Adobe: Flash 10.1 will require 'some enhancements to existing versions of Android'
By Donald Melanson 
posted Feb 9th 2010 8:08PM
posted Feb 9th 2010 8:08PM
As you may have noticed, there were a few reports making the rounds earlier today that suggested Flash 10.1 for Android would be limited to phones running Android 2.1. Adobe itself didn't seem to be saying much about the matter, however, so we inquired with them and received a statement that raises about as many questions as it answers. According to Adrian Ludwig, group product marketing manager for Flash Platform:
Adobe, Google, and other members of the Open Screen Project are working together to make ensure the full Web experience can be delivered on largest possible number of devices. Support for full Flash Player 10.1 requires some enhancements to existing versions of Android. These enhancements are expected to be available as an upgrade to existing devices and for new devices starting in Q2 2010.
The key detail there, obviously, is that support for the full Flash Player 10.1 will indeed require "some enhancements" to current versions of Android, meaning that one way or another you'll have to update, and that an update for every Android phone isn't necessarily guaranteed. What the statement doesn't confirm, however, is whether those "enhancements" are, in fact, Android 2.1, or an update of some sort that will follow Android 2.1 -- we'll let you know if we get any further clarification on that.
Flash is part of the "full web experience" in the same way AIDS and Cancer are part of the "full human experience".
@Bobbles
Just like being an ass is part of the "full Bobbles experience!"
@Bobbles In that case I'm glad my life sucks...
@Bobbles AIDS and Cancer do not play 75% of all online video's :-P
If you really hate it, use ClickToFlash or Flashblock, depending on what browser you use.
@Nitesh That "75% of all online video" is quite a big call, given that YouTube and Vimeo both offer native HTML5 now...
I do use ClickToFlash.
@Bobbles Youtube still only offers HTML5 as a beta (which I am signed up for, btw). The 75% is what Adobe said, so yeah, I would take it with a grain of salt.
@Bobbles
"That "75% of all online video" is quite a big call"
veoh.com, hulu.com, metacafe.com, megavideo.com and the list goes on.....
And these sites are bigger than vimeo...
@Maj
Engadget also uses a Flash media player I believe...
@Bobbles.... wtf? no just go home
@Flash fans
Hello! Yes, of course there are some good uses for Flash at the moment - it's the de facto standard for active content - but, if the main justification that the developers themselves can come up with (in their own video) is that you get all the banner adverts displayed correctly on NatGeo (while sucking the hell out of your battery) then it's tough to see much of a point to it in the long run from our point of view.
What can Flash do that can't be done with a combination of native apps for games / tricky stuff and web / video standards for the rest? All decent mobile platforms already support that approach.
I say this because I was a used to argue big time against friends who recommended Firefox to me back in its early days, claiming to them that IE6 was much better for displaying all that day's websites, but who realised the errors of his ways.
In 2002, I found that IE6 correctly displayed 100% of the websites I visited whereas Firefox failed to render around half of them correctly, despite adhering to all the latest open standards. So, no matter the technical benefits of the "superior" technology, I was losing out as a user!!
But, in the long run, the problem wasn't Firefox... it was IE6. Content providers realised that they were being held back by IE and to support new, open web standards was the only way to go. Eventually they started seeing IE6 as holding them back massively and now we're in a world where the open browser engines are clearly ahead in performance and capability and support 99.999% of websites. Now even Google see IE6 as a liability and are dropping support for it.
In my mind, we're in pretty much exactly the same situation with active content - just replace IE6 with Flash. It's a legacy thing. But you can change one similarity - IE6 on the PC was a known, working entity. Flash on mobile isn't, so could be easier to displace.
For all the criticism of Apple for not supporting Flash out of principle, tell me which manufacturers _currently_ support desktop Flash 10.x on a shipping ARM platform? That's right - none of them. All the criticism is being based on Adobe's claims that Symbian / Android / WinMo will support desktop Flash as some stage in the future. But it does not exist... nobody has tried it to say it's usable or practical.
To me, Flash 10.1 on ARM is, at the moment, sheer vaporware - it's supposed to have been with us for about 6 months already and none of us have it yet.
Even when it does arrive, we now find out it will be limited to only the latest versions of Android, so Droid, X10, G1, Hero will all miss out? Clearly they can't write Flash plugins in Java / Dalvik so they've got to rely on favours from Google.... so any manufacturer who has branched away from the Google source code will now be in real trouble.
Because it's "closed", any manufacturer who wants to use Flash and doesn't just take the off-the-shelf code from Google will have to get into a massive fight with all the other people in the queue to beg Adobe to port it to their products... and then get them to keep updating it as Google move through the versions of Android at a rate of knots. Not fun.
Anyway, the pragmatist in me says "give me Flash now on all my products for compatibility, but with FlashBlock installed for battery life and performance" but, Adobe, you'd better deliver based on the hype you've produced however the long term strategist in me, having learned from IE6, says it slightly less subtley... "F**k IE6, f**k flash!" :)
@fnuky
Dude...novel. Not cool.
@fnuky
I do have to agree with you on pretty much all of your points. Although Flash is the current standard for "active content", I see it being used in many unnecessary ways. The most recent example I can think of is UPS's "Business Solutions" page. It makes the all of the main content Flash for no reason except for a few image fade-in effects: http://www.ups.com/bussol?loc=en_US&viewID=productView&contentID=ct1_sol_sol_pickup
@Bobbles
Flash ads? WTF are those?
Kaspersky blocks all crap for me!
@fnuky I want flash support on my phone. I want Silverlight support on my phone. I want HTML5 support on my phone. To sum it up if I can visit a web site on my computer I expect to be able to visit it on my phone.
At least for me it isn't about flash per se. It's about the websites I visit (or would like to visit) on my phone.
@PhaseDMA
2 walls of text got lost in the internet. I agree with you.
@fnuky Honestly I want my phone to do everything! If I want flash at that momment screw the battery. Look just playing video drains the battery so it is your choice to watch Avatar MP4 on your cell phone even though it will chew through your battery. Why do people like you insist that less is more? Its the choice we are after, while you are at it throw in a AM/FM transmitter, Digital TV tuner, Front facing camera and a waterproof case. I want it all, and so do most people here. This is Engadget the pinnacle of high tech gadget technology. Seems like what you need is Wal-Mart catalog (plenty of gadgets there). You must have been against GPS on phones too, or you still probably are?
@Bobbles: Don't forget Dailymotion, although it uses Ogg Theora.
If the enhancements are an update following Android 2.1, it sounds like Flash might very well die soon.
The use of flash for streaming video and simpler animations is going quickly, but there will always be useful purposes for it to exist.
@Karate Tortoise
True, people keep saying HTML5 will replace Flash for video, but I haven't heard much about all the Flash games that would be lost. You know, the one's Apple won't let you play so you need to buy an app for each one? If Apple thinks it's that important, then Flash must still be useful at least for simple games.
@zomg0t Yeah, but honestly, would you kill yourself if your mobile phone didn't support Flash games? Honestly, if I could stream Hulu and other video sites, I could care less about Flash so if those migrate to h.264 or HTML 5 or ... then I'd stop caring about this.
@Fanfoot
agreed
gimme streaming video over games anyday
@zomg0t "I haven't heard much about all the Flash games that would be lost. You know, the one's Apple won't let you play so you need to buy an app for each one?"
Well simple games can be written in HTML5 / CSS3 and will probably perform as well (badly) as Flash games do.
Apple, Google, Palm, Nokia, Microsoft and the other app platform people all allow you to "buy" simple games for the grand cost of $0.
The choice of development platform's irrelevant - if they think you'll pay for their game, they'll charge for it. If they don't they'll give it to you for free, whether as a flash download or a native app but the native apps have huuuuuuge advantages in speed and usability.
I should qualify, though... Flash is going nowhere in the short term - HTML5 cannot replace it while there are no simple development tools like Flash has.
@Fanfoot
But you won't see those in anything but flash until html5 offers some real DRM support. Considering that there isn't even an established video codec standard, I wouldn't hold my breath.
http://gizmodo.com/5461711/giz-explains-why-html5-isnt-going-to-save-the-internet
@Fanfoot Yeah but what about DRM video in HTML5? HULU and Netflix are gonna want to go with a DRM option.
@Saauron Excellent link Saauron, thanks. Yeah, I hadn't thought about the DRM issues at all, and you're right, while Youtube or Vimeo might be happy enough streaming most/all of their stuff using h.264, Hulu or Netflix won't be, at least not without a DRM solution. Course I'm not sure that means one can't be invented, and even standardized. Crazier things have happened, but it does mean its going to be a WHILE before things change enough to make Flash unnecessary. Personally I think there's a change coming with the move to fragmented mp4 formats (variable bitrates), and there will be another struggle between Flash and Silverlight and Quicktime here. Likely Flash will win again of course, but you never know...
I'm just excited about the GPU acceleration. My laptop can play literally any other format flawlessly in 1080p, Flash is the only one that stutters here and there.
Sure, they are the last horse to cross that finish line, but the important thing is they crossed it.
@Nitesh
Did you try downloading the 10.1 beta? It runs a bit better on my laptop now.
Is this google's indirect way of saying flash will be in 2.2?
@Karate Tortoise We can only hope...
Palm Pre already has the architecture for it... just waiting on Adobe!
C'mon Adobe!
@goatlover: Feb 15 for 1.4 (rumor) which means Feb 15 for Flash on Palm Pre (in beta that is).
> Palm Pre already has the architecture for it...
How do you know this?
When the company that makes Flash is named after a brick, you know there's a problem...
@MastrCake
Hey, great point. I can totally see where you're coming from. You are so right.
@MastrCake
Right, just how Google is named after a number, Apple is named after a fruit and Android is another name for robot.
Honestly, that is one of the stupidest things I've ever heard.
So now it's Q2 2010 or beyond? I thought they were going to ship a beta in 2009 for Android? Adobe really cannot be trusted with any core web technologies. Flash is fine and all, it has it's uses, but obviously Adobe is unable to keep up. The last major release of mobile flash was 2007. That means that Apple, Google and Palm developed entirely new cell phone platforms and revised it many times in the same time period it has taken Adobe to release ONE Flash upgrade for mobile. This is unacceptable.
Sooooo...The Tegra's dedicated flash acceleration core will be used at last?
@Nitesh
What "dedicated flash acceleration core"? Tegra just has an H.264 decoder like every other frickin' mobile chip! All that helps is video playback.
Even Tegra2 is lacking a vector graphics accelerator, whereas most competing chips have OpenVG acceleration hardware.
Such a tease... c'mon Verizon, release mah Nexus 1! Flash or no flash!
Q: How many years does it take for Adobe to bring Flash to Android?
A: Longer than it takes to bring HTML5 to Android.
@gerrrg
Technically HTML5 support came to Android with update 2.0 Eclair
Hey thanks for asking about WebOS, too.
/s
@sweet greggo
This was a bigger controversy than WebOS.
I'm son lucky I kept my Palm Pre, just waiting on Adobe..ugghh
I'm read this sentence eight times to make sure that I wasn't crazy:
"working together to make ensure the full Web experience can be delivered"
To make ensure... Sounds like proper language for someone working in PR at a major company... why not?
@(Unverified)
And, I do see the irony that I wrote "I'm read" - but then again, I'm not a PR guy...
@(Unverified) Well-played!
I have to admit, as a now Nexus owner, I've had it with Adobe's videos and pronouncements that "it is coming".
I've waited on them for years, thru multiple platforms, to bring Flash to my mobile device, and it never materializes.
I don't see why they are all over Apple to use it on the iPhone...I doubt they can get it to work anyway. The time has come for them to release something or just forget the whole thing already.
I want Flash and I'm tired of waiting. At this rate, HTML5 will be widespread by the time they get their act together.
@Air Force One
"I've waited on them for years, thru multiple platforms, to bring Flash to my mobile device, and it never materializes."
N900?