Android Jelly Bean won't get Flash Player As part of the slow death of Adobe's Flash Player, the company has announced it won't be making a certified version for Android's new 4.1 OS – aka Jelly Bean. Adobe said on its blog that it won't be developing Flash for Android 4.1. The software company said it will also start taking steps to phase the player out of the Google …
1-0 to Steve Jobs and Apple.
I don't get how you figure that. iOS supports one option, Android supports both, and the rest of the world isn't/wasn't nearly ready enough for HTML5, making Android the superior offering for a decent amount of time. All this does is bring Android back to iOS' level, not make iOS any better.
"holds back development of a richer web"
What a load of tosh. There's loads of advanced functionality that can be done in flash that can't be done at all in html5, and plenty more that can be done in a reasonably cross platform and browser way that you won't be able to do for perhaps another 5 years due to cross browser incompatibility in html5.
That's without mentioning how javascript is positively retarded compared to actionscript, and how flash managed to iterate and deploy new versions with new technology a lot more rapidly than can ever be hoped for from the w3c
FLASH may be shit in a number of ways, but it still does a few things that HTML5 will not. HTML5 video needs to support DRM and streaming. Until it does that, a lot of people are going to be using alternatives. Which is a shame because it would be great to use something more standardised, less changing all the time and more easily distributable (no headaches wondering what version someone has or whether they'll be able to install it with their company policy).
Add DRM and you will get all the stuff you don't like.
It will be cracked in 5 seconds. They will keep changing in a hopeless attempt to keep ahead. It will only be available on some platforms, Some will use different types of DRM (Sony phones will have some crap Sony DRM I expect).
As long as they feel they need DRM for video they will need crap like iTunes/Flash/WMP. And the stuff will still get ripped and torrented 5 minutes after it's posted.
"Add DRM and you will get all the stuff you don't like."
What - like being able to rent movies online? Because that's actually something I do like. Like being able to sell or rent web-based games as a business model making it worth my while to write them. Like being able to buy stuff with actual money rather than by being subjected to 5 second advertising interrupts every ten minutes? Like being able to offer some content online without my customers just being able to click 'Save As...'
"It will be cracked in 5 seconds. They will keep changing in a hopeless attempt to keep ahead"
It has obviously escaped your notice, but some of the modern DRM is actually bloody hard to crack. All those ripped movies you see online... they come from DVDs, not Zune movie rentals. As to the "hopeless attempt to keep ahead", *shrug* technology moves forward and industries adapt. If you expect one system to have been produced that will never need updating, you are naive. It's not a weakness that old methods are replaced by newer and more secure ones.
"It will only be available on some platforms"
You obviously chose to skip over that the entire point of my post expressing the hope that a standards body would create a standards compliant version that all could implement. As it is, there doesn't seem to be much willingness to fill this need by the Web Standards bodies, which means they will (yet again) be bypassed by Industry doing it itself. This has already started to happen.
They come from DVD and Blu-ray and unprotected TV (broadcast) streams because they offer better quality. Webrips are around too, and all the built in DRM's in the Adobe platform is circumventable. There are tools for most services to circumvent the protection. Standard bodies of the web can't and will not standardize and implement DRM, it's up to others. They can't implement stuff that aren't royalty free. Make such a DRM free to implement and any one can do it, to save those streams. That is how they work. So the alternative for Flash player on cell phones is reasonably only apps that uses DRM-protected stuff. Closed code. Instead of air we will see other attempts of creating and packing apps for online content. Less platforms will have them. It simply will not be available in the video tag and a lot of the business it self has missed that and hopes for some DRM-solution that will never come. It's still years away for all the technology to take hold so Adobe is to early here. DRM and black boxes solves nothing by it self.
Those that can't think in other terms will loose out of course, others are powerful enough to be able to have those sought after apps, and services, integrate into your home cinema/living room and be on dedicated devices for 70 bucks or whatever. As of yet those services that actually has more to offer then services with physical media is however only available in USA. Content always get out and always has, I have free and legal access to newspapers, magazines and books at the library foreign authors don't even get any money for it. Yet people pay for media and will continue to. Neither are any content in my country available in the Zune video marketplace so there is nothing to rip. HDCP is easy enough to strip so that is no problem either, every tv does it. Even if you don't bother to write a software that can break into and rip streams from their services. Stuff is always available in other ways too. Ripping will occur at the ones of highest quality and earliest release. Netflix expanded and became big in online videos despite that you could rip all their content. Despite that when you make decisions based on DRM-platforms you run into other problems, their VC-1 powered service runs into problems even though it's quite easy to decode because their silverlight solution won't hardware accelerate VC-1. They will probably switch to more standard approach later because of that. The problem is that there still will be a big divide between their approach kinda standardized and the open web. You will even on PC's probably need to install separate software applications to be able to use those services at all in the future, it's however not the webs fault that companies is turning away and turning to a black box approach. DRM's will always be broken, and it's only based on business not technical decisions they will choose to corner of from the web. Not that you couldn't run a business with content that is rippable, everybody does so today. Studios might not like it,yet they put up plenty of stuff at youtube which offers zero protection and host their stuff with pure http (progressively downloading the MP4 files while playing.).
"Everyone knew and indeed intended that Flash would eventually die off with this next generation. And that makes Jobs some kinda of visionary? My arse."
So Google said no to Flash first then? Hang on, didn't Google actively court Adobe and work with them to get Flash on their devices? Doesn't parctically every braying fandroid list "It supports Flash" as a pro of the OS? Like it or not, Jobs called this. Oh, and Google did't single handedly work on HTML5 as your utterings seemingly suggest; the instigators and early developers of HTML5 were Opera, Mozilla and Apple. Fandroids are worse than fanboys of the fruit if anyone dares suggest that the internets of pretty much any facet of mobile computing weren't actually invented by Google!
Flash was available on phones for a long time and will be for a long time yet. Just because it's getting to the end of its lifespan because it has been superseded doesn't mean all those millions of handsets sold with it on were mistakes.
If you had never bought a VHS video, would you be claiming a victory now, or would you just have missed a lot of TV over the years?
Flash lite was still crap and yes its performance was better but the fact it was different enough that it didn't get widespread usage and, imo, show most of its failings. Though arguable it's biggest failing was that it was different and it didn't (couldn't) do anything about the fact most flash content assume you have a mouse and will not work with a touch screen.
Cool down, no is trying to say android sucks so no need to work up a fanboy rage.
The point is Jobs said no flash because basically it sucks for phones. Fandroids disagreed and made it out like their platform will be so awesome because it'll support flash too.
Well it turns out Jobs was right, flash does indeed suck on phones. The difference is he defends his product's image more and won't let bad technology have a chance to fail where as google was happy to let flash fall on its ass on android.
"Cool down, no is trying to say android sucks so no need to work up a fanboy rage."
Nice try, but I use Maemo. Try making a valid point without an ad hominem next time.
Apple launched an inferior product, then tried to pull a Microsoft and claim the inferiorities were features. Love your iPhone status symbol more because it does less. Saying that Flash would die off with HTML5 is as wise as pointing out the certainty of day following night.
I guess I just don't get how the world works inside the reality distortion field, where supporting only one format is *better* than supporting both...
For me, this may limit me from upgrading from ICS to JB - Its always useful to have Flash on a mobile browser and not have to worry. Even unsupported, Flash will take a long time to die on the Internet, so I guess 'droid owners will have to get used to the equvialent of the little blue box that appears on IOS.
I guess Adobe are stuck between a rock and a hard place - they want to sell their new HTML5 ready toolsets by making Flash obsolete, but have to acknowledge that change takes time.
I just hope the 'other' browsers continue to support flash for a few years yet until it goes the way of the Hamster Dance.
I was one of those people who had RealPlayer on his/her PC when FireFox 13 + new Flash came out. I was quite surprised by how many websites that are still using Flash, and how inconvenience it was not to have it running..... and that was on the PC no less!
too many big websites make use of Flash, heck, even El'Reg used it with they Microsoft Cloud advert!
I upgraded my phone to Jelly Bean yesterday and experienced the little blue box syndrome you describe this morning when mooching around the web, I felt so iOlated. People may say that flash runs like crap on a mobile device, but then people also say our rail network runs like crap. I'd still rather have trains than no trains.
It is time for Flash to die a quick and painfull death. This unholy mess has been torturing us long enough now. First no 64 bit Flash on Linux, now there is, but it's crap. Recently installed a new Linux box, tried some Youtube to find every clip looks like Avatar: blue people. Installed different version of Flash: no more blue people, but crashes at will.
Ah the blue video experience.
The Assholes at Adobe cocked up the colour frame information ordering for Nvidia VDPAU in 11.2 - you must have an Nvidia card to see this and hardware acceleration on.
This is fixed in Google Chrome using 11.3 and pepper (PAPPI) but not for the Firefox folks (NPAPI) as you are stuck on 11.2 forever. There is an ugly hack to fix the blue experience but I can't be arsed applying it.
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=1118576
PS agree die flash, die.
Why do you think MS STILL supports *ancient* embedded video (quicktime and others) for media player??
yes, there are still websites that use it...
Same thing with flash, people STILL want their old websites to work... and if they cannot get their fondleslab to display it, they will find another one that does!!!
flash will remain, until a format that is EASY & CHEAP to use appears..
and as google is AFAIK the one behind HTML5, its just waiting for adobe to stop doing flash...
Considering Adobe had annouced they were discontinuing development of the Mobile Adobe Flash this isn't exactly a news flash.
Ok I'm going..but before I do I just want to add the only thing I find surprising is IE10 will have embedded Adobe Flash. Does anyone know if Windows 8 phones or tablets have adobe flash?
"I thought Metro was written in Flash..?"
Not sure if you're serious, but no, it isn't. Metro the interface is presumably written in C and C++, all precompiled anyway. Applications for it can be written in HTML5 + Javascript, C#, C++ or (who does this?) VB. Definitely not FLASH.
FLASH does run in IE10 for those that want it. And there are a lot of sites out there that still use it.
I wonder if Adobe have given advance notice to the likes of the BBC because this announcement doesn't have much lead-time before the Flash libraries are withdrawn from the Play store for new devices.
For the BBC iPlayer it could be a great thing - it was hobbled by not being able to play in the background or usable for radio streaming since when the screen goes off so does anything Flash-based.
The Flash based Android iPlayer app is a veritable steaming pile of poo. Not only can it not play radio streams in the background, it can't even play them with the screen off. Absolutely shocking example of how not to write a mobile media player app.
I now use get_iplayer to grab programmes and download them to my Android phone to watch where and when I want. And I can keep them as long as I like.
The really stupid thing is that the BBC (or rather the "rights holders" to the various programmes) forced the excellent MyPlayer and BeebPlayer off the Android Market in order to protect their content. This would be fine if they replaced them with something that was actually usable. Instead they replaced it with this bloated Flash-based catastrophe which got me looking for something better (which I found in get_iplayer).
In other words, the fact that I now grab BBC programmes and keep them is purely down to their misguided attempts to protect their content.
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>I wonder if Adobe have given advance notice to the likes of the BBC
It's been clear since CS5 - so two software releases - that Adobe was Flash Platform mobile to AIR..... but they've also been explicit about the runtimes since the Flex debacle http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flashplatform/whitepapers/roadmap.html .
A critical bit of the Adobe posting on demise of FP in JellyDroid is that no-one bothers to report (I think because suprisingly few journos understand the difference between Flash and Flash Player) says..
"Our future work with Flash on mobile devices will be focused on enabling Flash developers to package native apps with Adobe AIR for all the major app stores"
The bajillion and one websites which won't be completely redesigned in html5.
Anything halfway near complex.
In fact anything more than a couple of objects bouncing around.
Flash may suck. However for doing the things Flash does well, HTML5 sucks donkey dick and loves it. "Not Ready For Prime Time" is a phrase that comes to mind. Especially not on some battery operated ARM thing.
Hey, I can't wait for animated HTML5 adverts either, I'm sure they'll only take four or five times the CPU power to render!!!!
One thing I don't get..
Now that adobe has finally given up supporting Flash on Linux (although not supporting it will probably be a better effort than when they pretending to do so like they used to....) future flash releases will be on Chrome only and the plugin is supported directly by Google (they have to be better than Adobe)
http://www.muktware.com/3778/chrome-20-google-takes-over-adobe-flash-linux-development
If Google are bothering to develop the Flash plugin on Linux why not Android too ?
p.s - The solve the Smurf issue (although watching the news in the blue LSD theme is actually quite fun), either use a good distro (i.e Arch and use the AUR package with the fix), or see
http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=2518770&postcount=104
Or just disable hardware acceleration and restart the browser.
It's almost like Adobe did the Smurf issue on purpose - one last FU linux !
Adobe must be worried about their future.
Now that the flash life cycle is coming to an end, why don't they open-source it so people can fix it up (or die in horror...)? As much as I've seen some horrid things done with/to flash, there are some things flash does well, certainly a lot better than hodge-podge not-quite-standards that may have support and/or implementation quirks even worse than flash.
that will mean flash takes longer to die.
Converging on one set of standard that can be supported directly the the browser makers is a Good Thing.
Open sourcing flash will mean those flash devs spend longer developing for a platform that will become increasingly non-default (users having download plugin, or it is flat out not supported) and see their marketable skills dwindle instead of biting the bullet and moving on. Indeed, perhaps the addition of former flash devs to the standards clamour will improve HTML/javascript/SVG. However, that would require feature requests/alterations to have a better reason than "because flash did it that way"
The real trick is the move from adobe flash professional to either EDGE or something like Aptana
Running the Flash site on some honking big data centre and then streaming it to your device is not "Flash support on iOS".
By that measure, my Droid devices support a fuckload of PC games via the OnLive client. You know, the one that's still not been released for iOS?
Now stop being silly.
... how videos will play in the browser once Flash is gone.
Will the browser just call another, suitable player/plug-in to play videos (for the offered format) or will HTML5 itself include codecs (like mp4 or that Googly one) to play the videos natively in the browser?
Exactly. Video isn't the problem at all. Of course if you browse with Flash installed you will see Flash video all over the place but without it you'll just get your video served by other means, mostly.
The problem are games and such things. And many sites designed by "designers" that are just a big blob of shivering Flash. If you don't need those, just forget that something called "Flash" ever existed.
I've had several occasions where the wisdom of Jobs left me in the poo while out and about. If I'm trying to find a physical shop address and their website / address finder ran Flash, the comedy brick symbol did not leave me thinking "Ooh, tut, tut, they should have done that in HTML5".
Just moved to Android ICS from a fruit and now you are telling me a stake is being driven through my new shiny Flash icon in the next upgrade. WAH!
Since you've just switched from Apple to Android, let me explain something to you...
Android phones don't get OS upgrades in anything resembling a timely manner, if ever. Your contract will be up before you see 4.1 on your phone!
The manufacturers often don't bother with the upgrades (because they've got larger product lines to make updates for). When they do (like Samsung does occasionally), the network operators don't bother upgrading, under the guise of needing time to update their operator specific apps. I mean, why would either the manufacturer or the operator want to help you upgrade your phone? They both have a vested interest in you wanting to buy a new phone (with a newer more expensive plan)!
I've got the AT&T Galaxy Note (the 4G version), so we're expecting the ICS update (which also adds a bunch of new pen-optimized Samsung apps that make the S-Pen useful - so it's a big deal update) in Q2 (which was already delayed from the original estimate of May). With 1 day of Q2 to go, our chances of an update are looking pretty slim.
So, don't worry about an update breaking flash for you, you won't get an update unless you root your phone and do it yourself.
...what happens when someone does the same "run it in a data centre and stream it to the device" cheat that Photon and vBrowser use?
Enjoy your lack of OnLive client. I think I'm going to go play Unreal Tournament 3. On a phone.
Or maybe on a tablet?
I'm kind of undecided there.
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However miserable flash is (and it is terrible and always has been), unfortunately this plague still infects 23% of websites ( http://w3techs.com/technologies/details/cp-flash/all/all ) - that means, lots of people need (or want) to use sites that need flash player.
Until this announcement, one assumed that Google could use the support for Flash as one of the selling points for the Nexus 7, just as Amazon can with it's Fire. It doesn't matter for most people, but it's very important for a small but significant portion of users. And now Adobe has pulled the plug on that. I'm surprised that Google was unable to pull some strings to get Flash on it's new tablet to give it that selling point (maybe Amazon was pulling strings in the other direction?)
From a historical perspective, it *was* a killer app for many developers.
Certainly, hideous crimes were committed using the platform - and obviously, that will never happen with HTML5 canvas, oh no, not at all!
Flash bought the web forward in a *massive* way, which we completely take fore-granted now.
Before Flash, video on the web - well, it was laughable. Sure, part of that had to do with bandwidth, but to a large extent, Flash made putting video content onto the web viable.
Yes, it never was very good cross platform - on Linux, it's always been terrible. On Mac, well, not much better.
It's day is done, but don't rewrite history here - it served a very valuable purpose in bringing interactive multimedia content to the web.
Some may argue that this was the death of the web, that the web was never intended to be a rich multimedia experience, that it was simply to serve up text. Well, some people have neck beards and wear plaid shirts. They exist in the minority.
What we are left with, without flash video, is a bit of a mess of codec support.
It's currently more complicated to provide a cross platform experience - not impossible, just more complicated. I'm sure this will get far easier over time.
It's a good move and above all else, damn exciting too.
I can't wait to see what devs will be producing in 6, 12, 24 months from now.
Already, we're seeing some very compelling content - and we're able to see that across all devices, without the need for a proprietary third party plugin.
I'm massively stoked to be a developer again - it reminds me of the heady days of the web, '93 through to '99 - loads of great ideas, new developments, excitement over browser releases.
We then had a phase of - to be honest - drudgery. '00 to '05 were boring years for web developers by comparison - at least those not involved in developing the next wave. There was far too much propriety shit happening, far too much dominance by microsoft and we had the dot.com crash followed by an almighty hangover.
Now we've got mobile just taking off in a massive way, connectivity has ramped up by an order of magnitude, the amount of choice available is incredible and we've finally got - to a certain extent - a set of standards that are being adopted to ensure continuity.
Whilst the economy is going to hell in a handbag, there's still a bit of wiggle room for web developers - there's work to be had, at least, for now.
Viva HTML5, goodbye to the old faithful Flash, out to pasture with you old friend, you've served us well.
I really dunno why everyone moans about flash, i have never had a problem with it on any of my devices.
Iplayer works fine on my Android phone as does every other flash based site.
noscript+adblock ensured that i wasnt bothered with flash ads.
When I had an idevice it was a right pain not having flash for sites like tvshack etc.
Html5 just isnt as good, I tried the youtube html5 beta thing and it really was subpar, no indication of where u were in the video and lower quality picture and sound.
I think Jobs banned it because most types of games on the app store could be had for free on flash based websites rather than any technical issue with performance etc.
The problems with Flash are that it's:
a) Proprietary formats which are mostly documented by its code
b) a very complex piece of software supporting multiple scripting languages
c) Code from the 1990s, the decade when every body believed they could write C(++) code. That code is riddled with buffer overflows and other bugs which can be used for remote code execution.
Each one of those points would already be a show stopper for anybody who wants a reliable and maintainable system.
You may be to young to have seen the problems people had with proprietary file formats. It's not uncommon for people not to be able to read their files from the 1980s or even the 1990s. Once a software product is no longer available, you cannot read your files anymore.
Many companies have been hit badly by Flash exploits. It's one of the more common infection vectors. Flash causes millions of damage, from direct damage by counter measures from data breaches to sales of snake oil.
Well, okay, if you all say Flash should die I suppose it should. Who am I to go against collective wisdom and the baying hounds of progress?
Pity though. The design desk for Flash 4 (the version I own, long superseded) is hands-down the most intuitive digital drawing interface I've ever seen and used. Kids take to it with a few seconds of instruction like a duck takes to water, and they get great results in minutes.
I recently needed to make a very simple animation to illustrate a situation involving a person walking down a street and turning into an alleyway. A backdrop, a couple of user-generated shape objects, a few keyframes and a motion tween. It took me 45 minutes from "Gawd I haven't done this in 10 years" to "Job done".
Which should be acknowledged as a major win for the (Macromedia) design team. All user interfaces should be so intuitive.
I don’t want Adobes HTML5 editor. Anything that enables people to create similar shit to the shit they made for Flash must be bad. My kids play online flash games with graphics that a ZX81 could handle and they manage to use 8Gbyte a month. It seems every image is downloaded a zillion times and I somehow doubt that Adobe will do it in way that allows the browser to cache them.
been very happy with flash on my android over the years. I don't need to pray for a quick death. My phones will happily adapt with the times. Flash will still be useful for a good while after the iPhone 4 is an out of date bag of !"£$. Nothing visionary about not putting it on your phones that Flash will outlast.
By fandroid standards and when Jobs refused Flash's entry to iOS, Android is just as crap as iOS now as it doesn't support "suck-my-battery-plugin" anymore? Yep, it was a pinnacle reason most fandroids turned to the robot. Oh now you're saying Flash will last past the iOS existance (or at least some of the hardware)?
Don't do a u-turn like UK gov does all the time. You must now sell your Android phones and buy what's left (RIM or Windows Phone - hahaha).
Anyway, Flash will die when the updates for it stop coming. My bet is the next 24 months.
Yiminy, but Adobe has the most completely inept marketing department. Ever.
Here's the deal: this is the end of the Flash Browser Plugin on mobile, not the Flash Platform. Adobe is concentrating on games and high end video, and will continue to support mobile via AIR, which is based on the Flash Platform. Why Adobe doesn't mention this in every press release like this is beyond me. I am, however, getting a little irritated at all of the incomplete reporting on it. *hint hint*
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flashplatform/whitepapers/roadmap.html
"Adobe continues to actively invest in enabling developers to create and deploy Flash based content as mobile (and desktop) applications via Adobe AIR."
Of course, maybe they've decided that the Flash name has too much baggage. But every time Adobe releases one of these dumb-assed announcements the rest of the world goes OH FLASH IS DED NO JOHN RINGO NO OH NOES and then Adobe have to spend the next year repairing the damage so developers can convince businesses that no, it actually isn't going away and really, it's ok if we develop your flash-in-a-pan (heh) mobile crapp using this very productive environment instead of something that will take 2 to 3 times as long like HTML5 or native.
I want my damn Paris Hilton icon.
It's not like you are going to actually get Jellybean on your top of the range Android phones anyway.... I still know people with the Gallaxy S II that haven't got ICS. And don't give me crap about using custom ROMs because the average joe punter doesn't know or care about them. Android sucks at updating and until they sort that out it will always be in the shadow of iOS
too right!! I guess it will be another year or more for jelly to actually be available, *plenty* of time for alternatives to be made, adobe to realize they ate losing cash, and attempt another u-turn, or even try suing google for producing what it should have, buying it , and releasing it as the new thing to produce buggy media with!!!
But the comparison should be in when people get actual features. If the slower Android rollout meant Android devices were months behind IPhones in terms of features, then you might have a point. But if anything, the reverse is true - how many years did you have to wait for basic features like multitasking? Did you finally get copy and paste? The idea that any platform is in the shadow of IOS is laughable, considering how it's played catchup on so many features for years.
I hear that the killer feature of IOS 6 will be maps. Welcome to 2006!
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