So… still think Apple should let Flash on the iPhone?

[iggibar]

I guess I'm the only one with Android 2.2 that hasn't had any problems with flash.

There are exceptions to everything!

 

[Lifeisabeach]

Well, fair enough. I can't speak to your experiences with your older Macbook. But what you must understand is that there's a flip side to the coin. My 2008 and 2009 MacBook Pro's never exhibit such performance woes when faced with the same scenario's. I've also never experienced the issues you've sited when using any of my friend's iMac's or MacBooks. Some of them use Chrome, others Opera or Firefox.

<snip>

In any case, I just find it rather ODD that I'm what.. the ONLY person on this forum who has absolutely zero issues with Flash running on multiple browsers (minus Safari) ? And if Safari is the problem, I'd suggest ditching it. Pretty simple IMO. But yeah, that won't happen, I know. It would undermine everything that Steve is working to achieve apparently. Which seems to be the hopes that everybody on the planet will take up Safari and ditch any other browser. Because really when you look at that silly new HTML 5 web page on the Apple website, that's pretty much the message he's sending out. Anyway.. guess that's all I can say on this matter.

Oh you aren't the only one. I personally haven't observed any issues with Flash, and I mostly use Safari. No crashes caused by Flash (that I know of) and I'm oblivious to any performance hits on my system. That doesn't mean they aren't there… I just don't visit many Flash-intensive sites to begin with nor actively monitor what's going on with my system in terms of cpu load and the like. However… this is one of those things where my lack of observable issues doesn't equate to there simply being no issues.

That said… I'm also highly aware that the computing power of my portable devices is simply far less than that of my desktop computer. Given everything I've read and seen, Flash simply isn't scaling as smoothly to portable devices. In the D8 interviews, Jobs stated that when Adobe first came to them about Flash on the iPhone, he asked them to show something that was "better". They didn't, and it was left at that as far as Apple was concerned until the iPad was introduced and Adobe started whining like spoiled little children who weren't getting their way. If Adobe would just cooperate and develop a usable lightweight Flash plug-in that really works well for a portable device as Apple has envisioned, then perhaps it'd be a go. But Adobe wants it THEIR way. Granted, so does Apple, but at least I feel Apple is working for my interests, and a power-hungry, sluggish plug-in is most certainly not in my interests. Remember… the iPhone is a phone, first and foremost, and as a portable device, battery life should have top priority.

 

[the8thark]

As a reply to Doug b's post.

Steve Jobs is just promoting his own products and companies ethos. The same as any other company would do. So on that front Jobs is just the same as every other CEO out there. Every CEO wants their products to be used and their competitiors products to be used less. So nothing special there.

And I have to agree you with flash use. I've not ever had one crash with flash. In FireFox and Safari. I refuse to use Chrome as I think it puts my online security at major risk. Saying that mind you flash does use significantly much more of my system resources then say a HTML5 video would do.

So I do prefer HTML5 much more. But flash though using up way to much of my CPU works fine for me and I've not had one flash related crash or a visible OS slowdown when running a flash video. I think OS X is built so well that it can take the demands of flash and runs it with ease.

This asks the question, is a low CPU usage HTLM5 or a high CPU useage flash video better? Will using high CPU usage process a lot of the time do damage to my computer? Well in 4 years I've not seen even a tiny bit of damage from all the net flash that has popped up on my screen (mostly in flash website ads).

For the mobile devices I would say for the above reasons I agree ban flash from them. But for my imac it works just fine. But since websites these days are visited by mobile devices as well as notebook/desktop computers you want to use the codecs and formats that work best on all of the devices that will be viewing your web content.

And HTML5 in my opinion is needed if you care about the people who view websites with mobile devices (iphones/ipads etc).

 

[Kash]

I think I've had maybe one or two crashes due to Flash. However, I am certainly in the camp where Flash uses up tremendous resources. Every time I go to Youtube or play a Flash game, my Macbook's fans fire up at full speed and my battery life goes down the toilet. I figure if a 2GHz chip can barely handle Flash, how would a much slower mobile chip without also seeing significant performance and battery problems?

I just did a test between my Windows PC and my Macbook playing the same video on Youtube. With the Windows PC, CPU utilization was pretty low (~4-5%), with a few spikes here or there. With the Mac, on the other hand, CPU utilization for Firefox never dropped below 50% (the %User stayed around 25%). What this tells me is that the Flash plugin for OS X wasn't coded as well as the one for Windows, which leads me to extrapolate that Flash on any OS X based device (iPhone, iPad, iPod touch) would also result in high CPU utilization. On mobile devices, that means a big battery hit.

 

[Lifeisabeach]

Speaking of Flash security vulnerabilities…
Adobe Flash, Acrobat vulnerable to major security hole | Electronista

Adobe on Saturday posted a warning of a critical security vulnerability for both Flash and Acrobat. Both Mac and Windows versions of Flash 10.0 and earlier, as well as all versions of Acrobat 9, are susceptible to being exploited for remote control over a user's computer. Flash 10.1's pre-release build and older versions of Acrobat aren't affected.

The hole doesn't yet have a fix and has already been used to attack computers in real conditions. Acrobat owners with Windows systems can delete, rename or block access to authplay.dll as a workaround, but the move prevents opening PDF files with embedded Flash. No schedule was given for when a patch would arrive for either Flash or Acrobat.

An exploit on this level comes ill-timed for Adobe as it has just recently tried to promote Flash as a secure environment in its bid to persuade Apple and users that the plugin is necessary on mobile devices. Flash 10.1 for Android 2.2 isn't known to have the problem but isn't yet in a finished state.

 

[J.Fo]

I figure if a 2GHz chip can barely handle Flash, how would a much slower mobile chip without also seeing significant performance and battery problems?

Bingo.

 

[Kamina]

What are you talking about ? I answered each unsubstantiated point you tried to make, one by one.

Is that so? then lets have a look at my original post:

Flash should never touch the iPhone...seeing what it does to Mac's.
However i do not blame Apple for not having a solution, i blame Adobe for not being able to release something useful.

"...seeing what it does to mac" -> meaning resource eating
you however interpretated some other things into my words, like security issues and such, wich i didnt say at all, furthermore you compared me to others, and even accused me of TAKING OVER others believes, even though you dont know me.
"i do not blame Apple, i blame Adobe" -> well of course, its Adobes Flash, not Apples.
Also, you said "I answered each unsubstantiated point you tried to make, one by one.", that sounds like i made a whole bunch of points,.. i only see two i my post. Also my points are not unsubstantiated.

I didn't misrepresent anything you said.

Oh really?

As far as "thinking like others", don't for a minute try and back peddle and pretend that everything you've said doesn't fall in line with what everybody else whom loathes Flash (and only because Apple tells them to) has said. You pretty much just picked and chose things from my response to you and took them out of context with the issue on the whole.

Well EXCUSE ME, what do I care if other people by chance thing SIMILAR so me? Also, why would i dislike Flash because Apple does?, I dislike it because it is eating resources.
And OMG please i didn't misinterpret your words, i simply picked out what I felt offending.
You said I was talking about security issues, that I didnt even mention. (Yes i know i didn't NOT mention them either, so that left space for interpretation. My fault, i will not make that mistake again.)

I didn't call YOU a liar, I said:... That is not calling YOU a liar. Sorry if you misunderstood, because this is a big difference to me.

When you take my post, say I am wrong and say that it is a lie, then this IS accusing me of being a liar...at least for me. If however you really didn't mean it like this you too should think of a different way to say it.

Yeah, of course Flash eats up resources....

Well whats the problem then? Thats all i ever said, no need of texting me down with your posts. I dislike long post.
So please, if you feel like answering on this post, dont post too long, really, i dont feel like discussing Flash and our obvious misunderstandings at the same time and not in such huge Text walls.

not once have I witnessed any security flaws/holes, browser crashes yada yada and more yada

And your point is? I was never talking about security holes anyway.


To end it I will post this very simple:

Me not like Flash for Mac, because Flash munching Resources.
Evil Flash is evil, Adobe is evil for making bad Flash!

 

[Lifeisabeach]

Just how bad is Flash on Android?

Kevin Tofel of GigaOm and JKOnTheRun is someone who isn’t a dyed in the wool iPhone or Apple fan. In fact, he replaced his iPhone with a Nexus One in January (a process that I’ve recently gone through, more of which anon). And that’s why this video over on NewTeeVee of his experience with Flash video should be required watching for anyone who thinks Flash on mobile is a reality, today.

What does this demonstrate? Simply that the idea that Apple could simply magically put Flash on the iPad (which runs a processor in the same class as the Nexus One) is fantasy. Ignoring the broader reasons for Apple wanting to keep Flash off its platform, it’s clear that Flash is simply too processor-intensive to work properly on mobile-class processors as currently specified.

 

[baggss]

Just how bad is Flash on Android?

Anyone see the irony in the fact that the video was in Flash?

 

[XJ-linux]

It would be nice if Apple had allowed the user to choose whether to run Flash or not. It's a pig, but sometimes it's needed for certain content. I dislike it and run Click-to-Flash on my computers to keep the Flashpigs at bay. Still, there were times when having Flash would have saved some time and effort in having to get information elsewhere in another format. Flash definitely sucks down the CPU cycles/battery. If you view a lot of Flash the battery goes South. Then again if you view a lot of YouTube video on an iPhone, the battery goes South as well. I'm glad my Droid has a replaceable battery. I have not observed, as stated in the article, that "the OS with Flash installed bogs down". Neither my OS nor my browser perform worse with Flash enabled.

 

[XJ-linux]

Another perspective:

Why Apple Fanboys Are So Wrong about Flash - PCWorld

 

[Lifeisabeach]

Another perspective:

Why Apple Fanboys Are So Wrong about Flash - PCWorld

Here's my perspective: I don't miss having Flash on my iPhone. At all. Personally I'm thankful for someone like Apple having the cojones to force change that otherwise would come slower and more painfully. Let's be honest here… if Flash was available on all mobile devices, then no one would bother themselves coding for alternatives that are arguably superior for mobile devices in particular. For those who think having choice is so blessedly awesome, then buy an Android. The rest of us are moving on.

 

[osxx]

I would not care if it did not turn every Apple product into a watt hungry easy bake oven
and its not like they did not have enough time to fix it.

 

[cwa107]

Another perspective:

Why Apple Fanboys Are So Wrong about Flash - PCWorld

It is pretty sweet. I've had 2.2 for a couple of days now and it wasn't really high on my priority list, so I didn't look to test it. But I did notice that suddenly, a few sites were showing content that they hadn't shown before. Nothing fancy, mind you - mostly ads. But it was still kind of a nice surprise.

Ironically enough, even with the new Flash support and features, the battery life has actually improved on my DInc.

It still wouldn't stop me from switching to a VZW iPhone, however

 

[baggss]

Another perspective:

Why Apple Fanboys Are So Wrong about Flash - PCWorld

Lets see, a well written article talking about reality vs a video showing the reality...

Frankly, I don't see the big deal but thats just me.

 

[XJ-linux]

Here's my perspective: I don't miss having Flash on my iPhone. At all.

With all due respect, and with no offense intended... one might say that you are incapable of missing it because you haven't been allowed to have it. As far as "moving on", it would appear that you were the one that reawakened a thread from almost 3 months ago. Just saying... ;D

 

[Lifeisabeach]

With all due respect, and with no offense intended... one might say that you are incapable of missing it because you haven't been allowed to have it. As far as "moving on", it would appear that you were the one that reawakened a thread from almost 3 months ago. Just saying... ;D

Since my iPhone does everything I need/want it to do, I'm either blissfully ignorant of what it can't do, or simply don't give enough of a hoot. I'm quite certain I don't want videos that perform like "that" or Flash sucking down my battery life because no one has the cojones to move on from it.

As for resurrecting a thread… well it was that or start a new one.

 

[bargsbeer]

It is pretty sweet. I've had 2.2 for a couple of days now and it wasn't really high on my priority list, so I didn't look to test it. But I did notice that suddenly, a few sites were showing content that they hadn't shown before. Nothing fancy, mind you - mostly ads. But it was still kind of a nice surprise.

Ironically enough, even with the new Flash support and features, the battery life has actually improved on my DInc.

It still wouldn't stop me from switching to a VZW iPhone, however

When did VZW roll out 2.2 for DInc?

 

[cwa107]

When did VZW roll out 2.2 for DInc?

Last Thursday, I believe. It's supposedly going out in progressively larger batches over this week.

 

[Lifeisabeach]

Why do they have to built a Flash for Android if it slows down the experience of the browser in the first place?

Because Adobe is desperate and has a significant financial investment in Flash. They paid a LOT of money to buy out Macromedia for Flash and selling Flash development tools brings in a nice hunk of change. Flash may have its uses and real benefits, and I'm sure it could be better adapted to the mobile platform for what it could excel at that HTML5 can't, but Adobe wants the whole hog. This is the problem you have when you have business/marketing guys running the show… they are oblivious to technological limitations. They just figure they can spin it and downplay problems, rather than actually address them.