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Flash On Android Is 'Shockingly Bad'
Hugh Pickens writes "Ryan Lawler writes on GigaOm that although many have touted the availability of Flash on Android devices as a competitive advantage over Apple's mobile devices, while trying to watch videos from ABC.com, Fox.com and Metacafe using Flash 10.1 on a Nexus One over a local Wi-Fi network connected to a 25-Mbps Verizon FiOS broadband connection, mobile expert Kevin Tofel found that videos were slow to load, if they loaded at all, leading to an overall very inconsistent experience while using his Android device for video. 'While in theory Flash video might be a competitive advantage for Android users, in practice it's difficult to imagine anyone actually trying to watch non-optimized web video on an Android handset,' writes Lawler. 'All of which makes one believe that maybe Steve Jobs was right to eschew Flash in lieu of HTML5 on the iPhone and iPad.'"
HTML5 depends on your browser actually. I have a Nokia N800 and I could've told you years ago that Flash on mobile devices sucks badly. HTML5 on the Mobile Firefox platform also sucks somewhat (but not as bad as Flash) but if you get a WebKit browser, it works quite spiffy for an older mobile processor.
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That this guy could find a few flash demonstrations that don't play nicely with a small device is no surprise to me. With a 10 meg pipe I often see pauses and cache filling delays on my desktop machine.
I have the same phone as this guy, and I find Flash works ok for most things, videos on web pages, ads (the few I happen to click on).
Is it great performance? No. Do I leave it on by default, No.
If they turned the code over to Google I am sure it could be fixed. But as long as programming is in the hands of those bloat-ware bone-heads at Adobe it will suck just as bad as every Adobe product you have ever seen. You really have to wonder what the serve in the cafeteria for EVERY product they make to be so universally terrible.
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My N900 plays flash video pretty well on the standard MicroB browser. Youtube is seamless. Slightly bigger, less optimised players like megavideo can be made to work with a bit of simple overclocking. Even iPlayer works OOTB.
Games are even worse than video. I tried playing Curveball on a mobile device, and it wouldn't keep the game still - dragging just moved the game, not the ball. I had to tap at exactly the right spot at exactly the right time.
Then I tried to play a puzzle game, where the spacebar reset the playing field. I didn't think that one through, obviously - it was a no go.
I found a third random game, don't recall the name, but it made a huge distinction between hovering and clicking. No go on a touchscreen.
So let me ask you. If I have a flash game and need to rewrite it anyways to get it to work at all, let alone well, on a mobile device - why wouldn't I just write it for that device, or cross-platform HTML5?
All Steve Jobs has been saying is: Desktop paradigms don't work on a mobile device. That's why Apple made millions on a mobile device with a properly-thought out control scheme, and why they've done it again and again and again.
If they allowed desktop apps natively, or with easy ports, much of the software would be terrible to use. If you don't believe me, have you tried using a VNC client to control your computer from your phone? It's virtually useless, and saved (at best) for emergencies.
I'm not an Apple fanboy, but I'm not a complete idiot either. Jobs, for all his control-freak tendencies, makes a Titanic-sized boatload of sense, and most people agree.
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Not that HTML5 is any better. I tried to run a new "test" movie that Google created with HTML5, and it too ran like a snail.
For video HTML5 is significantly better. For vector and bitmap animations, Flash is probably better in all non-WebKit browsers.
For video, it really, really, really depends on the player being used (HTML5 players are dead simple). For vector and bitmap animations, Flash is leap years better in ALL browsers. Seriously. Compare javascript-driven (or canvas-driven) persistent animation in both. Flash easily takes the cake in terms of resource usage.
Now, in regards to TFA, it's a horrible "review". The Nexus One is not exactly up to par for playing "hi-def" video, period. Furthermore, you have to take into account other hardware factors, such as very limited RAM. Saying Jobs is somehow right in restricting users' choice in the matter is completely off-base and has nothing to do with whether or not I'll be able to watch "hi-def" video on a few select sites. Flash is used for more than video for pete's sake. For every one site that works so-so because of over-use of Flash and bloated Flash applications, which is because of poor development, not necessarily a poor platform, there are a dozen other flash sites that work perfectly fine.
On my Evo, I haven't tried ABC.com or anything like that yet, but for what I HAVE played (Jon Stewart), it seems to be fine. I've played Flash games just fine too (light-bot FTW!). And I know the new iPhones have plenty of power to do the same stuff.
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