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I'm just finishing up developing a Flash-based rich media website. My target audience includes a large contingent of 'art people' so performance on Mac is fairl

I'm just finishing up developing a Flash-based rich media website. My target audience includes a large contingent of 'art people' so performance on Mac is fairly important. "We love Apple"? Seeing the jerky, sluggish performance and massive CPU spikes on Mac OS I find it hard to believe this sentiment.

FluidDjango 16y ago
True, actions speak louder than words as indicators of sentiment. To purchase a banner ad expressing a sentiment is only a tactic. ...and a tactic toward what end is completely unclear to me. If I were an Apple shareholder I would expect to receive little benefit from Adobe sending Ars a few buck for a banner ad that doesn't indicate a commitment to creating more effective apps for Macs, phones, etc. that Adobe has been in past. EDIT: And now that I visit http://money.cnn.com/ http://money.cnn.com/ I discover that they're throwing money for cnn banners too. EDIT2: Sorry, I did not click on the banner (never feel inclined to on any banner ad). Which reveals the punch line: The banner actually means, "We love Apple... but... (their behavior is unacceptable)."
qjz 16y ago
I'm curious: If you knew Flash was going to be problematic for a large part of your target audience, why did you choose to base your project on it?
- mambodog 16y ago
  For a start, I didn't realise the extent of Flash's Mac woes. I'm familiar with the problems with CPU usage during video playback (hence I implemented YouTube's relatively solid player in the site), and since switching to Mac as my main OS recently I've had a few browser crashes (mainly caused by blip.tv) but this was eye-opening. Also, there was a desired level of 'WOW'/impressiveness from the client that I don't think I could have met without Flash. I'm a Flash developer after all, and while I am also proficient with HTML & CSS, between the current state of browsers and my limited JS skills it just wasn't going to happen any other way. To be fair, it only got really bad when I implemented Google Maps' 3D API for AS3, but even with that, it is still silky smooth on Windows. Needless to say, I am watching the progress of CSS3 & JS/Canvas as they becomes a more viable alternative. At the very least, it can be evenly slow across all platforms ;)
itistoday 16y ago
I think this has been addressed several times, the performance issues for video playback are Apple's fault for not providing the necessary APIs to allow third-parties access to hardware decoding (which exist on Windows). In 10.6.3 I believe they finally added them, and Adobe released a beta/alpha of Flash player that uses them. Then, there have been several benchmarks released recently showing that Flash is faster than HTML5's canvas for drawing, both on desktops and mobile devices. So I think your comment isn't exactly fair, or at least it deserves some qualification. (Note: I am not an Adobe apologist. I barely use any of their software, and have no personal stake in their survival. I'm just seeing Apple spreading a lot of FUD and that upsets me as I've been a big fan of the company.)

FluidDjango 16y ago

True, actions speak louder than words as indicators of sentiment. To purchase a banner ad expressing a sentiment is only a tactic. ...and a tactic toward what end is completely unclear to me. If I were an Apple shareholder I would expect to receive little benefit from Adobe sending Ars a few buck for a banner ad that doesn't indicate a commitment to creating more effective apps for Macs, phones, etc. that Adobe has been in past. EDIT: And now that I visit http://money.cnn.com/ http://money.cnn.com/ I discover that they're throwing money for cnn banners too. EDIT2: Sorry, I did not click on the banner (never feel inclined to on any banner ad). Which reveals the punch line: The banner actually means, "We love Apple... but... (their behavior is unacceptable)."

qjz 16y ago

I'm curious: If you knew Flash was going to be problematic for a large part of your target audience, why did you choose to base your project on it?

mambodog 16y ago
For a start, I didn't realise the extent of Flash's Mac woes. I'm familiar with the problems with CPU usage during video playback (hence I implemented YouTube's relatively solid player in the site), and since switching to Mac as my main OS recently I've had a few browser crashes (mainly caused by blip.tv) but this was eye-opening. Also, there was a desired level of 'WOW'/impressiveness from the client that I don't think I could have met without Flash. I'm a Flash developer after all, and while I am also proficient with HTML & CSS, between the current state of browsers and my limited JS skills it just wasn't going to happen any other way. To be fair, it only got really bad when I implemented Google Maps' 3D API for AS3, but even with that, it is still silky smooth on Windows. Needless to say, I am watching the progress of CSS3 & JS/Canvas as they becomes a more viable alternative. At the very least, it can be evenly slow across all platforms ;)

itistoday 16y ago

I think this has been addressed several times, the performance issues for video playback are Apple's fault for not providing the necessary APIs to allow third-parties access to hardware decoding (which exist on Windows). In 10.6.3 I believe they finally added them, and Adobe released a beta/alpha of Flash player that uses them. Then, there have been several benchmarks released recently showing that Flash is faster than HTML5's canvas for drawing, both on desktops and mobile devices. So I think your comment isn't exactly fair, or at least it deserves some qualification. (Note: I am not an Adobe apologist. I barely use any of their software, and have no personal stake in their survival. I'm just seeing Apple spreading a lot of FUD and that upsets me as I've been a big fan of the company.)