eof the videos over at www.escapistmagazine.com

 

[gorgeousninja]

Look, who would EVER want to go against Steve Jobs suggestions?? The guy is spot on 98% of the time!!

Not sure that I wouldn't ever go against Steve Jobs, but he is right so often, and it's irritating that there are still some people who think they actually know more about Apple than the guy who started it, runs it, saved it from collapse, and who's vision has made it the most innovative tech company in the world.... rude about it too as well! Half of me feels sad for them, the other half would like to see them publicly named, shamed, dragged through noxious slurry pits and rodgered by baboons... same with the d***s that, regardless of topic, negatively rate every single article on here...

 

[Reed Rothchild]

Try playing on eof the videos over at www.escapistmagazine.com

Site works absolutely fine on my nexus one. All videos play in window or full screen. Is there a known issue with this site and Flash on Android devices or something?

 

[MorphingDragon]

Site works absolutely fine on my nexus one. All videos play in window or full screen. Is there a known issue with this site and Flash on Android devices or something?

No, my N1 lags like hell.

I even did the equivalent to a restore for an Android Phone and it didn't help.

 

[Kidniki]

Flash is here to stay whether you want it to or not. Its a big part of Adobe's revenue stream so its not like they aren't going to continue to adapt and evolve the product. Poor performance is usually attributable to AS2 written stuff or people who just dont know how to code. Flash is a great product that has had a pretty big hand in making the web what it is today. As developers take mobile devices into account, now that it is becoming widely more accessible; sites will become even better.

As for video, HTML5 has such a long way to go to catch up with Flash its not even funny.

Apple didn't want Flash on their devices for three reasons. 1: Because half the stuff in the App store is nothing more than a port of a Flash game or something similar, Apple wanted to make money off of that.

2: Ads, Apple wanted to make money off of that as well so no Flash Ads.

3. Contrary to popular belief Flash is open, well at least the coding aspect of it is. Where as the iPhone dev kit is not! Apple again wanted money, who blames them though.

I would love to see what the Cartoon Networks development pipeline looks like for their Adult Swim, Flash games that end up as Aps on iTunes.


Anyway, stop hating just because you don't have Flash on your iOS devices. It works really well on Android and will only get better in the near future!

 

[DrFreeman]

Flash is here to stay whether you want it to or not. Its a big part of Adobe's revenue stream so its not like they aren't going to continue to adapt and evolve the product. Poor performance is usually attributable to AS2 written stuff or people who just dont know how to code. Flash is a great product that has had a pretty big hand in making the web what it is today. As developers take mobile devices into account, now that it is becoming widely more accessible; sites will become even better.

As for video, HTML5 has such a long way to go to catch up with Flash its not even funny.

Apple didn't want Flash on their devices for three reasons. 1: Because half the stuff in the App store is nothing more than a port of a Flash game or something similar, Apple wanted to make money off of that.

2: Ads, Apple wanted to make money off of that as well so no Flash Ads.

3. Contrary to popular belief Flash is open, well at least the coding aspect of it is. Where as the iPhone dev kit is not! Apple again wanted money, who blames them though.

I would love to see what the Cartoon Networks development pipeline looks like for their Adult Swim, Flash games that end up as Aps on iTunes.


Anyway, stop hating just because you don't have Flash on your iOS devices. It works really well on Android and will only get better in the near future!

There are 626 posts before yours. Read them before posting comments like FLASH is open etc!

 

[morespce54]

...The only reason someone in the Apple community should really care that another phone's flash performance is not up to par (whatever that may be), is to put down the device to make yourself feel better about your own phone.

Maybe we shouldn't care about other phone's flash performance but we DO care about flash performance as a whole... My desktop browsers (Safari, Chrome and even FF) keep crashing on Flash since 10.0 And 10.1 didn't help much...

So I do care about Flash performance overall...

 

[Kidniki]

There are 626 posts before yours. Read them before posting comments like FLASH is open etc!

Wait, what?

http://opensource.adobe.com/wiki/display/flexsdk/Download+Flex+3

The top of the page even says "Open Source"? Yeah, all you need to develop good Flash Content is FlashDevelop, the Open Source Libraries, and a few AS3/Flex programming books. Its MUCH more open than anything on the iOS.

 

[MorphingDragon]

Wait, what?

http://opensource.adobe.com/wiki/display/flexsdk/Download+Flex+3

The top of the page even says "Open Source"? Yeah, all you need to develop good Flash Content is FlashDevelop, the Open Source Libraries, and a few AS3/Flex programming books. Its MUCH more open than anything on the iOS.

Flex is an SDK for flash. The flash player (The thing that opens the .swf files) itself is closed.

Closed upon open or open upon closed. Whats more open?

And this website is pleased to meet your acquaintance:
http://opensource.apple.com/

 

[deannnnn]

Wait, what?

http://opensource.adobe.com/wiki/display/flexsdk/Download+Flex+3

The top of the page even says "Open Source"? Yeah, all you need to develop good Flash Content is FlashDevelop, the Open Source Libraries, and a few AS3/Flex programming books. Its MUCH more open than anything on the iOS.

Woops! Looks like you accidentally posted on the wrong site. Happens to the best of us. Here you go: http://forums.adobe.com/community/flash

 

[Kidniki]

Woops! Looks like you accidentally posted on the wrong site. Happens to the best of us. Here you go: http://forums.adobe.com/community/flash

Actually I didn't. Just trying to educate you all. Too much FUD here! For whatever reason most of the posters on this site only like Apple products that have been blessed by the almighty Jobs. It makes no sense to hate on stuff like Flash.

 

[Kidniki]

Flex is an SDK for flash. The flash player itself is closed.

Closed upon open or open upon closed. Whats more open?

And this website is pleased to meet your acquaintance:
http://opensource.apple.com/

Ho can something like this exist if its closed?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swfdec

 

[MorphingDragon]

Ho can something like this exist if its closed?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swfdec

There is a free implementation of the NTFS kernel too. Does that make windows open?

Alternatively, alternatively, if Cocoa is closed how can something like THIS EXIST?
http://www.cocotron.org/

---

Oh, and come back when SWFDEC can play all flash content.

 

[Kidniki]

There is a free implementation of the NTFS kernel too. Does that make windows open?

Alternatively, alternatively, if Cocoa is closed how can something like THIS EXIST?
http://www.cocotron.org/

---

Oh, and come back when SWFDEC can play all flash content.

I find it funny how you all are so fixated with the whole "open not open" argument but decided not to even address the fact that Flash is and will be a major player on the net for years to come.

 

[MorphingDragon]

I find it funny how you all are so fixated with the whole "open not open" argument but decided not to even address the fact that Flash is and will be a major player on the net for years to come.

I find it funny that you resort to a red herring.

I'm fixated on the open/closed thing because guess what? Thats the argument.

---

You really want to change the argument?

Then HTML4, Silverlight, HTML5, Java, Python, PHP, ASP.NET will be major players on the net to come too.

 

[ten-oak-druid]

Flash is here to stay whether you want it to or not. Its a big part of Adobe's revenue stream so its not like they aren't going to continue to adapt and evolve the product. Poor performance is usually attributable to AS2 written stuff or people who just dont know how to code. Flash is a great product that has had a pretty big hand in making the web what it is today. As developers take mobile devices into account, now that it is becoming widely more accessible; sites will become even better.

As for video, HTML5 has such a long way to go to catch up with Flash its not even funny.

Apple didn't want Flash on their devices for three reasons. 1: Because half the stuff in the App store is nothing more than a port of a Flash game or something similar, Apple wanted to make money off of that.

2: Ads, Apple wanted to make money off of that as well so no Flash Ads.

3. Contrary to popular belief Flash is open, well at least the coding aspect of it is. Where as the iPhone dev kit is not! Apple again wanted money, who blames them though.

I would love to see what the Cartoon Networks development pipeline looks like for their Adult Swim, Flash games that end up as Aps on iTunes.


Anyway, stop hating just because you don't have Flash on your iOS devices. It works really well on Android and will only get better in the near future!

Flash as it is will go away.

Its up to Adobe whether it will be revised to work properly or not.