

IPhone Flash prototype got 30 min battery life - martingordon
http://adobegripes.tumblr.com/post/231806385/adobe-gets-bitchy-over-the-iphone-and-flash-bit

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X0nic
For 90% of the sites that I visit, I would prefer no flash. Not to mention the
battery, last thing I want is flash chewing through my battery for flash that
I dont even want to see. I wouldnt mind the ability to click on a flash movie
that isnt youtube, and have it launch a player.

~~~
yumraj
<sarcasm> \- I guess since it's on the Internet it must be true. \- All the
other smartphones which have Flash must have 30 min battery life. \- Apple is
saint and Adobe is evil. \- iPhone is such an open platform. </sarcasm>

~~~
kwantam
Agreed, this "story" smells fishy. How is it that flash works acceptably on
other platforms but not the iPhone?

A much more likely explanation is the one everyone has been assuming, viz.,
Apple doesn't want any code they haven't approved running on the phone,
period.

~~~
veemjeem
Flash doesn't run "acceptably" on OSX or Linux. It uses around 30% of my cpu
on either platform, compared to using only 3% of the cpu on my windows
machine. Clearly they have some work to do before they can make flash as
efficient as running on their core platform.

Adobe should make flash work decently on other platforms before making one for
the iphone...

Running any flash app on my macbook causes the fan to turn on within 5 minutes
-- it's horrible.

~~~
tjogin
Let's add insult to injury: Apple has reported that a majority of crashes on a
Mac — _across the board_ — are due to Flash.

~~~
scythe
If that's true, why doesn't Apple make their own swf viewer? I mean, they're
_Apple_ , they have twenty billion dollars in the bank; they can afford to
reimplement Flash Player.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
They _are_ making their own "swf viewer". It's called HTML5 and it's the
reason you can't find any Flash on their own webpage, or on their iPhones.

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timdorr
No offense, but something you read on Reddit that some random dude heard from
"a good friend" is probably complete bullshit.

Nonetheless, it's still totally believable. But it probably represents almost
no optimization on their end. If I can play a 3d multiplayer game over 3G for
an hour without the phone crapping out, a think some vector graphics are
surmountable. There just has to be a desire there. And clearly Apple doesn't
desire to be supporting a proprietary standard when HTML5 does the same thing
in a completely open way.

Now, we just need a Flash (the big desktop creation app) equivalent that spits
out HTML5 code. Anyone working on that?

~~~
daeken
> Now, we just need a Flash (the big desktop creation app) equivalent that
> spits out HTML5 code. Anyone working on that?

I was just discussing this exact idea with a friend yesterday (although it's
something I personally wouldn't be interested in). If done correctly, you
could backend to HTML5+JS+CSS and still emit SWF for legacy support. Would
certainly be interesting.

~~~
pronoiac
I heard about OpenLaszlo - <http://www.openlaszlo.org/> \- a few years ago,
but I never got around toworking with it. It emitted Flash & Dynamic HTML.

~~~
nzmsv
It's pretty good. Definitely better than Adobe's tools for code. The art still
has to be made in Flash though.

Unless there is some compelling reason to use Flash though, open tech (like
AJAX) wins every time.

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joezydeco
All I'm seeing here are comments about video performance on Flash on various
systems. Nothing about games or website navigation or etc.

So why can't we just admit that what we _really_ want is a way to play those
other video formats (especially ON2, you porn lovers) on the iPhone?

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minalecs
I have a Nokia N800, in terms of hardware is half the performance of the
iPhone, and flash runs fine and I've never measured battery life, but seemed
fine to me. I have to question the validity of this. Anybody else have the
n800 or even the n700

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amichail
I have a 2nd generation iPod touch. They could have doubled the thickness to
provide a longer battery life.

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PHLITE
Come on, the real reason flash "can't perform" is because it would open up a
competing app delivery vector that would undermine the app store. One with no
approval power.

~~~
ahlatimer
I call bullshit on these conspiracy theories that Apple is blocking Flash
because it would compete with the app store. You can make apps in JS that will
run in Mobile Safari. Is that a "competing app delivery vector"? If so, then
why would Apple allow it, if it's so worried about hanging on to it's app
store business?

I find it a little dubious that Flash would even _be_ competition for the app
store. The whole reason the app store and the iTunes store are so successful
is because it's incredibly easy and, much to the chagrin of some people on
here, centralized. Joe Schmoe can easily download and install a new app on his
shiny new iPhone pretty easily with the app store. He knows where to go for
new apps. That won't necessarily be the case with Flash.

I bet there's more to the story than performance issues, but I'd imagine it
has more to do with Adobe producing a crappy product than it does with any of
this nonsense. Apple thrives on the user experience being good, end-to-end,
and I'd imagine they'll outright reject anything that sullies that.

~~~
PHLITE
I don't think it's a matter of comspiracy, but rather of control. It's seen in
their app store approval process and it's key to their product's success. Why
leave important aspects of a product's perception (3rd Party Software), up to
chance and also make money through that control? Sounds like a good way to
make a profit.

