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Walt Mossberg Tells Adobe CEO To His Face That Flash Sucks On Android

119 points by sigzero 15y ago

lylejohnson 15y ago
The actual quote from Mossberg is much more polite than the submission title would suggest: "I have yet to test a single [Android phone] where Flash works really well. I’m sorry. They struggle on those Android devices."
- zmmmmm 15y ago
  Why do I suspect Mossberg's statement could be reduced to? I have yet to test a single [Android phone] Ok, cheap shot, but I really think he's not actually tried it on high end phones with reasonable flash apps that are designed for mobile use. Yes, if you go to cnn.com which fully expects to be running on a desktop it stutters. It stutters on some desktop computers too. But go to the mobile games sites that specialize in Flash games for phones - and many of them are great.
  - jakeludington 15y ago
    Flash is pretty lousy even on the 4G Android phones. Plenty of browser crashes all over the place. That said, at least Flash support is there.
    - bradshaw1965 15y ago
      ...That said, at least Flash support is there. I hear that argument a lot, but I've never found myself where a kludge of a technology really saved the day. I lump it with the web browser on the Kindle where the idea of having it available is much more interesting then even the desert island use of the tech.
      - MatthewPhillips 15y ago
        That's because it's not a "kludge of a technology". It works most of the time, doesn't some times, and has bad problems (locking up your browser, crashing, etc.) on the minority of times. A lot of anti-Flash people, for whatever reason, translate the bad occurrences as "blows" or some other hyperbole.
        bradshaw1965 15y ago
        I've seen some compiled flash air apps that are useful, but we'll just have to disagree on the utility of it in the browser.
  - staunch 15y ago
    His entire argument for Flash is that you don't have to rewrite your app for different platforms.
    - zmmmmm 15y ago
      No. You're mixing in a different definition of "platform" here to include hardware profile. A flash app designed to run well on one mobile device will probably run well on other mobile devices with little or no modification. On the other hand a flash app designed to run well on a desktop probably is not going to run well on mobile hardware. But then probably neither will any app built on any technology that was designed to make use of desktop level hardware.
      - zmmmmm 15y ago
        Well, it's interesting to see my comment sink down to negative territory. Here's the exact quote from Narayen in the linked article: > The value proposition Flash has is that we allow people to author programs once and get them to as many devices as possible He says "devices", clearly indicating that he is arguing the value proposition is to deploy across multiple phone (or mobile device) platforms, not some kind of write-once-run-anywhere proposition that works across desktop and mobile.
        urbanjunkie 15y ago
        He's used the phrase "multiple devices" before, and he's clearly referring to more than mobile phones. In this interview from last year he states [1] "The world is emerging where there are multiple devices [...] to access the internet Mobile devices are certainly a big part of it, tablet devices will be a part of it, televisions and PCs..." the more these platforms adopt flash, they won't have to do anything else. It will just work" Seems pretty clear to me. [1] http://www.flashstreamworks.com/archive.php?post_id=127265398 http://www.flashstreamworks.com/archive.php?post_id=12726539...
- watty 15y ago
  Are you suggesting the article from "cultofmac.com" is slightly sensational and bias?
watty 15y ago
You know what doesn't suck? Having the option to run it when I want. I don't use it often but there have been several instances where I was able to access web content that iOS users could not.
- 51Cards 15y ago
  Agreed, not to mention that honestly I don't have a big problem with it. I have it load on demand and my device is old now, a Nexus One. I load and play flash games regulairly without issue. I keep hearing that Flash sucks on Android but I guess I have the one and only device where it works. I admit it does bog on occasion but I attribute that mostly to flash apps that were designed on and for desktop PC power. I also have run HTML 5 sites that bring my desktop computer and browser to its knees but I don't scream "HTML 5 sucks!" Perhaps my experience is unique.
- nupark2 15y ago
  Personally, I'd rather have the vendors kill off Flash, forcing the web to switch to alternatives, resulting in an environment where I never need (or want) to use Flash. I'm even willing to suffer slightly for this in the meantime -- even if that means you can access Flash (poorly) on an Android device, and I can't. Apple's position has already resulted in a fairly dramatic decrease in the number of flash-only websites, and I won't cry if I see it disappear entirely.
  - tensor 15y ago
    The problem with this notion is that everyone is assuming that HTML5 + Javascript is going to be somehow drastically better than flash when it matures. I have not seen any technical arguments as for why this would be. I imagine that when all the inexperienced flash programmers move over to HTML5, we will end up with even slower HTML5 based animated ads and an even more fragmented browsing experience due to the lack of standards for video and audio. Worse, since these technologies can be more thoroughly integrated into websites, it will be far harder to block them.
    - kenjackson 15y ago
brisance 15y ago
Mossberg missed a chance to ask him about the other ugly side of Flash: its security vulnerabilities.
- joelhooks 15y ago
  Wouldn't that be something that could be asked of any sort of technology platform?
  - Locke1689 15y ago
    In practice Adobe has had very poor security response. Claiming that all technologies are equally vulnerable to security concerns is like comparing qmail and Adobe Reader and saying the same thing.
olivercameron 15y ago
This argument has been played to death, and Adobe never seem to let it go. The fact is, Apple owes Adobe nothing, and not including Flash was never a dig at Adobe as a company, but a choice that Apple made about Flash as a software package. Adobe seem to have taken it super personally, but the truth is that Flash on mobile devices just doesn't work in it's current form (speed and usability issues). Steve has said multiple times that the door isn't closed on Flash, they just need Adobe to prove it will perform like Apple expects.
- brisance 15y ago
  Not exactly. Apple changed their developer agreement such that programs that weren't developed using the iOS SDK weren't allowed on the App Store. They reversed the decision only later on, and now you can develop on Adobe AIR and have the LLVM-derived compiler (irony?) output code for iOS.
  - olivercameron 15y ago
    With all of Flash's security issues, I am not surprised Apple doesn't let native Flash apps on their own store.
    - MartinCron 15y ago
      I think the security issues for flash in-browser (mobile safari) are more troublesome than security issues for apps in the app store. Apple can (in theory) validate that the things going through the app store aren't total malware. In-browser? You're on your own, for good or for bad.
      - pyre 15y ago
        Truly. We should disable JavaScript as well. Who knows what AJAX vulnerabilities might be in mobile Safari? Apple can't vet them all for malware. On that token, Apple can't vet all websites to make sure that their content doesn't misrepresent Apple as a company. They should probably just trash Mobile Safari altogether.
TwoBit 15y ago
Flash may run poorly on mobile devices, but doesn't the equivalent HTML 5 run worse? It runs worse on all other platforms.
- watty 15y ago
  It's clearly not about which one runs better, has the better development tools, or best support across browsers and operating systems. It's about Flash being (semi)closed, requiring a plugin, and being owned by Adobe.
  - tensor 15y ago
    I agree, but sadly the prevailing notion held by the majority of developers and the public seems to be that HTML5/JS is somehow significantly better than Flash in terms of technology. In this sense, Apple's deceptive marketing strategy has been a success.
    - Argorak 15y ago
      Is it deceptive? I remember iterating through minor versions of Flash just to get Adobe Connect (a product of the very same company, just to emphase) to run without crashing on OS X. Yes, Flash on OS X is horrible mess, even more on Linux. I vastly improved my browsing experience on OS X by actually following Grubers advice and only have one Browser with Flash enabled (Chrome). And even there, it is the single point of crashes(tm). So this notion is not very surprising.
varunsrin 15y ago
This is a really poorly written, fanboyish article - not saying anything about whether or not flash is good, but do we really need articles like this one on HN? "Watch the smug get slapped right off of Narayen’s face after he laughably tries to claim that contrary to Steve Jobs’s argument that Flash is a dead technology, it’s currently running on 130 million Android devices."
- Entaroadun 15y ago
  Agreed. Definitely did not see what the author was talking about there, which leads me to suspect he started watching the video with a strong bias in mind.
  - Dove 15y ago
    I clicked through hoping for some technical content about how Flash is doing on mobile platforms. I got an analysis of a facial reaction in an interview. That's pretty disappointing. So here I am in the HN comment thread hoping someone will say something interesting and technical.
  - rooshdi 15y ago
    The article was written by CultofMac. They have a strong self interest in exaggerating any situation relating to Apple in order to attract more readers. It's hard to find honest boring news nowadays.
rodh257 15y ago
I've had good experiences with flash on my Galaxy S, mainly flash streaming, I don't play flash games. I've used it on a number of occasions to watch streams of cricket matches. Much better than not having it at all.
fragsworth 15y ago
I think by far the biggest problem Adobe has to deal with is that there are so many inexperienced software developers who have taken up writing Flash applications. These new developers' lack of knowledge is what causes these applications to have poor performance, not any particular inefficiencies in the Flash platform itself. It probably stems from the fact that the development studio is designed more for artists than developers, allowing artists to toy with adding functionality to their creations but not really giving them the years of training it requires to understand performance implications. Adobe can't really make this claim, even though they are fully aware of it, because it is never good to badmouth your customers. So they are left with taking the heat for them instead. Contrast this to the native Android or iOS development environments which cater to experienced software developers.
- tomkarlo 15y ago
  Good to point this out... Flash works because the desktop platform has such a huge excess of computing resource relative to the needs of the applications built in Flash that some inefficiency in the name of an easier developer experience is no problem. On mobile phones, where you're almost always pushing the envelope in terms of available memory and CPU cycles if you want to do anything interesting, this suddenly becomes a huge problem.
- michaelpinto 15y ago
  When it comes to ActionScript the problem isn't so much creatives trying to write code (they'll do stuff in the score) but more self taught programmers who may not be that experienced. Although you could level the same charge at other languages like PHP that attract production people who are looking to do more cut-and-paste than anything else. Another issue is that Flash projects can be very client driven, and more often than not advertising clients don't always grok tech issues. Although I feel that Adobe has to take some credit for the structure and evolution of Flash. Adobe has always been more about adding 50 average features to sell a software suite than to focus on better/faster/stable. Unlike Microsoft who owns the OS or Apple who makes hardware their core business is selling new tools, so there is no "bigger picture". The result is bloatware.
tomkarlo 15y ago
Good for Uncle Walt. There aren't enough reporters out there who call CEOs out on the truth of his comments. Right or wrong, it's more interesting for Walt to say his view on this as someone who looks at a _lot_ of Android phones than just let that statement pass unchallenged.
kylec 15y ago
Android's not the only platform Flash sucks on. That video clip was freezing and choppy on my 2010 MacBook Pro.
- michaelbuckbee 15y ago
  I had similar issues with flash video until I re-enabled hardware acceleration. Right Click the video > Settings > Enable Hardware Acceleration. Hope it helps.
teyc 15y ago
Speaking from a technical standpoint, since Flash is a VM, and it's running on top of Dalvik, wouldn't performance necessarily be poor? If anyone knows a little more about how Flash works on the mobile, please share.
- jevinskie 15y ago
  I believe the Android Flash plugin uses native code. You aren't forced to run on Dalvik on Android - Google released a Native Development Kit that includes GCC.
  - teyc 15y ago
    wouldn't NDK require a very recent version of Android? There are a lot out there which are still on 2.2.
    - shoota 15y ago
      2.2 would be the version that Flash was introduced.
- av500 15y ago
  Flash runs as a plugin inside the webkit based browser and webkit is native code in android since day one. that also means that you cannot play local .SWF files on android unless you manage to get them inside a web page...
  - acqq 15y ago
    Flash can't run natively "on webkit." Flash file contains bytecode, which has to be either fully interpreted or JIT-ed. It has to be done on mobiles too. The interpreter or JIT-er has to be native. Writing native JIT-ers is hard, to have a native interpreter you can write it in C and recompile it for every platform but it will be significantly slower. In short, it's not easy to make the Flash fast on a new CPU. And no, Webkit is not a CPU.
  - cpeterso 15y ago
kingkilr 15y ago
I wish someone would tell him that it sucks on every other platform as well.
ENOTTY 15y ago
I ran Robot Unicorn through Flash just fine on my Motorola Droid.
blinkingled 15y ago
The only place where Flash works very decent is on Windows with IE. It kind of bogs down on even bigger power desktops and laptops. It absolutely blows on OS X for whatever reason. That said the point of Flash on Android is not to have guaranteed high performance, fluent apps that work like native ones. That's an impossible goal - for one, Adobe cannot control what kind of Flash/AS code all of the developers out on the web will write. And secondly on my Xoom with 3.1 - Flash works great enough - no stutter or crashes. Does the job. So as more decent hardware comes out and they optimize Flash even more it will become better. This whole cult like insanity people have created for and against Flash is mind blowing - it's there you can use it if you want, don't if you don't. No one is forcing anything down your throats folks. For me I will take reasonably working Flash instead of not working at all. Oh and before you beat up the HTML5 drum - it's not there yet and it's not the absolute reality of the web today.
- chamakits 15y ago
  I think what people take issue with (at least its what I take issue with) is that Adobe is trying to pretend its an open standard of the web, that helps push the web forward when in reality it does the contrary. For starters, its not an open standard, its an executable program (or plugin). It isn't a standard left up to be implemented by whoever is interested, its controlled by the one and only master implementation by Adobe. A lot of websites like to depend on Flash in some way or the other, be it for ads, video, or some functionality, and more often than not it makes the experience unpleasant. On the other hand HTML5 is an open standard and thats all it is. Its basically an agreement of what the technology takes as input, and puts out as output. If you want to implement the technology, by all means, go ahead. If group A implements it better than group B, then people have the choice of using the group A technology. Group B will then have to improve their implementation if they are interested in staying competitive, and we all win. That to me is key, the option of using a standard, implemented by different people to make it strive, not a binary distributed and leaving you up to the whim of the company behind it. FYI: You spoke of windows and Mac OS X, but didn't mention Linux (probably because you haven't tried it, the same way I haven't tried it in Mac OS X.) Flash absolutely blows in Linux as well. I'm not talking just on the gnash and open source flash players, I mean the Adobe closed source build. It stutters, the keyboard input detection is abysmal, it leaks memory all the time, and crashes eventually from all the memory leaks.
krogsgard 15y ago
I just like that Narayen started his career at Apple. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shantanu_Narayen#Career http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shantanu_Narayen#Career
cletus 15y ago
Frankly, I'm tired of the whining about Flash and the (largely Apple-hating) enablers and apologists for Adobe's incompetence. Fact is, all Adobe had to do to "win" this PR war was jailbreak and iPhone, developer a version of Flash for it and then show it off to anyone and everyone who wants to see what a great experience it can be. Instead, Adobe would rather just lie back and say "there's no point in trying", which is an obnoxious mix of laziness, incompetence and arrogance. What's worse is the number of people who have bought into their BS. Does Apple want Flash on iOS? Probably not. But with good reason. And who really cares? Producing a compelling Flash experience on mobile (something that STILL doesn't exist, even on Android) would've gone a long way to forcing their hand.
iqster 15y ago
Here's the video: http://www.9to5mac.com/70293/adobe-ceo-responds-to-steve-jobs-on-flash/ http://www.9to5mac.com/70293/adobe-ceo-responds-to-steve-job...
paulrademacher 15y ago
The video froze on my Macbook Air.
- Create 15y ago
  ...this is why Adobe and Qualcomm would want a deal to add hw support to their ARM fork.
bad_user 15y ago
You know, as much as I don't like Apple, this time I've got to hand it to them as they were right -- I have an Android and I love it, but the browser plugins are disabled (since Samsung thought it would be a good idea for Flash to be part of the Firmware, and I can't uninstall it). Flash makes your browser unusable, because it consumes a lot of battery and makes browsing slower. And it's doing this without you even noticing, since many websites include either crappy Flash commercials or at least some .swf that sets Flash cookies for better tracking. The sad part is that the first 2 days I blamed my phone for the piss-poor battery life, but after I disabled Flash and uninstalled Skype my phone's battery now lasts for 3 days instead of 6 hours and the browser runs smoothly.
loso 15y ago
I have an Android phone and I have never had any problems with Flash. And I am far from a Flash cheerleader. It seems that most of the Flash hatred comes from Linux and Mac users. If it sucks on their platforms then I can truly understand that. Even on Windows it could be a lot better. But it is not an evil technology. Just poorly implemented at times. Every time the argument comes up I feel as if there is a section of people trying to convince others that Adobe is the devil. Flash has its place on the web until something comes along that can properly replace it. HTML5/CSS3 is just not there yet but it soon will be.

119 points by sigzero 15y ago

The actual quote from Mossberg is much more polite than the submission title would suggest: "I have yet to test a single [Android phone] where Flash works really well. I’m sorry. They struggle on those Android devices."

zmmmmm 15y ago
Why do I suspect Mossberg's statement could be reduced to? I have yet to test a single [Android phone] Ok, cheap shot, but I really think he's not actually tried it on high end phones with reasonable flash apps that are designed for mobile use. Yes, if you go to cnn.com which fully expects to be running on a desktop it stutters. It stutters on some desktop computers too. But go to the mobile games sites that specialize in Flash games for phones - and many of them are great.
- jakeludington 15y ago
  Flash is pretty lousy even on the 4G Android phones. Plenty of browser crashes all over the place. That said, at least Flash support is there.
  - bradshaw1965 15y ago
    ...That said, at least Flash support is there. I hear that argument a lot, but I've never found myself where a kludge of a technology really saved the day. I lump it with the web browser on the Kindle where the idea of having it available is much more interesting then even the desert island use of the tech.
    - MatthewPhillips 15y ago
      That's because it's not a "kludge of a technology". It works most of the time, doesn't some times, and has bad problems (locking up your browser, crashing, etc.) on the minority of times. A lot of anti-Flash people, for whatever reason, translate the bad occurrences as "blows" or some other hyperbole.
      - bradshaw1965 15y ago
        I've seen some compiled flash air apps that are useful, but we'll just have to disagree on the utility of it in the browser.
- staunch 15y ago
  His entire argument for Flash is that you don't have to rewrite your app for different platforms.
  - zmmmmm 15y ago
    No. You're mixing in a different definition of "platform" here to include hardware profile. A flash app designed to run well on one mobile device will probably run well on other mobile devices with little or no modification. On the other hand a flash app designed to run well on a desktop probably is not going to run well on mobile hardware. But then probably neither will any app built on any technology that was designed to make use of desktop level hardware.
    - zmmmmm 15y ago
      Well, it's interesting to see my comment sink down to negative territory. Here's the exact quote from Narayen in the linked article: > The value proposition Flash has is that we allow people to author programs once and get them to as many devices as possible He says "devices", clearly indicating that he is arguing the value proposition is to deploy across multiple phone (or mobile device) platforms, not some kind of write-once-run-anywhere proposition that works across desktop and mobile.
      - urbanjunkie 15y ago
        He's used the phrase "multiple devices" before, and he's clearly referring to more than mobile phones. In this interview from last year he states [1] "The world is emerging where there are multiple devices [...] to access the internet Mobile devices are certainly a big part of it, tablet devices will be a part of it, televisions and PCs..." the more these platforms adopt flash, they won't have to do anything else. It will just work" Seems pretty clear to me. [1] http://www.flashstreamworks.com/archive.php?post_id=127265398 http://www.flashstreamworks.com/archive.php?post_id=12726539...
watty 15y ago
Are you suggesting the article from "cultofmac.com" is slightly sensational and bias?

watty 15y ago

You know what doesn't suck? Having the option to run it when I want. I don't use it often but there have been several instances where I was able to access web content that iOS users could not.

51Cards 15y ago
Agreed, not to mention that honestly I don't have a big problem with it. I have it load on demand and my device is old now, a Nexus One. I load and play flash games regulairly without issue. I keep hearing that Flash sucks on Android but I guess I have the one and only device where it works. I admit it does bog on occasion but I attribute that mostly to flash apps that were designed on and for desktop PC power. I also have run HTML 5 sites that bring my desktop computer and browser to its knees but I don't scream "HTML 5 sucks!" Perhaps my experience is unique.
nupark2 15y ago
Personally, I'd rather have the vendors kill off Flash, forcing the web to switch to alternatives, resulting in an environment where I never need (or want) to use Flash. I'm even willing to suffer slightly for this in the meantime -- even if that means you can access Flash (poorly) on an Android device, and I can't. Apple's position has already resulted in a fairly dramatic decrease in the number of flash-only websites, and I won't cry if I see it disappear entirely.
- tensor 15y ago
  The problem with this notion is that everyone is assuming that HTML5 + Javascript is going to be somehow drastically better than flash when it matures. I have not seen any technical arguments as for why this would be. I imagine that when all the inexperienced flash programmers move over to HTML5, we will end up with even slower HTML5 based animated ads and an even more fragmented browsing experience due to the lack of standards for video and audio. Worse, since these technologies can be more thoroughly integrated into websites, it will be far harder to block them.
  - kenjackson 15y ago

brisance 15y ago

Mossberg missed a chance to ask him about the other ugly side of Flash: its security vulnerabilities.

joelhooks 15y ago
Wouldn't that be something that could be asked of any sort of technology platform?
- Locke1689 15y ago
  In practice Adobe has had very poor security response. Claiming that all technologies are equally vulnerable to security concerns is like comparing qmail and Adobe Reader and saying the same thing.

olivercameron 15y ago

This argument has been played to death, and Adobe never seem to let it go. The fact is, Apple owes Adobe nothing, and not including Flash was never a dig at Adobe as a company, but a choice that Apple made about Flash as a software package. Adobe seem to have taken it super personally, but the truth is that Flash on mobile devices just doesn't work in it's current form (speed and usability issues). Steve has said multiple times that the door isn't closed on Flash, they just need Adobe to prove it will perform like Apple expects.

brisance 15y ago
Not exactly. Apple changed their developer agreement such that programs that weren't developed using the iOS SDK weren't allowed on the App Store. They reversed the decision only later on, and now you can develop on Adobe AIR and have the LLVM-derived compiler (irony?) output code for iOS.
- olivercameron 15y ago
  With all of Flash's security issues, I am not surprised Apple doesn't let native Flash apps on their own store.
  - MartinCron 15y ago
    I think the security issues for flash in-browser (mobile safari) are more troublesome than security issues for apps in the app store. Apple can (in theory) validate that the things going through the app store aren't total malware. In-browser? You're on your own, for good or for bad.
    - pyre 15y ago
      Truly. We should disable JavaScript as well. Who knows what AJAX vulnerabilities might be in mobile Safari? Apple can't vet them all for malware. On that token, Apple can't vet all websites to make sure that their content doesn't misrepresent Apple as a company. They should probably just trash Mobile Safari altogether.

TwoBit 15y ago

Flash may run poorly on mobile devices, but doesn't the equivalent HTML 5 run worse? It runs worse on all other platforms.

watty 15y ago
It's clearly not about which one runs better, has the better development tools, or best support across browsers and operating systems. It's about Flash being (semi)closed, requiring a plugin, and being owned by Adobe.
- tensor 15y ago
  I agree, but sadly the prevailing notion held by the majority of developers and the public seems to be that HTML5/JS is somehow significantly better than Flash in terms of technology. In this sense, Apple's deceptive marketing strategy has been a success.
  - Argorak 15y ago
    Is it deceptive? I remember iterating through minor versions of Flash just to get Adobe Connect (a product of the very same company, just to emphase) to run without crashing on OS X. Yes, Flash on OS X is horrible mess, even more on Linux. I vastly improved my browsing experience on OS X by actually following Grubers advice and only have one Browser with Flash enabled (Chrome). And even there, it is the single point of crashes(tm). So this notion is not very surprising.

varunsrin 15y ago

This is a really poorly written, fanboyish article - not saying anything about whether or not flash is good, but do we really need articles like this one on HN? "Watch the smug get slapped right off of Narayen’s face after he laughably tries to claim that contrary to Steve Jobs’s argument that Flash is a dead technology, it’s currently running on 130 million Android devices."

Entaroadun 15y ago
Agreed. Definitely did not see what the author was talking about there, which leads me to suspect he started watching the video with a strong bias in mind.
- Dove 15y ago
  I clicked through hoping for some technical content about how Flash is doing on mobile platforms. I got an analysis of a facial reaction in an interview. That's pretty disappointing. So here I am in the HN comment thread hoping someone will say something interesting and technical.
- rooshdi 15y ago
  The article was written by CultofMac. They have a strong self interest in exaggerating any situation relating to Apple in order to attract more readers. It's hard to find honest boring news nowadays.

rodh257 15y ago

I've had good experiences with flash on my Galaxy S, mainly flash streaming, I don't play flash games. I've used it on a number of occasions to watch streams of cricket matches. Much better than not having it at all.

fragsworth 15y ago

I think by far the biggest problem Adobe has to deal with is that there are so many inexperienced software developers who have taken up writing Flash applications. These new developers' lack of knowledge is what causes these applications to have poor performance, not any particular inefficiencies in the Flash platform itself. It probably stems from the fact that the development studio is designed more for artists than developers, allowing artists to toy with adding functionality to their creations but not really giving them the years of training it requires to understand performance implications. Adobe can't really make this claim, even though they are fully aware of it, because it is never good to badmouth your customers. So they are left with taking the heat for them instead. Contrast this to the native Android or iOS development environments which cater to experienced software developers.

tomkarlo 15y ago
Good to point this out... Flash works because the desktop platform has such a huge excess of computing resource relative to the needs of the applications built in Flash that some inefficiency in the name of an easier developer experience is no problem. On mobile phones, where you're almost always pushing the envelope in terms of available memory and CPU cycles if you want to do anything interesting, this suddenly becomes a huge problem.
michaelpinto 15y ago
When it comes to ActionScript the problem isn't so much creatives trying to write code (they'll do stuff in the score) but more self taught programmers who may not be that experienced. Although you could level the same charge at other languages like PHP that attract production people who are looking to do more cut-and-paste than anything else. Another issue is that Flash projects can be very client driven, and more often than not advertising clients don't always grok tech issues. Although I feel that Adobe has to take some credit for the structure and evolution of Flash. Adobe has always been more about adding 50 average features to sell a software suite than to focus on better/faster/stable. Unlike Microsoft who owns the OS or Apple who makes hardware their core business is selling new tools, so there is no "bigger picture". The result is bloatware.

tomkarlo 15y ago

Good for Uncle Walt. There aren't enough reporters out there who call CEOs out on the truth of his comments. Right or wrong, it's more interesting for Walt to say his view on this as someone who looks at a _lot_ of Android phones than just let that statement pass unchallenged.

kylec 15y ago

Android's not the only platform Flash sucks on. That video clip was freezing and choppy on my 2010 MacBook Pro.

michaelbuckbee 15y ago
I had similar issues with flash video until I re-enabled hardware acceleration. Right Click the video > Settings > Enable Hardware Acceleration. Hope it helps.

teyc 15y ago

Speaking from a technical standpoint, since Flash is a VM, and it's running on top of Dalvik, wouldn't performance necessarily be poor? If anyone knows a little more about how Flash works on the mobile, please share.

jevinskie 15y ago
I believe the Android Flash plugin uses native code. You aren't forced to run on Dalvik on Android - Google released a Native Development Kit that includes GCC.
- teyc 15y ago
  wouldn't NDK require a very recent version of Android? There are a lot out there which are still on 2.2.
  - shoota 15y ago
    2.2 would be the version that Flash was introduced.
av500 15y ago
Flash runs as a plugin inside the webkit based browser and webkit is native code in android since day one. that also means that you cannot play local .SWF files on android unless you manage to get them inside a web page...
- acqq 15y ago
  Flash can't run natively "on webkit." Flash file contains bytecode, which has to be either fully interpreted or JIT-ed. It has to be done on mobiles too. The interpreter or JIT-er has to be native. Writing native JIT-ers is hard, to have a native interpreter you can write it in C and recompile it for every platform but it will be significantly slower. In short, it's not easy to make the Flash fast on a new CPU. And no, Webkit is not a CPU.
- cpeterso 15y ago

kingkilr 15y ago

I wish someone would tell him that it sucks on every other platform as well.

ENOTTY 15y ago

I ran Robot Unicorn through Flash just fine on my Motorola Droid.

blinkingled 15y ago

The only place where Flash works very decent is on Windows with IE. It kind of bogs down on even bigger power desktops and laptops. It absolutely blows on OS X for whatever reason. That said the point of Flash on Android is not to have guaranteed high performance, fluent apps that work like native ones. That's an impossible goal - for one, Adobe cannot control what kind of Flash/AS code all of the developers out on the web will write. And secondly on my Xoom with 3.1 - Flash works great enough - no stutter or crashes. Does the job. So as more decent hardware comes out and they optimize Flash even more it will become better. This whole cult like insanity people have created for and against Flash is mind blowing - it's there you can use it if you want, don't if you don't. No one is forcing anything down your throats folks. For me I will take reasonably working Flash instead of not working at all. Oh and before you beat up the HTML5 drum - it's not there yet and it's not the absolute reality of the web today.

chamakits 15y ago
I think what people take issue with (at least its what I take issue with) is that Adobe is trying to pretend its an open standard of the web, that helps push the web forward when in reality it does the contrary. For starters, its not an open standard, its an executable program (or plugin). It isn't a standard left up to be implemented by whoever is interested, its controlled by the one and only master implementation by Adobe. A lot of websites like to depend on Flash in some way or the other, be it for ads, video, or some functionality, and more often than not it makes the experience unpleasant. On the other hand HTML5 is an open standard and thats all it is. Its basically an agreement of what the technology takes as input, and puts out as output. If you want to implement the technology, by all means, go ahead. If group A implements it better than group B, then people have the choice of using the group A technology. Group B will then have to improve their implementation if they are interested in staying competitive, and we all win. That to me is key, the option of using a standard, implemented by different people to make it strive, not a binary distributed and leaving you up to the whim of the company behind it. FYI: You spoke of windows and Mac OS X, but didn't mention Linux (probably because you haven't tried it, the same way I haven't tried it in Mac OS X.) Flash absolutely blows in Linux as well. I'm not talking just on the gnash and open source flash players, I mean the Adobe closed source build. It stutters, the keyboard input detection is abysmal, it leaks memory all the time, and crashes eventually from all the memory leaks.

krogsgard 15y ago

I just like that Narayen started his career at Apple. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shantanu_Narayen#Career http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shantanu_Narayen#Career

cletus 15y ago

Frankly, I'm tired of the whining about Flash and the (largely Apple-hating) enablers and apologists for Adobe's incompetence. Fact is, all Adobe had to do to "win" this PR war was jailbreak and iPhone, developer a version of Flash for it and then show it off to anyone and everyone who wants to see what a great experience it can be. Instead, Adobe would rather just lie back and say "there's no point in trying", which is an obnoxious mix of laziness, incompetence and arrogance. What's worse is the number of people who have bought into their BS. Does Apple want Flash on iOS? Probably not. But with good reason. And who really cares? Producing a compelling Flash experience on mobile (something that STILL doesn't exist, even on Android) would've gone a long way to forcing their hand.

iqster 15y ago

Here's the video: http://www.9to5mac.com/70293/adobe-ceo-responds-to-steve-jobs-on-flash/ http://www.9to5mac.com/70293/adobe-ceo-responds-to-steve-job...

paulrademacher 15y ago

The video froze on my Macbook Air.

Create 15y ago
...this is why Adobe and Qualcomm would want a deal to add hw support to their ARM fork.

bad_user 15y ago

You know, as much as I don't like Apple, this time I've got to hand it to them as they were right -- I have an Android and I love it, but the browser plugins are disabled (since Samsung thought it would be a good idea for Flash to be part of the Firmware, and I can't uninstall it). Flash makes your browser unusable, because it consumes a lot of battery and makes browsing slower. And it's doing this without you even noticing, since many websites include either crappy Flash commercials or at least some .swf that sets Flash cookies for better tracking. The sad part is that the first 2 days I blamed my phone for the piss-poor battery life, but after I disabled Flash and uninstalled Skype my phone's battery now lasts for 3 days instead of 6 hours and the browser runs smoothly.

loso 15y ago

I have an Android phone and I have never had any problems with Flash. And I am far from a Flash cheerleader. It seems that most of the Flash hatred comes from Linux and Mac users. If it sucks on their platforms then I can truly understand that. Even on Windows it could be a lot better. But it is not an evil technology. Just poorly implemented at times. Every time the argument comes up I feel as if there is a section of people trying to convince others that Adobe is the devil. Flash has its place on the web until something comes along that can properly replace it. HTML5/CSS3 is just not there yet but it soon will be.