
Android Tablet Crashes during Flash Demo - rpledge
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hqFTx8rLsg&feature=player_embedded
======
kylemathews
I'm here at the web2.0 expo and played with the Android tablet for 10-15
minutes today as well as with their Droid phone that has flash installed.

A few notes. I didn't see any software crashes. The tablet, on the other hand,
did have quite a few hardware problems. But that's because it was literally
made just this demo. The tablet is encased in a clear plastic case that looked
like it was hacked together in some lab. One of the Adobe employees told me it
had "a motherboard and NVIDIA card". Some of the hardware connections were
loose apparently because when I would set it down on the table a bit too
sharply, some of the buttons would fire sometimes sending me back to the home
screen. The touch screen didn't seem the best quality as someone else noticed.
It wasn't very responsive. Not sure if that was a hard drive or software
problem.

On the Droid, I watched a movie preview on Yahoo Movies and it played
flawlessly.

So as for me, from what I saw today, I'm cautiously optimistic about flash on
phones/tablets. I'd still prefer HTML5 of course but flash on phones will work
as Flash is slowly replaced over the next 5-6 years.

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loginx
The author of the video posted the following comment on the video's page:

"zedomax @InfiniteStyleBlog Actually I pressed the home button, it didn't
crash, Android OS gives u﻿ an error message if it does crash so just to
clarify. I think I was trying to hit the Back button and hit the Home button."

~~~
j79
I'm calling bullshit on this excuse.

If you watch this video (<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgFHGALMqK4>) you can
see the controls are located on the top of the device (appears the home button
is on the left from his interaction with the tablet around 25 seconds in.)

However, if you watch the linked video, it's pretty clear the guy is holding
on to the sides of the device. It's even more apparent when the browser
crashes and you see his reflection (against the black background), that his
hands/fingers are no where near the top of the device.

It's alpha software and crashes happen. No need to make excuses for Android OS
or Flash. For alpha software, it runs remarkably well.

~~~
whalesalad
Yep, I call bullshit too. I've had my browser crash dozens of times on my
Nexus without a single message. Just poof, back to the homescreen. Relaunching
the browser will show the homepage and no other windows open.

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cscotta
Alpha software is alpha-quality. It takes time to get things right.

My pre-release stuff is full of bugs...which is why it's pre-release. Seems
like it's a bit early to judge the quality of their product.

~~~
loire280
Assuming that large portions of the Android Flash player are borrowed from the
Linux version of Flash, I'm not very hopeful for the final product. Flash
Player for Linux is by far the buggiest of the desktop implementations.

On the other hand, Linux users may get lucky and indirectly benefit from a
renewed push to improve that code base!

~~~
DrSprout
Flash hasn't crashed on me in over a year.

Firefox frequently refuses to run Flash, but I've pretty much given up on
that, and when I want Flash, I copy the url into Chromium. It's actually a
nice separation, since I've got one locked-down noscripted browser I go where
I want on,and one that I use when I'm looking for rich media.

------
samps
It's a prototype; of course it crashed. But I don't understand why mobile
Flash demos usually entail watching a YouTube movie... isn't that a solved
problem? Doesn't seem like a good selling point for Flash.

~~~
naz
It's 2010. Apple decided Flash wasn't ready in 2007, and it obviously still
isn't.

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Andys
In other words, its an accurate port of the Flash platform to this new device.

~~~
ramchip
Amusing comment, but I don't really understand why Flash has this reputation
of crashing. I don't remember seeing it crash my browser, at least in a very
long time. Why is there a "flash is crap" meme? Is it because it's unstable on
Linux?

~~~
windsurfer
It's actually really stable on linux 32 bit. I haven't seen it crash... and i
develop for it sometimes.

~~~
aidenn0
Have you tried playing SMB crossover with it? It crashes flash in less than 5
minutes of game play for me if I use the contra guy.

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apike
If you look at the YouTube player UI in the demo, it appears to be YouTube's
HTML5 player, not their Flash player.

Edit: I've been corrected here - for some Flash videos, they use the HTML5
style UI, and for some Flash videos they use the old style one. Presumably the
demo really was Flash, although I'm not sure why you'd want Flash over HTML5
on a browser that supports it like the Android one.

~~~
catch23
I'm guessing because their HTML5 one doesn't support annotations yet. Even in
the chrome browser, the default is still the flash player.

~~~
stanleydrew
Yeah, they need to figure out how to show ads in the html5 player, then I
think the switch will be fairly rapid with Flash being the fallback.

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darrenkopp
Are we sure it crashed? Didn't see a force close... More plausible he
accidentally hit the home button.

~~~
iron_ball
I have an Android phone and love it, but I have seen certain apps CTD.

~~~
darrenkopp
interesting. I have never seen an app crash without a force close. wonder if
it's the difference between native applications and those that use java.

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GR8K
Those look like Tegra reference boards, not a product prototype.

more pics & video on Engadget: [http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/05/an-eyeful-
of-adobes-andro...](http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/05/an-eyeful-of-adobes-
android-tegra-prototype-tablet-running-ai/)

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10ren
The tablet looks pretty cool - though the multi-touch seemed a bit glitchy,
not always picking up gestures. But it is alpha

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jgg
I've kept my mouth shut for a while now, but I have to be honest - I can't
stand this fucking bullshit anymore. Do you realize how pathetic you look by
posting this back-and-forth tech company drivel? I don't have or use an
Android, an iPhone, a Palm or whatever other pointless gadget everyone here
masturbates to, so I'm not saying this as a fanboy of anything. I'm just tired
of seeing all this tech _gossip_ posted to the front page. It's not
interesting, it's not new and it makes Hacker News appear no better than
Reddit - read some of the comments in this thread to see what I mean.

~~~
astrec
Dare I suggest you cast your vote for other stories? Whinging is (mostly)
never constructive.

~~~
jgg
I do. There are _so_ many of these as of late that it's become unbearable.
I've been trying to ignore it, but I can't stand it anymore.

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edster
Here's the bonus...

If you read the article that sourced this video the author claimed "It runs
Adobe’s Flash and Air apps flawlessly." I actually laughed out loud reading
that after seeing the video.

[http://zedomax.com/blog/2010/05/04/android-multi-touch-
table...](http://zedomax.com/blog/2010/05/04/android-multi-touch-tablet-
prototype-hands-on-review-web-2-0-expo/)

------
mercury
i can picture jobs big smug now.

~~~
pyre
Because of a single video on YouTube? Or because that video is on HackerNews?

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mkramlich
I called it: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1320269>

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dthakur
I'm no fan of flash but if a user-mode app is crashing your OS, something is
wrong with your OS.

