
Flash for Android running fairly well on the Nexus One - there
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0y7XJI4NN7k
======
ck2
Is no-one else impressed by how much computing power is being demonstrated in
a handheld device with this?

Or do we all just take it for granted today?

It's not using any server-side assistance like Opera Mini does, is it?

100% processed on the phone - fantastic.

~~~
jacquesm
I'm _floored_ by what is happening on this front, to be frank.

The amount of computing power we're carrying in our pockets is simply
stunning, we're getting to the point where we might be able to put good speech
recognition on a device this size. It's not quite here yet (people claim it
is, but in practice if you don't get very close to 100% accuracy typing or
pushing buttons is quite fast) but who knows, it might be. And I think when
that happens coupled with enough NLP to make a good user interface the days of
the touch screen will be over. In fact, we might see 'screenless' computers
that you can still interact with.

~~~
ck2
Doesn't speech recognition require either massive databases or massively-
parallel processing (or both?)

In most cases the speech would be used when connected to another server
anyway, so it would be okay then to rely on remote processing. Unless I am
missing a concept here.

~~~
jacquesm
It's funny how natural you take to the remote processing of speech, when I
first outlined that as a concept to potential investors about a decade ago I
was literally laughed out of the room :)

But yes, that's definitely an option, but 'limited domain' speech recognition
on mobiles is a fact today, to do better would require a lot of work but I
think that it is possible.

Don't forget that you'd be about as 'personal' with that computer as possible,
nobody else would ever use it, so one dimension of the problem can be
collapsed to '1'.

------
FabriceTalbot
I agree, Flash is running pretty well on the Nexus One. This is only one of
it's great features. I think I've fallen in love a bit with the Android 2.1
platform. It didn't crush once, in about 3 months.

------
pragmatic
My HTC Incredible runs flash.

Like it or not, flash is part of the web. I'm not a huge fan of flash, but
it's _everywhere_, despite what Steve Jobs wants you to believe.

~~~
not_an_alien
The HTC incredible uses Flash Lite. Flash 10.1 (the one demoed here) is
supposed to be much better in terms of performance and battery usage (not to
mention it has many more features than FL; FL is around Flash 9 sans some
features).

------
not_an_alien
From the source ([http://blog.digitalbackcountry.com/2010/05/examples-of-
flash...](http://blog.digitalbackcountry.com/2010/05/examples-of-flash-
content-running-on-android/)):

 _We’ll be releasing a public version of Flash Player 10.1 at Google I/O_

Expected, but wasn't confirmed until now. Nice. So we all should have it in a
week or so and be able to run our own tests.

------
melling
The first demo was the most interesting use of Flash. Any demo with video is
pointless. The iPad/iPhone are now going to drive sites from Flash video. I'm
in the camp where I think together Apple and Google can fix html5 so that
Flash isn't necessary. The web is much too important to be built around a
plugin, unless Adobe completely open sources their plugin.

~~~
not_an_alien
Pointless? If I'm navigating a website that has video or interactive content
and I want to see it, and there's no alternate content, how is that
_pointless_?

------
ilike
Html5 on iPad: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfmbZkqORX4>

~~~
jrockway
But interestingly, the Nexus One performs better.

~~~
not_an_alien
For some odd reason, the Nexus One browser is a lot more optimized for canvas
use. It blows away the iPad and the iPhone in terms of performance.

------
generalk
The only way I'd put Flash Player on my Nexus One is if it had some kind of
ClickToFlash-like functionality. One of the best parts of mobile browsing is
missing out on horrible Flash banner ads and annoying middle-of-the-screen
popups. Yes, mobile Flash video and games might be cool, but it's not worth
that downside, IMO.

------
WiseWeasel
Flash still needs to die or have its runtime open-sourced. I'm glad to see
Apple taking a stand on this issue, even if it's for selfish reasons; someone
needed to push web developers to put Flash back in its place as a marginal web
tech for edge cases, nice to have but not critical. I browse the web with the
Flash plugin disabled in Firefox, and it's been great to not have all the
excruciating Flash ads. I still run into the occasional Flash video I can't
watch while browsing on my iPhone, but they've been getting rare lately. It's
well-worth the inconvenience knowing that I'm helping to kill off dependence
on Adobe Flash for good by using these iProducts. So great job Adobe, now get
off my lawn!

------
jsz0
Looks kind of awkward but not bad for a beta. I'm curious how they are going
to handle the small text problem. The first demo is a good example of that. He
locks input to the Flash app so presumably to zoom in and out you have to
unlock input, zoom in, and relock it to continue using the app. That could get
tedious.

------
jtaby
Is it just me, or was the scrolling incredibly slow? And the hockey video's
playback choppy? It's also interesting that the phone was being charged,
considering the battery usage the last time flash was demoed...

~~~
Tichy
I thought it was pretty impressive. It is a freakin mobile phone.

As for battery usage, is there a reason to assume that Flash sucks more
battery than other applications? Why would it (except being interpreted)? I
guess 3d apps in general would draw more power than "flat" business apps.

~~~
jcl
In any discussion of Flash performance, usually someone posts a report of
their CPU fan spinning up each time a web page with Flash is running, or a
performance meter getting pegged, or the computer's performance notably
degrading. So there's reason to suspect that mobile Flash will suck more
battery than a native app.

It's possible that Flash's movie clip-based object model encourages a
"polling" approach to interaction over an event-driven approach, making it
harder for the CPU to sleep.

~~~
Tichy
I don't want to defend Flash, but most Flash apps contain a loop and
animations. So it is logical that they consume more CPU time than a static web
site.

------
c00p3r
So I can play Farmville?

~~~
Tichy
This could be big (seriously). There are 80 million farmville players, and I
think the game requires you to log in at odd times.

~~~
c00p3r
Yeah, there are so many clever tricks. the Tamagochi concept, the farming as
out ancient shared past, the possibility to show up, like people do with real
houses and consumer goods, and so on. And remember they use facebook as a
market, that no one have done before, and no one will repeat the same success.
The wow-factor goes to the first.

But it cannot run on the ARM-based devices, and that is why flash sucks. Just
discard all marketing hype and face the reality.

------
grinich
No mention of how it handles hover events...

~~~
ergo98
Really? Are people _still_ " trotting this out?

You know I haven't been able to play a single HTML5 game on my N1. Every
single one requires either a physical keyboard or mouse events that I can't
simulate.

~~~
loire280
I agree that it's a red herring in the "future of Flash" argument, but it's
still a significant hurdle. The value of any existing Flash content that
requires keybaord or mouse hover interactions is diminished almost to the
point that you might as well not have it.

That's not to say that future Flash content won't be built with touchscreen
interfaces in mind.

