
Adobe slips mobile Flash Player 10.1 to second half of 2010 - protomyth
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/04/18/adobe_slips_mobile_flash_player_10_1_to_second_half_of_2010.html
======
iron_ball
This is possibly the most partisan non-blog article I've ever read on HN.
Seriously, it reads like pure anti-Adobe propaganda. Can we vote up a less
rabid article on this topic instead?

~~~
raganwald
Your argument promotes a false dichotomy. Isn't it acceptable to vote for this
article _and_ for another that reflects your views?

Also, your would be much more persuasive if you were to list any factual
errors in the post or major omissions it makes. I read it as reading like
"pure anti-Adobe propaganda" because the author seems to have done the
necessary homework instead of regurgitating Adobe's press releases.

So...

True or false flash on mobile devices is several versions behind flash on
desktops?

True or false they're a year late?

True or false it is resource-intensive?

And most interestingly...

True or false: _If Flash becomes the primary way to deliver dynamic content,
games, and apps for Android, it will frustrate Google from being able to build
a competitive native platform that can attract custom mobile development. It
will also impede Google's ability to push HTML5 as the preferred way to
deliver applications on its upcoming Chrome OS._

~~~
watty
True or false: "Adobe is also scrambling to make Flash competitive with the
emerging HTML5"

~~~
raganwald
Not sure if that's what _they_ think they're doing or if it's the other way
around, but the question definitely deserves an upmod.

Anyways, to be perfectly clear I'm not saying the article is right or wrong,
just that I benefit the most from a discussion about what it gets right and
wrong.

------
GR8K
How would the performance of this mobile Flash browser plug-in be on a
cellular connection? That's what people use their mobile phones on. I'm sure
websites would crawl. All Adobe demos are on WiFi. Flash banner ads are 3-5
times bigger. Sometimes 200x larger if there is an autoplaying Flash video
banner(20K static banner vs 2-3MB video banner).

Flash/Ad blockers are the most popular add-ons for FF & Chrome so whenever
they ship it, we'll see how many people actually install Flash mobile! Besides
the Farmville junkies! :)

Yes, you do have to optimize the content for it & do a whole lot of other
things:
[http://help.adobe.com/en_US/as3/mobile/flashplatform_optimiz...](http://help.adobe.com/en_US/as3/mobile/flashplatform_optimizing_content.pdf)

Reading that document makes me think badly written Flash apps could have bad
performance & drain the battery quick.

------
abstractbill
I wonder if this _only_ affects the mobile versions, or if the desktop version
of 10.1 will also be delayed. I hope not, as it contains some nice new stuff
that's still not available through any other means (primarily I'm thinking of
direct microphone access in the browser).

------
risotto
Terribly biased article... Might as well add my own uninformed opinions :)

it's no surprise to me that the release is slipping. Adobe has never been
'agile' with flash player. All accounts say it's a pretty rough code base.

I've been doing flash and air programming for the past few years and the
runtime is buggy and quirky and hasn't seen many improvements aside from
framework type stuff in Flex/Air.

The Mac and Linux versions are even more buggy.

I bet it kinda works on the mobile platforms but the performance and
compatibility is shit. This is going to be a big hole to dig out of, even if
apple isn't trying to bury it.

~~~
srnm
The Flash Player 10.1 release moves to a single codebase for all supported
platforms.

I would guess part of the reason for the delay is that they are rewriting
large chunks of it to work consistently across very different hardware
platforms -- and they've done a lot of performance and security related work.

------
benologist
I'm glad they've delayed. I saw it in action at Flash Gaming Summit last month
and the performance was not impressive, better for them to get it right then
to get it wrong right now.

Also what a dumb article. I don't have high expectations from the ad-farming
apple rumor blogs but this is pretty lame even for them. The only people
missing out because of Apple's decisions are Apple's customers.

~~~
GR8K
Missing out of what?? There are thousands of great apps written for iPhone &
Android without Flash.

~~~
benologist
They're missing out on Flash. Regardless of whether you see it as good or bad
or neutral it's all over the internet and you're not being given even the
choice to see it on Apple's platforms.

