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You are assuming that the only thing preventing Flash from working on mobile is that it hasn't been "optimized" enough -- that opening the source to Google and

by jcl 16y ago

You are assuming that the only thing preventing Flash from working on mobile is that it hasn't been "optimized" enough -- that opening the source to Google and Apple will unlock performance otherwise unattainable by Adobe. But suppose Adobe's programmers are not completely incompetent? Perhaps Flash's execution model is genuinely unable to be optimized further. Or perhaps most Flash content in the wild runs at the limits of desktop performance, and that compositing vector graphics and text on top of video while running multiple VMs embedded in a webpage is just too much for a memory- and CPU-constrained device. In that case, open-sourcing Flash would have little effect. Even if we had an optimal mobile Flash player, we'd still need everyone to rewrite their Flash movies to run well on it. That's why HTML5 has the advantage here: HTML5 content is being freshly written and tested for mobile platforms.

bruceboughton 16y ago
Rubbish! Most moderately advanced HTML5 demos run hideously, if at all, on mobile hardware. The difference will be if HTML5 can replace 80% of Flash uses in a performant manner. The video tag makes up a huge block of that 80%. The other 20% will always run like a dog on mobile hardware, no matter the technology.
- ItarPeyo 16y ago
  Always?! Even on mobile hardware that will come in 5-10 years?
- illumin8 16y ago
  Have you watched the Apple HTML5 demos on an iPad? It's actually revolutionary to see what they can do with the limited hardware. Being able to touch and drag a 3d model around at 30 fps without stuttering? I can't even do that on a lot of PCs with Flash.
  - elblanco 16y ago
    Here ya go. Give this a try and let us know how it runs. http://xplsv.com/prods/demos/xplsv_orsotheysay/ http://xplsv.com/prods/demos/xplsv_orsotheysay/
    - mishmash 16y ago
      I ran two three minute tests, one in Safari and the other Firefox on a 2.8GHz C2D w/ 4GB RAM and nothing else really open. In Safari 5.0.1 your link didn't render a single frame in three minutes. Firefox 4b3 did render, but the animation would not normally be watchable. The opening scene ran the best, probably around 15fps while during second and third scenes the galaxies would jump about an inch with each frame. I don't know what the fps were, but it was updating the screen less than one time per second with a single core maxed out. Also, on launch, FF was using 76MB of RAM yet after the three minute test it was using 168MB of RAM. So your link didn't function in one browser, used 2.8GHz of processing power and ~90MB of RAM in another yet was completely unwatchable. Was I supposed to be impressed?
      - kevingadd 16y ago
        It runs great in Chrome.
        weego 16y ago
        Flash content runs in every browser.
        davydka 16y ago
        Except mobile ones.
      - elblanco 16y ago
        Well, the demo is an amazing demonstration of HTML 5, and the limitations of HTML 5...if your browser can swing it. It runs pretty great in Chrome, not so great in FF and sucks everywhere else. What if this were a Flash demo? Only be mildy interesting -- and that's only for the presentation itself. From a technology perspective it'd be ho-hum. I think more important than that is that it's not even interactive. Interactivity with HTML 5 apps has light years to go compared with Flash even if browser vendors can lick the performance problem. In other words, HTML 5 as a content delivery platform has a very long way to go...and as it is is certainly not anywhere near as a cross platform as Flash is. It's just not a swap out substitution for Flash yet and forces developers to produce software that's just simply not of the same quality as Flash is able to handle.
  - mgcross 16y ago
    This page: http://www.apple.com/html5/ http://www.apple.com/html5/ ? The 360 there is a simple pre-rendered jpg sequence. But I'm hoping you're referring to a real-time 3D execution. If, please share a link.
  - est 16y ago
    > Being able to touch and drag a 3d model around at 30 fps without stuttering? I can't even do that on a lot of PCs with Flash. Then can you explain why setting font size to 200 on this HTML5 demo http://www.ponticstar.com/projects/burning-words/ http://www.ponticstar.com/projects/burning-words/ then my browser is slowing down to unusable? I've seen burning words demo in Flash 4 from 2000 and it's very smooth even on a PIII machine.
    - robryan 16y ago
      Without examining the code it's hard to jump to conclusions, was the flash version really rendering the effect pixel by pixel as I'd imagine the HTML5 one is?
    - Shorel 16y ago
      Opera 10.61 still works well with that 200 font size. It has however one core maxed out.
asolove 16y ago
We're talking about Google, a company who wrote their own cleanroom Java implementation and reverse-engineered ActiveX to create a ChromeFrame implementation still compatible with anything that ever worked in IE. I think they could speed things up a bit. ActionScript is just JS plus some extra sugar. JS implementations have gotten hundreds of times faster in the last three years, while Flash has gotten slower. Slap a modern JIT on there and we should get some improvement.
- sshumaker 16y ago
  A lot of what goes on in SWF files is the art data (vector graphics, the 'movieclip' object, etc). Flash comes with a pretty extensive API for manipulating graphics and these objects, all which needs to be rewritten for mobile. There's a lot there, believe me. Unfortunately, much of that content is what causes the problem. Using the artist tools (Flash CS3), you can generate content that simply fumes memory, without writing a single line of code. I'm not sure you can even fix those issues without re-authoring the art content. What makes this worse is that anyone can embed one of these crappy SWFs in a webpage, causing the browser to fume memory too.
  - albertzeyer 16y ago
    Or to put it different: Everyone can build a crappy webpage. Flash helps in making that easier.
- justsee 16y ago
  The Flash player has been getting faster over the years - dramatically so, afaik. Could you provide links to back up your statement that it has gotten slower? I've never heard that before.
- est 16y ago
  > reverse-engineered ActiveX to create a ChromeFrame Can you elaborate? > while Flash has gotten slower. Slap a modern JIT on there and we should get some improvement. Adobe actually contributed to Tracemonkey's JIT as one of their effort towards ECMAScript engine unification, they even planned to write a engine for WSH Active Script, but failed. IMHO Flash is laggy because of the drawing part, but in this case HTML5 is also laggy as hell. Try set font to 100 in this demo: http://www.ponticstar.com/projects/burning-words/ http://www.ponticstar.com/projects/burning-words/

by jcl 16y ago

bruceboughton 16y ago

Rubbish! Most moderately advanced HTML5 demos run hideously, if at all, on mobile hardware. The difference will be if HTML5 can replace 80% of Flash uses in a performant manner. The video tag makes up a huge block of that 80%. The other 20% will always run like a dog on mobile hardware, no matter the technology.

ItarPeyo 16y ago
Always?! Even on mobile hardware that will come in 5-10 years?
illumin8 16y ago
Have you watched the Apple HTML5 demos on an iPad? It's actually revolutionary to see what they can do with the limited hardware. Being able to touch and drag a 3d model around at 30 fps without stuttering? I can't even do that on a lot of PCs with Flash.
- elblanco 16y ago
  Here ya go. Give this a try and let us know how it runs. http://xplsv.com/prods/demos/xplsv_orsotheysay/ http://xplsv.com/prods/demos/xplsv_orsotheysay/
  - mishmash 16y ago
    I ran two three minute tests, one in Safari and the other Firefox on a 2.8GHz C2D w/ 4GB RAM and nothing else really open. In Safari 5.0.1 your link didn't render a single frame in three minutes. Firefox 4b3 did render, but the animation would not normally be watchable. The opening scene ran the best, probably around 15fps while during second and third scenes the galaxies would jump about an inch with each frame. I don't know what the fps were, but it was updating the screen less than one time per second with a single core maxed out. Also, on launch, FF was using 76MB of RAM yet after the three minute test it was using 168MB of RAM. So your link didn't function in one browser, used 2.8GHz of processing power and ~90MB of RAM in another yet was completely unwatchable. Was I supposed to be impressed?
    - kevingadd 16y ago
      It runs great in Chrome.
      - weego 16y ago
        Flash content runs in every browser.
        davydka 16y ago
        Except mobile ones.
    - elblanco 16y ago
      Well, the demo is an amazing demonstration of HTML 5, and the limitations of HTML 5...if your browser can swing it. It runs pretty great in Chrome, not so great in FF and sucks everywhere else. What if this were a Flash demo? Only be mildy interesting -- and that's only for the presentation itself. From a technology perspective it'd be ho-hum. I think more important than that is that it's not even interactive. Interactivity with HTML 5 apps has light years to go compared with Flash even if browser vendors can lick the performance problem. In other words, HTML 5 as a content delivery platform has a very long way to go...and as it is is certainly not anywhere near as a cross platform as Flash is. It's just not a swap out substitution for Flash yet and forces developers to produce software that's just simply not of the same quality as Flash is able to handle.
- mgcross 16y ago
  This page: http://www.apple.com/html5/ http://www.apple.com/html5/ ? The 360 there is a simple pre-rendered jpg sequence. But I'm hoping you're referring to a real-time 3D execution. If, please share a link.
- est 16y ago
  > Being able to touch and drag a 3d model around at 30 fps without stuttering? I can't even do that on a lot of PCs with Flash. Then can you explain why setting font size to 200 on this HTML5 demo http://www.ponticstar.com/projects/burning-words/ http://www.ponticstar.com/projects/burning-words/ then my browser is slowing down to unusable? I've seen burning words demo in Flash 4 from 2000 and it's very smooth even on a PIII machine.
  - robryan 16y ago
    Without examining the code it's hard to jump to conclusions, was the flash version really rendering the effect pixel by pixel as I'd imagine the HTML5 one is?
  - Shorel 16y ago
    Opera 10.61 still works well with that 200 font size. It has however one core maxed out.

asolove 16y ago

We're talking about Google, a company who wrote their own cleanroom Java implementation and reverse-engineered ActiveX to create a ChromeFrame implementation still compatible with anything that ever worked in IE. I think they could speed things up a bit. ActionScript is just JS plus some extra sugar. JS implementations have gotten hundreds of times faster in the last three years, while Flash has gotten slower. Slap a modern JIT on there and we should get some improvement.

sshumaker 16y ago
A lot of what goes on in SWF files is the art data (vector graphics, the 'movieclip' object, etc). Flash comes with a pretty extensive API for manipulating graphics and these objects, all which needs to be rewritten for mobile. There's a lot there, believe me. Unfortunately, much of that content is what causes the problem. Using the artist tools (Flash CS3), you can generate content that simply fumes memory, without writing a single line of code. I'm not sure you can even fix those issues without re-authoring the art content. What makes this worse is that anyone can embed one of these crappy SWFs in a webpage, causing the browser to fume memory too.
- albertzeyer 16y ago
  Or to put it different: Everyone can build a crappy webpage. Flash helps in making that easier.
justsee 16y ago
The Flash player has been getting faster over the years - dramatically so, afaik. Could you provide links to back up your statement that it has gotten slower? I've never heard that before.
est 16y ago
> reverse-engineered ActiveX to create a ChromeFrame Can you elaborate? > while Flash has gotten slower. Slap a modern JIT on there and we should get some improvement. Adobe actually contributed to Tracemonkey's JIT as one of their effort towards ECMAScript engine unification, they even planned to write a engine for WSH Active Script, but failed. IMHO Flash is laggy because of the drawing part, but in this case HTML5 is also laggy as hell. Try set font to 100 in this demo: http://www.ponticstar.com/projects/burning-words/ http://www.ponticstar.com/projects/burning-words/