

Smartbooks have been delayed by Flash issues, says ARM - ukdm
http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/mobile-devices/2010/05/05/smartbooks-have-been-delayed-by-flash-issues-says-arm-40088854/

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Zak
With regard to the low uptake of Linux on netbooks, I checked prices on Dell's
website about a year ago. In several cases, the same machine cost _more_ with
Linux than WinXP. In another case, the Linux netbook was only offered with 8gb
of flash storage while the Windows version was available with real hard
drives.

They were also hard to find. For reasons I don't understand, they don't simply
offer an operating system option when you're custom-configuring the machine.
You have to go looking for it.

The same issues won't affect smartbooks.

~~~
futuremint
Yeah, I thought that line was odd. I'm under the impression that people who
put linux on netbooks just blow out windows and install Linux over it? Thats
what I do anyway.

My first thought was the same as yours, "Well uptake wouldn't be slow if
vendors actually offered it!"

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rbanffy
Let me be the first to say I don't care about Flash. All I want is a Linux-
compatible netbook running a standard distro with great battery life, 2+ gigs
of RAM, a real hard disk and a _standard_ external monitor port. Hardware-
accelerated 3D and 1366x768 built-in screen are pluses.

And, for the Flash thing, I would love if ARM decided to pour some money on
Gnash development.

~~~
UnknownSource
I don't think Gnash fixes anything. The reason why flash is so prominent is
that there is no good flash-creator-like program out there that outputs files
as HTML5/SVG/AJAX/Javascript. People use Flash because it is the only good way
to create animations that work for many people, but with a proper editor, we
could eliminate the need for additional addons entirely.

~~~
rbanffy
But if Gnash can run anything the Flash "IDE" outputs, then everything works.
If enough people start using non-Adobe implementations of Flash, applications
will have to be tested against those implementations.

~~~
UnknownSource
But we both know it wont in the real world. We also know that Adobe will
probably change the Flash output slightly in the future, and Gnash will always
be a step behind.

It doesn't change the fact that you would be wasting development resources,
because you then have duplicate functionality. Why waste resources on
developing an addon, which will need to be updated with the browser api's, for
many browsers, and optimised, when the browsers themselves already have the
functionality built in? If resources are spent optimising the browsers
themselves rather than a foreign addon, every website benefits.

Fact is, the same problem's we've had with flash addon in the past (such as in
cases where updating the browser caused crashes), will still exist in Gnash
player instead.

Why are you so eager to encourage people to duplicate functionality browsers
are building into their core code these days?

You can either improve the browser, or you can improve Gnash. Both are open
source. Unless there is something the flash standard can do which open
standards couldn't?

~~~
rbanffy
There are lots of applications, in embedded devices, that are built with Flash
and target Gnash instead of the Adobe runtime.

Gnash is reasonably good and supports hardware-acceleration. I agree we should
move over to HTML5 as soon as possible (taking encumbered codecs in
consideration), but some flash support is a nice to have, even if it's not
full support.

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UnknownSource
It couldn't possibly have anything to do with the fact that ARM is competing
against the faster atom processors, which can run windows and a lot more
applications? I would have thought that consumers would see an Atom netbook,
compare it to ARM, realise the minimal cost difference and then settle on the
Atom based one.

It sounds like they are simply fishing for excuses honestly. Flash may make
ARM netbook's more appealing, but if this was the sole reason that they were
delayed, the companies interested in creating smartbooks would have simply
released the products now, and introduced a flash update later.

I think it probably has more to do with lack of demand. Whilst the ARM
processors are good mobile phone CPU's, for laptops/netbooks, it is simply a
trade-off of compatibility for slightly lower cost, and it would have to be a
significant reduction in cost for salespeople to recommend a foreign
processor.

That's just my opinion though. Personally, I used to sell laptops, and I would
much rather push Atom netbooks than ARM netbooks.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
I would argue that the smartphone market (and indeed any non-standard desktop
OS or hardware) was also held up by lack of Flash support.

You have Intel executives banging on about "the whole internet" or the "real
internet" etc. in other words don't buy that (or invest money in offering them
for sale) as they don't run Flash. That was their one big talking point
against ARM. They even slagged off the iPhone for this despite Apple being a
big customer of theirs in other areas.

 _Intel Blasts iPhone_ : <http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-10072779-37.html>

~~~
UnknownSource
ZeroGravitas. Apple also banged on in 2004 about how awesome PowerPC was
compared to Intel. Remind me what happened 2 years later? Yes, companies do
slag others off..

The smartphone market was held up for many other reasons too. It mostly came
down to the fact that the mobile OS's sucked at the time. One would have also
expected Android/iPhone sales to have been flat without flash support, and
this is untrue (Apple have said they refuse to support Flash, and iPhones are
unfortunately flying off the shelves).

If you think Flash will suddenly replace the fact that software support for
ARM is limited, that the CPU's are slow (and only recently started operating
at good enough speeds) and that no major OS's even support ARM (Windows,
Ubuntu, redhat, many other major linux distro's) then you should perhaps list
EXACTLY what you think consumers need flash for (youtube perhaps would have
been one valid reason, but it has been accessible via other means since at
least 2006 now).

Whilst technologies such as Flash and ActiveX do still have their uses
(hopefully though HTML5 will kill flash), I doubt that the lack of flash would
have influenced any manufacturers into delaying an ARM product (which would be
slightly cheaper), if they were serious.

Lets face it, The major issues with the iPhone 2G was the lack of applications
(and even a javascript refreshing security camera stream caused safari to
crash) and on Windows Mobile it was general usability issues. Or do you think
these problems would have magically disappeared because of a really-slow
version of Flash?

~~~
ZeroGravitas
If there's X things that make a market look unlikely to succeed and so prevent
investment, then things are going to develop even slower if it's X+1 instead.
Poor Flash support is just one more thing that hampered smartphones, just as
it hampered Linux. I'm not saying either were perfect if you ignore Flash
support.

My point with Intel is that they're going to choose the very worst aspects of
their competitors to talk about. If ARM phones could kill your pets, or
explode in your face, then Intel would be talking about that. The fact that
they were talking about Flash support means that it must have been, in their
opinion, one of the biggest weaknesses of ARM in the smartphone space.

------
10ren
The iPhone's 3.1.1 rejection of CS5 is very dangerous to Adobe, because it
undermines their platform's relevance. Particularly during a changing of the
guard. One response is to ensure their great tools work well for HTML5 (which
is probably in their interests anyway); but Flash remains valuable and worth
protecting. IMO, they now have an extremely strong motivation to make Flash
work on ARM.

Wonder what's stopping them?

I agree with the article that ARM smartbooks need the whole web, since they
are competing with the near-universal applications on the x86 platform. But
maybe even that isn't enough, since the network is intrinsically slow and
unreliable
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacies_of_Distributed_Comput...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacies_of_Distributed_Computing#The_fallacies)
and consider the demand for iPhone native apps.

Perhaps faster javascript and RIA will fix this, enabling "native" webapps.

