New MacBook Air Doesn't Ship with Adobe Flash

[charlituna]

Thats easy, because Apple builds its own Java and doesn't let the real developers that make java do it.

That was true about 48 hours ago but not now. Apple has released the last version of their runtime and officially announced that further updates are in the hands of the actual developers.

For the same reason that they didn't include Flash. To make folks go to the source to get the most recent version of either. For purposes of better functioning, security etc.

 

[Carniphage]

Well, if you actually followed the conversation thread, it was about whether or not Flash was left out in order to make the battery tests look better.

Obviously that would depend on what are the "25 popular websites" they test with.

Apparently the tests were conducted with Flash installed. Even though installing Flash on a laptop the equivalent of installing a hole in a rowing-boat.

C.

 

[John.B]

Apparently the tests were conducted with Flash installed. Even though installing Flash on a laptop the equivalent of installing a hole in a rowing-boat.

Exactly.

Gruber confirmed with Apple that Flash was installed and used as part of the more aggressive battery-rundown tests used in the updated MBA models.

When I first saw the news that the new Airs are shipping without Flash, it occurred to me this might account for some of their striking gains over the previous models in battery life. However, Apple told me that their “wireless productivity” battery life test was performed with Flash Player installed on the new MacBook Air models.

Link: http://df4.us/gf4 (http://daringfireball.net/2010/10/apple_no_longer_bundling_flash_with_mac_os_x)

So the tinfoil hat crowd will need to work out another conspiracy theory...

 

[redgaz26]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8B117 Safari/6531.22.7)

Example... Someone buys a new mac(and doesn't have a clue what flash is) in the uk. The BBC website is one of there fav websites. Loads of news in video. After a day or two they notice none of the videos work !!!
How confused will they be?????
Seems really stupid of apple.
Maybe they'll be an app for that...

 

[kdarling]

Gruber confirmed with Apple that Flash was installed and used as part of the more aggressive battery-rundown tests used in the updated MBA models.

Cool. So Jobs was wrong about Flash running down batteries?

As a side note, I was playing around the other day on a Flash site using Android, and was watching the battery drop a bit.

Then I got bored and fired up Angry Birds. Whoa! Now THAT dropped my battery quickly. But both uses of battery were worth it to me, and that's all that matters.

 

[lPHONE]

Last night I tried to watch a new music video on some bands website and it kept skipping every 15 seconds or so- it was so distracting. I finally gave up and I thought to myself: "Wow, Steve was right about Flash... It really does suck"

I have a 2.5GHz MacBook Pro with 6GB ram... What's the problem? Flash is the problem. It sucks.

 

[John.B]

Cool. So Jobs was wrong about Flash running down batteries?

Seriously, dude, did you just pull that out of your arse? Do you just make stuff up as you go?

Re-read what I linked to. For the purpose of the new, more rigorous battery-rundown test suite, Apple deliberately installed Flash, included Flash-based websites in their test, and still get 5 or 7 seven hours from the new 11" and 13" MBAs (respectively). That speaks to how well the latest Air models handle power management in what even you'd have to admit would be "real world" conditions. (Sorry, I know that's gotta suck for you and your tinfoil hat crowd...)

Show us one Windows or Linux laptop of a similar build (size, components, processor speed, GPU, etc.) that can come anywhere near what Apple laptops routinely do with power management and battery life.

As a side note, I was playing around the other day on a Flash site using Android, and was watching the battery drop a bit.

Then I got bored and fired up Angry Birds. Whoa! Now THAT dropped my battery quickly. But both uses of battery were worth it to me, and that's all that matters.

What does how efficiently Rovio can (or can't) code an Android app have to do with the MBA? Do you even know that you are talking about different platforms?

Example... Someone buys a new mac(and doesn't have a clue what flash is) in the uk. The BBC website is one of there fav websites. Loads of news in video. After a day or two they notice none of the videos work !!!
How confused will they be?????
Seems really stupid of apple.
Maybe they'll be an app for that...

So how do you square that around the fact that a lot of Windows laptops also ship without Adobe Flash installed?

EDIT: Any why isn't that a problem the BBC should be responsible for? If the BBC website is dependent on Adobe Flash, then the BBC should take responsibility to help their users (e.g. the UK taxpayers) install and validate that the necessary components their service requires are installed (and, hopefully, that they get updated as security patches are released).

This is no different from any other application that requires Shockwave or Silverlight or a specific version of the .Net framework or any other plug-in or helper they depend on. It's the downside to implementing shared libraries and it's been an issue for a long, long time (do a search on "DLL Hell")...



What color is the sky in the world you guys live in?

 

[charlituna]

Call me simple, But i am new to OSX. Ive been using Windows for years and took Flash for grant it. There is nothing i had to change or install on my MBP.

Up until this new Macbook Air, Flash was pre-installed on all Macs, including yours.

Starting with this new laptop and moving forward they are not pre-installing Flash. Not installing it means that users will go to Adobe to get it and thus always get the newest version. Which didn't always happen before. And if the pre-installed version had a bug, that is a bad place to be (not everyone is savvy enough to think of going and updating all software right away when they first turn on the computer)

Nice going Apple.

They narrowly avoided getting sued by the Department of Justice Antitrust Division and European Commission antitrust authorities over the developer limitations for iOS 4.0;
Apple could get these lawsuits revived very quickly if we find out that what they did with the new MacBook Air in regards to Adobe Flash also applies to future MacBook, MacBook Pro, iMac and Mac Pro hardware updates.

Wow, what a totally idiotic statement. Nice to see you have some advanced reading skills at work here.

Apple has not blocked the use of Flash on the Macbook Air. And it is hardly an antitrust issue that they didn't pre-install it. They are trying to prevent another disaster like the release of Snow Leopard with an outdated version of Flash that also had a major security hole in it. Also, not everyone wants Flash installed on their systems. So now it won't be installed without their consent and if the user does install it won't be a version that was superceded 3 months ago. So where's the issue.

 

[Epsilon88]

No harm. I don't generally encounter Flash anyway.

 

[Carniphage]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8B117 Safari/6531.22.7)

Example... Someone buys a new mac(and doesn't have a clue what flash is) in the uk. The BBC website is one of there fav websites. Loads of news in video. After a day or two they notice none of the videos work !!!
How confused will they be?????
Seems really stupid of apple.
Maybe they'll be an app for that...

Perhaps they will turn to Windows.
Oh but Windows does not come with Flash installed either.

Doesn't Flash have a EULA?

C.

 

[Lara F]

Well, let's go back, rewind. Remember how video streaming is owned by Real Player and Windows Media? At that time, Flash was just for vector based simple animations. People were thinking there's no way you would use Flash to stream videos, let alone games/apps. Technology evolved, paradigm shifted, and we're here now. Technology will evolve too with HTML5. It's the nature of progression.

I agree it'll happen, but the anti-flash attitude from Apple bugs me for exactly what you said. I got my first Mac, a G5 iMac in 2005 and at that time it sucked for online videos. I'd moved from Canada and couldn't watch CTV News for example since it required the latest version of Windows Media Player which was no longer developed for Macs. Channel 4 On Demand in the UK only became Mac compatible just last year IIRC. It's thanks to Flash that we got web parity in the first place, and do you think people would be as willing to switch from PCs if they couldn't get the same experience?

I know it's not perfect and Adobe probably did drag their feet more than they should have. But I still can't help finding it ungrateful on the part of Apple.

 

[twoodcc]

i can see how this looks like apple doesn't want you to have flash on your computer. instead, they just don't want to have to deal with porting anything, or upgrading users themselves. so if you want flash, you just install it yourself. this way you get the latest version

 

[John.B]

Call me simple, But i am new to OSX. Ive been using Windows for years and took Flash for grant it. There is nothing i had to change or install on my MBP. Right out of the box, I was able to use Youtube and Camarades (Both Flash oriented). Is there something im missing? Im not a flash fanboy, But some websites use flash. Half the time you dont even know its flash. You just assume its part of the website and dont think twice about it.

You know that a lot of Windows PCs also ship without Flash installed?

Either way, if it's not installed, you just go install it.

The other issue is whether the version of Flash that came preinstalled (PC or Mac) has vulnerabilities that were fixed in a later patch that you don't know about.

As awful as the Adobe installer is (and I'm being kind), the one upside is that it can notify you if there are updates available for the version of Flash you have installed. Not all PCs with pre-installed Flash are setup that way (it's manufacturer dependent).

 

[MacKeeper-fan]

Yup, this is common sense - last time they shipped with the flash player installed, it was already out of date. If the software back-up is on a 'stick' then you only want the bear essentials - no point re-installing out of date software each time you reformat your Mac that isn't automatically bought up to date via software update.

For the record Silverlight, Shockwave and Flip4Mac are also not preinstalled - if you want third party software, go install it. Simples