
Adobe CTO talks Flash performance on Macs, more - tvon
http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2010/02/adobe_cto_talks_flash_performance_on_macs.html
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tvon
In response to one rather trollish comment, John Nack says:

====

[Way to parrot Welch. Anyway, you're of course right that Flash should never
crash. My beef is that suddenly we hear this HUGE groundswell of people saying
that Flash is bringing them to ruin. Could it be that maybe--just maybe--some
of these claims are overstated out of some tribalism (a desire to be close to
Apple)? I mean, people identify with groups of multimillionaires who
theoretically represent some nearby city in sports, so it's not hard to see
why they want to identify with the people who make the devices they use all
day.

I'm not saying that Flash never crashes. I'm saying that a certain corps of
people are eagerly overstating the problem out of some desire to bond with
Apple, to be part of something bigger and shinier than themselves.

The beauty part for them is that the claims are unquantifiable and
unfalsifiable: I guarantee you're not seeing crash log data from Apple, so
unless we go to your house and watch all day to see whether your browser ever
crashes (and if then the problem is actually due to Flash & not, say, Saft,
Glims, Inquisitor, etc.), we're talking about impressions, not real data.
--J.]

====

So if you're having Flash issues in OSX, odds are you're just a lying fanboy.

[edit an hour later: that's how I read it, and I could of course be off base.
I mean, he isn't calling everyone a liar but you can't really look at a large
group of people and say "50% of you are full of shit" without casting
aspersions on all of them. Also, as someone who has been bitching about Flash
on Linux and OSX for most of this century, I take offense to the idea that
"everything was peachy keen until Apple whipped up a fuss over nothing"
(again, I paraphrase from my own perspective).]

~~~
thwarted
While "lying fanboy" is a little harsh, I think there's something behind the
misrepresenting how serious the crashes are and that their unquantifiable and
unfalsifiable. I suspect most reports are anecdotal, like "Safari crashed
while I was playing Desktop Tower Defense, and I was just about to have the
highest score ever!", which is more of an emotional position than
objective/analytical. At this point, it's in no one's best interest, other
than consumers, to collect information on crashes and do something about them.
Steve Jobs would actually have to (gasp!) eat his words if it's not flash that
is crashing and Adobe would actually have to (gasp!) fix the bugs if it is.
And bug fixing doesn't make headlines. This disagreement between Jobs and
Adobe gets the pageviews.

Fedora 12 has an "automatic bug reporting tool" that is annoying in that it
often shows up when you aren't expecting it, or when you know something
crashed that Fedora folks can't do anything about -- so I've usually opted not
to submit the things it wants to report. But that may be a losing battle in
the long run, since more data collected could actually get bugs fixed, and
then there are statistics on how frequently crashes are a problem for people.
Thing is, I know how much bogus stuff gets collected with these kinds of
tools, and it's difficult to sift through, so in some sense, I think I'm
actually helping them by not submitting things I think may be bogus.

~~~
ewjordan
Anecdotal or not, the only time my browser ever crashes (at least since Java
applets stopped showing up) is immediately upon opening a page with streaming
video. Whether it's Apple or Adobe at fault, I don't care, but it seems to be
exclusively triggered by Flash content.

Are there many people here running OS X that don't have problems apparently
caused by Flash?

~~~
thwarted
Of course you don't care whose fault it is, you just want it fixed. That's why
I pointed out that it's only in the best interest of consumers that the bugs
get fixed.

It seems that neither Adobe nor Apple actually want to make a good experience
for users, flash or otherwise, because independent of whose fault it is the
problems are not getting addressed. I'm reminded of
<http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/APIWar.html>, where Microsoft actually
cared about the user experience enough to insert a massive kludge even though
the bug wasn't their fault. And since the problems are not getting addressed,
I'd be leery of using either Apple or Adobe products. Apple because they would
rather destroy a product they don't like even though the users do, and Adobe
because of the way they treat their products after release. Apple's defense is
that they prefer the new and shiny vs the old and busted (which are subjective
measurements). For years Apple was behind Flash, it was one of the reasons to
use a Mac, at least for flash development. Apple was also behind Firewire for
years, it was so much better than USB. Then all of a sudden it wasn't, much to
the detriment of those people who had bought all that highend firewire
hardware. Now, this usually ends up being good for the consumer, which is why
Jobs has the reputation he does, and in Apple's defense, their standard MO of
controlling the entire platform means they have to make the "hard" decisions
about what they support, and it usually ends up being good all around, but the
transition, when Jobs changes his mind, can be a real bitch.

~~~
bbatsell
Apple was the first computer manufacturer to adopt USB on a wide scale (for
which they were ridiculed at the time). Firewire remains the better technology
of the two, but it is accordingly more expensive to implement; Apple still
supports it fully on their pro computers. I use plenty of "highend firewire
hardware" on a daily basis with my brand new MBP without issue. What, exactly,
are you referring to?

~~~
thwarted
How quickly we (all) forget (
<http://www.google.com/search?q=apple+removes+firewire> ). I misspoke,
firewire _400_ _was_ removed from a number of devices, as part of the regular
upgrade path/hardware refresh, because "USB 2.0 won the connectivity fight in
the lower end of the market". Despite me not being specific enough, and that
Apple _currently_ ships a number of devices with firewire support, the fact
remains that Apple does make hardware decisions based on their perception of
user-experience, what they want to support, and which direction they want the
market to go in -- I'm not sure how anyone can disagree with that, as I'm sure
everyone makes decisions on what they want to support (other than maybe IE6),
sometimes leaving users and customers in the lurch who are used to, or have a
vested interest, in doing things the old, or a certain, way.

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MikeCapone
This all sounds good, yet it doesn't change the fact that on my Mac, if
something slows down my browser enough to be noticeable (on a Mac Pro), it's
usually flash.

Hope the next version will be that big improvement that we've been waiting
for, but I won't hold my breath.

------
there
end users trying to watch videos on the web don't care about flash. they
aren't customers. they're using flash because it's pushed on them, so when it
doesn't work, they're not going to exert any effort to make the software
better beyond swearing at the crash dialog and re-opening their browser.

i watch episodes of the daily show on thedailyshow.com every other day or so,
using safari on mac os 10.5.8 on a mac mini. just about every single time i
watch an episode in full screen, exit full screen, and click on a different
episode, safari will crash and the crash reporter comes up saying flash caused
it. i click 'report' to report the bug, it looks like it does something, and
then i re-open safari.

this guy says flash doesn't ship with any "known bugs", but what are "known
bugs"?

 _If you are experiencing issues please report them directly to the Flash
engineering team via the public bug database and the team will investigate and
resolve each._

oh, so only bugs they know about in their public bug database, which requires
1) a user to know about it, 2) the user to seek it out, 3) the user to signup
for an account, 4) and the user to login and file a formal bug, all while that
user just saw a dialog that says his crash information was just sent to
someone.

if that crash reporter from safari is not sending useful information over to
adobe, then they need to work with apple to get that resolved.

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umtrey
Denying the problem isn't going to win them any points here, nor is off-
handedly stating "oh, we're working on it, but don't blame us." They could
start turning the discussion the other way to admit to problems, get releases
out quickly to improve the performance, and be painfully clear how Apple could
help make their software run better (system call information, etc).

Suddenly, it's Adobe who's coming out as the sympathetic market leader, and
Apple has to turn and defend its stance as anti-Flash from a non-technical
standpoint. As Apple is forced to make its pro-App Store stance official (even
though all of us here understand it) they'll get looked by the masses as as a
monopoly-maker or as a company that stifles outside development.

~~~
bad_user
> _they'll get looked by the masses as as a monopoly-maker or as a company
> that stifles outside development._

Well, they are.

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jsz0
I thought Adobe couldn't improve Flash performance on OSX because Apple has no
API they can use? That was the story a couple weeks ago. CoreAnimation is
years old now. No one thought of this earlier in the process?

~~~
Spikefu
The problem wasn't with performance in general, it was with hardware decoding
of H.264 video. I don't believe anything has changed on that front. The core
animation change is supposed to help with vector graphics rendering.

------
markkoberlein
You do feel the difference when you are on a Mac. I was using a Windows 7
netbook for a couple of weeks and watched flash on Youtube.com without any
issues. Last night went back to my Macbook Pro and the same flash video turned
my Macbook into a jet plane. I can imagine the amount of energy is being
wasted on the processor and the fans to cool it while it's being worked by
Flash.

Adobe is finally moving some of the flash processing to the GPU. Too little,
too late? Or better late than never?

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doronba
Adobe CTO seems to have been suckered into a discussion that while factual, is
almost beside the point and at odds with what apple is actually doing.

For the vast majority of users, being Windows based, flash works pretty much
fine most of the time. At this moment in time a lack of good flash support is
more of a problem for apple then adobe. If Adobe will manage to get a good
droid flash port, then this tiff will turn more barbed.

i am reminded that the whole issue was really sparked not over the flash
client on the desktop or laptops and its supposed performance, but rather its
lack of its existence on the iphone and future ipad, of which apple is rightly
criticized.

Most people who denigrate flash on osx, still have it installed, you can
always avoid installing it, and keep the system pristine and flash free, but
you install it nonetheless, why? because you want to see flash generated
content.

while performance and stability of flash is indeed an issue, the decision not
to have it on said platforms is much less due to bad code and much more
because Flash undermines the entire app store ecosystem, it is easier to
create a native app experience on Flash and ActionScript than it is using the
iPhone SDK and Objective-C. There are really great Flash games, think what
this fact alone can do to app store revenue, and of course there is the
benefit of wider range of developers too.

Suppose they revamp the code of flash on OSX, its blazing fast and stable, i
still doubt apple will include support for it on its cash cows.

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jmount
I am definitely biased- a flash hater. Hated it on Windows, hated it on Linux
and now hate it on the Mac. Definitely we are seeing two companies (Adobe and
Apple) playing fans off each other. In my opinion Adobe is the worse of the
two evils. For example look how long it took Adobe to port Mac photoshop from
PowerPC to Intel. It is not like Adobe didn't already have a lot of Intel
experience with their Windows version of photoshop.

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papersmith
Just installed flash 10.1 beta 2 on Mac, it does feel more responsive than
10.0.

<http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/flashplayer10.html>

~~~
Dbug
Even if Flash 10.1 does bring performance parity with the Windows version, I
won't be routinely enabling it. It's an unacceptable security risk and most of
what it's used for beyond video is just annoying/fluff.

------
boredguy8
Flash in Firefox on OS X 10.5.8 never crashes on me. Bogs down the cpu:
sometimes. Usually when I have multiple videos open playing simultaneously.
What are you folks doing?

~~~
catch23
so does <http://flashcrash.dempsky.org/> crash for you? It does on my 10.5.8

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cookiecaper
Adobe's only real hope is to open-source and freely license the whole Flash
stack. They've proven repeatedly that they can't manage the evenness,
performance, and ubiquity necessary for something like Flash.

If they don't do this, Flash is dead, which is stupid imo because they could
still make a lot of money off of the IDE.

~~~
nir
> _"Adobe's only real hope is to open-source and freely license the whole
> Flash stack"_

This, on the week that Jonathan Schwartz officially steps down? ;)

Anyway, if HTML5 does replace Flash, what difference would open sourcing make?

~~~
Batsu
Nothing wrong with having multiple tools to accomplish the same task.

For reference, check out damn near anything computer related.

~~~
nir
There's a benefit from a publisher's view point to focusing on a single
standard.

If HTML5 gets similar market share to Flash, I imagine in the long run most
content publisher will choose the one that's better supported and easier to
implement rather than maintain support for both - for the same reason that
many now choose only Flash, rather than Flash+Silverlight+whatever.

