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Adobe Flash Player 10.1 Arrives For Android 273

Posted by CmdrTaco from the look-what-we-got dept.
adeelarshad82 writes "Adobe announced that it has released the final version of Flash Player 10.1 for Google's mobile operating system. The app will be available for download via the Android Market for those users who have Android 2.2 (Froyo) installed on their phones. Devices expected to offer the Android update include the Dell Streak, Google Nexus One, HTC Evo, HTC Desire, HTC Incredible, Droid by Motorola, Motorola Milestone, and Samsung Galaxy S. Flash Player 10.1 was also released to support devices based on Android, BlackBerry, webOS, future versions of Windows Phone, LiMo, MeeGo and Symbian OS, and is expected to be made available via over-the-air downloads and to be pre-installed on smart phones, tablets and other devices in the coming months."
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Adobe Flash Player 10.1 Arrives For Android More

Adobe Flash Player 10.1 Arrives For Android

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  • Calling it now (Score:2, Insightful)

    by TheSpoom ( 715771 )

    If Apple sees that this increases Android usage, they'll reverse policy on the Flash block, and users everywhere will praise Steve for his insight and timing.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Tumbleweed ( 3706 ) *

      If Apple sees that this increases Android usage, they'll reverse policy on the Flash block, and users everywhere will praise Steve for his insight and timing.

      And right after that, Apple fans will complain that Android phones are copying Apple's iPhone.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by not already in use ( 972294 )

        And right after that, Apple fans will complain that Android phones are copying Apple's iPhone.

        Probably because Steve's announcement would go something like this:

        "And now I want to show you something really special... revolutionary. Something never before seen on a mobile device. Today I'm here to announce that Adobe Flash will run on the iPhone and iPad."

    • Re:Calling it now (Score:4, Funny)

      by 16K Ram Pack ( 690082 ) <tim DOT almond AT gmail DOT com> on Tuesday June 22, 2010 @12:57PM (#32655006) Homepage
      This assumes that Adobe then don't tell Steve to go f**k himself.

      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        by jaymz666 ( 34050 )

        But porn is banned from the iPhone...

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Kenja ( 541830 )
        Pretty sure that it was Apple telling Adobe where to shove it and not the other way around.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by NiteShaed ( 315799 )

        I really doubt that would happen. These are big corporations, not kids on a playground. Adobe wants flash on every device imaginable, and the iPhone/iPod/iPad represents a significant number of those devices. If Apple reverses itself and says Flash is welcome, then Adobe will jump to have it on their devices. I'm sure the execs at Adobe are and will continue to call Jobs lots of nasty names in the privacy of their offices, but they're not about to give up marketshare if it's offered to them.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by hkmwbz ( 531650 )
      I think their position on Flash is a strategic one. Even if Flash does start performing well some time in the future, the Flash content out there isn't very well adapted to small screens, and it's probably much more difficult to do so with Flash than with normal web standards. Apple wants a good experienec, and they may not be convinced that Flash will give users a good experience even if the performance is reasonably good.

      • Re:Calling it now (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Trufagus ( 1803250 ) on Tuesday June 22, 2010 @01:40PM (#32655562)

        Your still accepting the company line on Flash?

        If it is about the tiny screens of phones then why is there no Flash on the iPad.

        No, there are a variety of strategic reasons why Apple doesn't want Flash on their products. For example, Apple wants to force as much materials as possible (games, video, news, etc) into the app store or iTunes. This allows them to take a cut of any revenue and block it if they don't like it.

        Flash goes against that strategy. For example, it allows DRM'ed media and lots of cross-platform games to be delivered via the web, independent of Apple.

        Now, I'm not suggesting that Flash is as efficient as native code, but then again, neither is JavaScript. Sometimes we need to make trade-offs.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by hkmwbz ( 531650 )

          Your still accepting the company line on Flash?

          Company line? I'm on a Windows computer, and my phone is an Android device from HTC. Talk about missing the target!

          If it is about the tiny screens of phones then why is there no Flash on the iPad.

          Fingers are still fat, even if the screen is bigger. I'm not saying I think Apple should be preventing Flash from being used on their products, but there is a point to make about user experience.

        • Re:Calling it now (Score:4, Interesting)

          by Sancho ( 17056 ) * on Tuesday June 22, 2010 @03:56PM (#32657406) Homepage

          There are several reasons Apple doesn't want flash on their phones. Part of it is exactly what you describe. Part of it is the user experience, like the GP described. Part of it is that they don't want to be held hostage by Adobe when iOS 5 comes out and breaks compatibility with Flash so that they are reliant on Adobe to make things work "like they used to" (from the perspective of Apple users.)

          Adobe has treated Apple as a second-class citizen for a while, and Apple doesn't want to be a 2nd-class citizen in the mobile device market. There's no way that they're going to let their devices lose features unless it's on their terms, and if they have a third-party runtime in their OS, that's exactly what could happen.

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

          You don't need a conspiracy theory to explain it.

          Apple got tired of Adobe screwing around with poorly performing Flash plugins for the Mac for so many years, not to mention screwing them over with 64-bit CS. When it came time for Apple to decide whether they wanted to let Adobe control one of the primary components of their new mobile OS they decided against it.

          I'm sure the profit motive from the app store helps, but Apple decided to not support Flash long before there was an app store.

      • There's plenty of bad iPhone experiences out there too. And there are plenty of well-written flash games and applications. Apple's suggested alternative to Flash? Javascript and SVG! LOL, give me a break.

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by mini me ( 132455 )

          Apple's suggested alternative to Flash? Javascript and SVG!

          http://smokescreen.us/ [smokescreen.us]

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by hkmwbz ( 531650 )
          Several open standards are emerging as alternatives to Flash. HTML5 with native video in browsers, for example. JavaScript and SVG alone won't replace Flash, but there's more to open standards than those two.
          • So you are claiming that there exists magical (nameless) standards that allow HTML5 to replace Flash.

            Why not name them?
      • Some might say that just point blank denying the user access is not a great user experience either. We all know Flash is an awful technology that deserves to die soon and painfully, if you're unfortunate enough to be in the position that you have to use it, might there not be a case to say it would be better to at least have the option, even if Apple flag up a big disclaimer saying "the page you're about to use contains Flash which is not designed for mobile usage and has known usability and performance iss

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by hkmwbz ( 531650 )
          I watched the D8 interview with Jobs. Basically, he pointed out that they have been cutting off technology before the rest of the market many times in the past. Floppy disks, various external ports, etc. He argued that Flash was just another technology they didn't see a future for.

    • I just hope 10.1 works better than Flash 10 does.

      I've been reading all kinds of complaints from PowerPC Mac users, even those with speedy 2 or 2.5 gigahertz Dual processors, that Flash 10 plays movies like a snail through molasses. Most of them had to downgrade to Flash 9 just to watch youtube.com. Apparently F10 was optimized for Intel CPUs and doesn't work right on PPCs.

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Yeah, how terrible of Adobe to not support 10 year old obsolete computer systems! I mean come on, Apple supports them! Oh wait...

        • Anonymous Coward wrote:

          Yeah, how terrible of Adobe to not support 10 year old obsolete PowerPC computer systems!

          No comment. I just wanted to highlight this. I didn't realize it's been 10 years since PPC Macs stopped being sold? Wow. Amazing. It's too bad you didn't post with your real name, so I could mod you +1 informative.

          /end sarcasm

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by DJRumpy ( 1345787 )

          How about Adobe not supporting non-obsolete computer systems like AMD 64?

          • "Yeah, how terrible of Adobe to not support 10 year old obsolete computer systems! I mean come on, Apple supports them! Oh wait..."

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dogzilla ( 83896 )

      If Apple sees that this increases Android usage, they'll reverse policy on the Flash block, and users everywhere will praise Steve for his insight and timing.

      No they won't.

      • It's pretty moot anyway - I guess average users won't care because they probably don't even understand what Flash actually is, and power users or people who are in the unenviable position of actually needing flash will have already made their choice (either that they can live without it, or that they need to own a platform that allows it, hobbled as the experience may be). I don't see a newer version swaying people in sufficient numbers to change anyone's position.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by hazydave ( 96747 )

      No, they won't about-face. This is Jobs, and it's not tech, it's religion. Steve didn't fix his issues back in the early 80s, and while he got ousted, it caused long-term harm in the Mac market. He's making money now, so don't expect him to change it, even if his fortunes start to fail a little. Jobs only functions with it's 100% his way. Sometimes that works, but it's in all our best interest to see this fail. This isn't just the re-invention of 70's-style proprietary platforms (Apple, Commodore, Tandy, At

  • Suck (Score:3, Insightful)

    by paimin ( 656338 ) on Tuesday June 22, 2010 @12:52PM (#32654942)
    Let the suck begin.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Skuld-Chan ( 302449 )

      At least I have the choice whether I want to run Flash on my phone or not - rather than have some guy in a black turtleneck decide for me.

    • I strongly suspect that I will never actually use Flash on my Android phone. Similarly, I suspect that I will never actually decide to root my Android phone, much less reflash it with a customized OS build. But the fact that those options are available, should I need them, is still a major selling point.

  • First, we need froyo... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by knavel ( 1155875 ) on Tuesday June 22, 2010 @12:53PM (#32654974) Homepage

    That's great and all, Adobe, but we're all still waiting for Froyo to be released...as an official OTA, or as an official source release :(

  • how well does it run on hacked Iphones ruining android?

  • Quite impressive, but still fundamentally flawed. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Timmmm ( 636430 ) on Tuesday June 22, 2010 @12:56PM (#32654990)

    So, I've tried it on my Nexus One. It seems to play videos ok, but that's about it. You can't really interact with the flash because no flash videos are designed for touch input.

    On the BBC news video players you can't control playback because the clickable area on the time-line is far too narrow to hit. You also can't drag anything because this just scrolls the website.

    Conclusion: Steve Jobs was right; flash doesn't belong on phones and I'm glad he is killing it, even if he is still an annoying control freak.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by hkmwbz ( 531650 )
      What about general performance? Does it lag as badly as early previews of Flash on Android seem to indicate? Is the Nexus One officially supported by Flash?

      Can you zoom in to be able to tap those tiny links/hit areas?

      • Re:Quite impressive, but still fundamentally flawe (Score:4, Informative)

        by Timmmm ( 636430 ) on Tuesday June 22, 2010 @01:18PM (#32655246)

        I'm actually using Beta 3 (the final version doesn't seem to be in the market despite what the article says). It is much better than the first beta and generally isn't too bad.

        You *can* zoom in using pinch-to-zoom but it doesn't really help. Even with the controls filling the screen you can't drag, and many controls are just too damn small.

        You can also double-tap on the flash to make it fill the screen, which works pretty nicely, but even then you can't drag! (wtf?)

        All in all, I don't think anyone could have done a much better job, but the fact is no current flash movies were designed for use on phones, and it shows badly.

        • Well the mobile web thing is still pretty new. The first step is getting a version of Flash that doesn't kill the handset - after that the UI issues are much easier to overcome (albeit you'd probably need to serve up a mobile specific version of your movie). I don't particularly want to see a resurgence of Flash, but the crappy UI isn't really down to Adobe so much as the designers/developers who aren't really targeting these devices.

          • Re:Quite impressive, but still fundamentally flawe (Score:4, Insightful)

            by droopycom ( 470921 ) on Tuesday June 22, 2010 @02:28PM (#32656304)

            But you see, the whole point of having flash on phones was so that you could really get the "full" web, and that developers dont have to redo all their work.

            Now, most of the flash content is not designed for touch input and phones screens, so you still cant really access that content on a phone in a meaningful way. (I tried to use the FIFA World Cup Matchcast flash app on a droid, not really usable). Developers will have to redesign their flash sites for phones anyway.

            They might as well spend their time writing an apps, or an HTML5 site.

            Some existing flash apps might work well enough on android tablets, but where are these now?

            Given that Google, MSFT, Opera, Mozilla and Apple are all behind HTML5, if you were a developer, which way would you go? As an individual developer what skills are you more likely to want to develop at this point to differentiate yourself?

            Now I'm just waiting for Netcraft to confirm that Flash is dying...

    • Re:Quite impressive, but still fundamentally flawe (Score:4, Informative)

      by Kegetys ( 659066 ) on Tuesday June 22, 2010 @01:11PM (#32655152) Homepage

      > You also can't drag anything because this just scrolls the website.

      The N900 has a special "cursor mode" that, when enabled, changes the dragging from scrolling to moving a virtual cursor that allows sending drag events to the browser (flash or javascript). I'd guess android could have something similar added if it doesn't have it already.

      • Re:Quite impressive, but still fundamentally flawe (Score:5, Insightful)

        by sjonke ( 457707 ) on Tuesday June 22, 2010 @01:40PM (#32655560) Journal

        It's pretty crappy when you have to switch to "virtual cursor" mode in order to interact with a site. That's really going to win users over. Perhaps not such a smart business decision to go with Flash and a write-once-deploy-everywhere strategy?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Kegetys ( 659066 )

          > It's pretty crappy when you have to switch to "virtual cursor" mode in order to interact with a site. That's really going to win users over.

          Yes, it is crappy design - from whoever designed the website (flash or not, it applies to some javascript things too). As a user I do prefer to have the capability to use such websites if I ever need to, even if it means an extra tap to turn a special feature on. Its a small annoyance compared to not being able to use the site at all because the device/software isn

      • People always cite this as a reason Flash could never work on phones, and it seems like an incredibly trivial thing to overcome, either by having an overlay on the screen when Flash is detected which causes the finger to act as a cursor, or just using the physical directional pad almost every phone as to do the same thing.

      • The N900 has a special "cursor mode" that, when enabled, changes the dragging from scrolling to moving a virtual cursor that allows sending drag events to the browser (flash or javascript). I'd guess android could have something similar added if it doesn't have it already.

        They probably could, but it would suck. Smartphones are not designed to be used with a mouse/pointer interface. This is the same type of fail that Steve Jobs talks about when he says "if they have to use a stylus, you know they failed."

      • The N900 has a special "cursor mode" that, when enabled, changes the dragging from scrolling to moving a virtual cursor that allows sending drag events to the browser (flash or javascript). I'd guess android could have something similar added if it doesn't have it already.

        It can actually be even better on Android phones, since most of those have trackballs. Opera Mini does that already, in fact - you have a cursor (hidden by default, only shows when you move it) controllable with a trackball. It's quite handy for dealing with websites that are badly designed for small screens (can we please line up all Web designers still using font sizes in px against the nearest wall?).

    • Those are all issues that can and (assuming demand is high enough) will be fixed. If there's a reason that flash won't work on phones its because of battery usage and performance problems. Steve Jobs was still wrong, let the users and developers decide what they want, if flash really can't be made to work then so be it. But there's no valid reason why developers and users can't be allowed to try it out.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Kenja ( 541830 )
      There are more things in heaven and earth then are dreamed of by your philosophy.

      Flash is not just for videos.

      • Flash is not just for videos.

        Right... but since most flash apps don't even play videos as expected by the masses, properly, with controls and everything, we're a looooooong way away from what most people think of as "real flash working."

        BTW, not having things like "cursor mode" different than "zoom mode", while a little limiting to the true geek, is part of what makes Apple's designs accessible to the masses.

    • Perhaps, but I'd rather have a choice, and don't want to be an Apple sheep with Steve making it for me.

      Besides you said it yourself, nothing has been designed for touch input, that doesn't mean it won't be and considering this is the first release ever, I'll forgive them if it's not completely perfect.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by DrXym ( 126579 )
      Conclusion: Steve Jobs was right; flash doesn't belong on phones and I'm glad he is killing it, even if he is still an annoying control freak.

      Lots of bog standard HTML web pages feature tiny buttons so should we conclude that web browsing is a waste of time on phones? Or could it be that some web sites need to be redesigned.

      It's exactly the same with Flash. Some apps will work while others expect higher resolutions or features that phones don't support.

    • Also, the big content providers in the USA seem to be purposefully blocking access from mobile devices. Try going to Hulu or CBS and displaying videos and you will be blocked even though Flash is perfectly capable of displaying those videos. This just astonishes me that they don't want me to view their advertisements from my mobile device. I can only assume Steve has arranged some exclusive deal with them or they're planning on releasing pay-per-view versions of their web sites, perhaps using a dedicated

    • Did you try putting the app into full screen mode? I figure that might help with the scrolling problem. (I don't have it on my phone yet so I'm not sure.)

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by LordVader717 ( 888547 )

      Oh for fucks sake! How is this Flash's fault? The BBC designed and implemented the player. Flash can handle multitouch fine, and it's up to web designers to make their sites accessible for mobile devices.

      The only reason we have Flash Video is because Quicktime sucked so hard. I say the more competition the better.

    • On the BBC news video players you can't control playback because the clickable area on the time-line is far too narrow to hit. You also can't drag anything because this just scrolls the website.

      Conclusion: Steve Jobs was right; flash doesn't belong on phones and I'm glad he is killing it, even if he is still an annoying control freak.

      So, basically, you've used a Flash app on some website which is not designed with mobile devices in mind (because Flash simply wasn't there to target it), and from that use you conclude that Flash is fatally flawed on such devices?

      I mean, do you think that it was some fundamental Flash constraint that forced that video player you complain about to have a narrow trackbar, and it's impossible to make it wider?

    • Conclusion: Steve Jobs was right; flash doesn't belong on phones and I'm glad he is killing it, even if he is still an annoying control freak.

      And that right there is the problem. Steve Jobs is an annoying control freak, but he's often right. It can be very hard to argue with "right" even when you don't like the messenger.

  • A lot of people are excited about Flash on Android, but what about the performance? My impression from reading various previews is that it's rather slow and laggy. Have they improved on things, or were these people running Flash on devices that aren't supposed to be running it in the first place?

    I must admit that I want Flash to go away and be replaced by open web standards, but at the same, time I would like to be able to view all web content on my mobile phone.

    So did they manage to get decent performa

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by h4rr4r ( 612664 )

      Flash is slow and laggy on everything, what did you expect?

    • And more importantly, how many horrible security holes does Adobe's bad, sloppy programming introduce?

    • Re:But what about performance? (Score:5, Informative)

      by ma3382 ( 1095011 ) on Tuesday June 22, 2010 @01:15PM (#32655210)
      I have Flash on my Nexus One running FroYo...honestly, its not that bad. Youtube videos run very smoothly for me (much more so than the actual Youtube app, that thing is garbage IMHO). It's only when you see pages with lots of crap (ads) on them that performance becomes an issue. You can set the plug-in to On Demand, but when you select one flash object to load, I've noticed every flash objects loads and then performance suffers.

      • That's ominous... (Score:3, Insightful)

        by jamrock ( 863246 )

        I have Flash on my Nexus One running FroYo...honestly, its not that bad.

        Hmmm... Adobe should be worried if that's the best thing anyone can say about it.

  • If I recall, there's an option in the Android browser to only load flash apps "on-demand", i.e. when you click one. Kinda like Flashblock for Firefox.

    Also, since this is the final version, does it finally have hardware acceleration? Hopefully we'll see some tests soon.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by hkmwbz ( 531650 )
      That's a good point. Hardware acceleration is probably going to help a lot, but will it be enough? If anyone can dig up info on whether HW acceleration is mandatory for Flash and Android 2.2, that might shed some light on this..
  • developer resources are now?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by chill ( 34294 )

      I think you're overstating the case. The correct term is developer resource, not resourceS plural.

  • Flash is fundamentally user hostile. It's all about controlling the user's experience, not about what the user actually wants.

    Until there is an Open Source flash player implementation that can run the vast majority of Flash applications, I don't want it.

    Adobe wouldn't be in the platform trouble they were in if that was the case anyway. Right now Adobe has to be the one to create a player for whatever platform. If it were a truly open standard with a good interoperable Open Source implementation, they wou

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Kenja ( 541830 )
      If you dont want it, you dont need to use it. I do want it, and your lack of want should not effect my ability to get it.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by jedidiah ( 1196 )

        This all boils down to choice.

        People in general tend to make VERY BAD choices. However,that's a necessary thing to tolerate about liberty.

        If people I look down on aren't able to make choices I disagree with, then I will likely not be able to make the choices that I want.

        What I install on my computing device should be my choice and not something dictated by either Jobs or RMS.

      • I'm telling you that your choice to get it is a stupid mistake, and that almost anybody's choice to get it is a stupid mistake. It costs more than you pay for it.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Cyberax ( 705495 )

      "Until there is an Open Source flash player implementation that can run the vast majority of Flash applications, I don't want it."

      Stop whining. So go out and write one - Flash specification is open (the only closed parts are related to DRM which you don't really need).

      Fact of life: animated vector graphics is complex. Even HTML5 doesn't come close to capabilities of Flash.

    • Apple is fundamentally user hostile. It's all about controlling the user's experience, not about what the user actually wants.

      FYP

  • I know that Flash is not popular around here, but the facts are that it is invaluable for in house web apps. Google Visualization, Flex, Salesforce API, etc are very popular in the business world. Being able to have a 6SIGMA style dashboard written once in Flash and useable on both a web site (intranet in most cases) and a mobile devices is invaluable. Sure, in time HTML5 may be a viable alternative, but we're talking about the business world which is still on IE6 in many cases.

    Every time I get a project a
    • Flex is a big one for me, having to support a CMS that utilises this - this means I can actually do full out of hours support entirely from my phone (or it will, if Froyo hurries up with an official release and HTC hurry up with integrating and releasing it).

  • Perhaps now the overworked, underpaid developers who did this can get back to work on flash for 64-bit Linux [slashdot.org].

    And while I'm in a bitter mood... It still amazes me how flash can be so horribly inefficient even at video playback. Ancient VLC versions play back H264 with far less CPU usage than current Linux flash does. I do wonder how Adobe manages to achieve this disparity in performance.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by McNihil ( 612243 )

      I second this motion. And Adobe please do this pronto... not wanting to come across all whiny and stringy but common... 64 bit has been around for more than a decade (at least for me... pure 64 bit since 1996 (Sparc and MIPS.) and x86_64 since Opteron)

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by nickull ( 943338 )
      I am lighting fires under the PM's for this every day (I work for Adobe). There are many of us here that want support for 64 bit linux. You guys have every right to be whiny about this. I bitch about it myself. THere are Duane Nickull dartboards on more than one Flash Player engineers door. Keep up the pressure. - DN

  • Now I can have the dubious claim of the cell phone with the biggest security whole.

  • So how long before Adobe releases a 64bit Linux version of 10,1?

    They were doing pretty good supporting 64bit platforms for a bit but they seem to have stumbled a bit recently.

  • Froyo still has not come out of the beta stage :-)
    I guess google was waiting for Flash and Froyo now will be rolled out. Lets hope.

  • A new generation of exploits coming to a phone near you!

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