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Adobe Ships Flash Player 10.2 For Android 3.x

Posted by timothy on from the catching-up-with-the-jobses dept.

MojoKid writes "Adobe last night announced the release of Flash Player 10.2 for Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) tablets and it is available for download in the Android Market. Eventually, this could prove to be a big deal, but it looks as though a Honeycomb update is needed to take full advantage of the Flash Player 10.2's new features. It's not certain if it was intentional or not, but Adobe's statement points to an updated Honeycomb release, Android 3.1. According to reports, the new Android build is coming out soon for currently shipping Honeycomb tablets like the Xoom and Eee Pad Transformer."

39 comments

  1. Does this fix all the Flash apps by topham · · Score: 3, Funny

    Does this fix all the Flash apps that don't work well with touch?

    1. Re:Does this fix all the Flash apps by alienzed · · Score: 1

      "Does this fix all the Flash apps?" fixed.

      --
      Never say never. Ah!! I did it again!
    2. Re:Does this fix all the Flash apps by drb226 · · Score: 3, Informative

      Yep. New feature: the bottom-right corner of the screen acts as a trackpad, which moves a pointer around the screen. It's just like having a mouse, and not having a touchscreen! But wait, there's more! Experimental builds use the front-facing camera like a Kinect, so all you have to do is stand 6 feet away from your tablet and stretch your arm out and awkwardly move the pointer around. There's also a special mirror you can buy for tablets that only have rear-facing cameras.

    3. Re:Does this fix all the Flash apps by drb226 · · Score: 1

      As added fun for your gaming, when using the mirror, you need to move in the opposite direction (horizontally) of where you want the pointer to go.

    4. Re:Does this fix all the Flash apps by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Does this fix all the Flash apps?"

      fixed.

      "Does this fix the fact that Flash is crap?" updated...

    5. Re:Does this fix all the Flash apps by giorgist · · Score: 1

      "all" ... is that like saying, did they get rid of all the bugs ?

    6. Re:Does this fix all the Flash apps by DaVince21 · · Score: 1

      No, it's become even more bloated and slow.

      --
      I am not devoid of humor.
  2. Re:Just one question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The real question is whether this runs Linux.

  3. Re:Just one question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It runs Doom: http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/470460

  4. Uninstalled flash. Less problems and faster we by shovas · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I uninstalled Flash 10 on my android a few days back. I can't remember what I used it for and it just ended up slowing down the whole browsing experience. Mobile sites these days know they can't use flash so most sites I visit just don't have it. It's great. And the ones that do end up going faster.

    --
    Selah.ca. Pause, and calmly think on that.
    1. Re:Uninstalled flash. Less problems and faster we by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This update is only meant for tablets, not phones. On my Android phone over 3g and even 4g, Flash is a pain in the ass. It doesn't scale to the screen at all and sucks the life out of the battery. On my Tegra 2 based tablet over wifi it's fast, looks like it should, and doesn't have near the impact on the battery that it does on my phone.

    2. Re:Uninstalled flash. Less problems and faster we by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      All you had to do is turn off the option to automatically load the flash apps. I haven't used it very often but it's nice that it is available when I need it.

  5. The problem with people by Flipao · · Score: 3, Insightful

    They can't see beyond what's in front of them. Adobe are not just betting on the Flash player running old stuff that was made with mouse and keyboard in mind but also looking to it as a future development platform for touch based devices.

    I'm not saying it is a good idea, but making fun of it because you can't play games that require a keyboard is missing the point entirely.

    1. Re:The problem with people by peragrin · · Score: 1

      Not really as I have yet to see a non-adobe flash based touch friendly site.

      hell 75% of flash sites are scroll wheel friendly and that has been basically standard for the last decade.

      --
      i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
    2. Re:The problem with people by nurb432 · · Score: 1

      future development platform for touch based devices.

      God i hope not. Its already ruined the desktop/web world.

      --
      ---- Booth was a patriot ----
    3. Re:The problem with people by sootman · · Score: 1

      > making fun of it because you can't play games
      > that require a keyboard is missing the point entirely.

      Adobe richly deserves to be derided. Their position is that you can not experience the entire web as it exists today without Flash. They are just refusing to admit that a lot of existing Flash content is completely unusable without a large screen, mouse, and keyboard. I'm glad they are moving forward and gearing Flash to touch but the simple fact is that it will be impossible to deliver what they've been promising all these years.

      --
      Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
  6. Sympathetic towards Apple though... by v(*_*)vvvv · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Flash is the only thing that still manages to crash Chrome and my computer. I am not a big fan of Apple, but they did do us web devs a huge favor.

    1. Re:Sympathetic towards Apple though... by __aapspi39 · · Score: 1

      Apple actually managed to do Flash a huge favor - the fact that a phone or tablet can run Flash is now a feature that customers value highly - if you doubt that then look at the advertising for these products.

      It's a reality thing - most web devs i know are not at all interested in html5 or whatever it's called this week. After all, why would they want to spend precious time ironing out cross-browser issues, when the customers and businesses aren't interested?

      html is great for static txt but that's about it.

      Have a look at http://blog.tametick.com/2011/01/why-im-moving-from-html5-to-flash.html if you want to look at some of the real world issues.

      Sorry to say but html5 is several years away, and always will be.

    2. Re:Sympathetic towards Apple though... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Apple actually managed to do Flash a huge favor - the fact that a phone or tablet can run Flash is now a feature that customers value highly - if you doubt that then look at the advertising for these products.

      What I genuinely don't know, is how well these Flash enabled phones and tablets are selling compared to the non-Flash offerings. For tablets the numbers are somewhat clear, about 2.5 million iPads sold, vs. about 25 thousand Xooms. But for smartphones the numbers are different, more Android phones have been sold then iPhones, but I don't know how many of those actually can and do run Flash. Does anyone have any numbers on that?
      I have an iPhone, so no Flash for me, and I notice a lot of my colleagues and friends with Android phones either can't or don't run Flash either. What is the installed base of Android Flash, does anyone know?

    3. Re:Sympathetic towards Apple though... by RogerWilco · · Score: 1

      I wrote this comment, but apparently I wasn't logged in.

      --
      RogerWilco the Adventurous Janitor
    4. Re:Sympathetic towards Apple though... by slimjim8094 · · Score: 2

      'It's advertised'!='customers value highly'

      I know a lot of people with Android phones, and not one of them cares about flash - despite what the TV ads say. A few of them installed it, but they all got rid of it in short order because they never used it, or the things they tried to use it for didn't work.

      I tried Flash on my iPhone (yes, it's possible - look it up) and it worked fine - for what it worked with. It was sluggish, but that could be because it was a hack. More to the point, Flash is only useful for existing content. Anybody doing new work intended for cellphones doesn't use it - they use HTML5, or a native application. So it's used for applets that already exist - games, shitty restaurant websites, and so on. At least 75% didn't like that I didn't have any "mouse" movements that were not also clicks, and were either impossible to use or just extremely finicky. The keyboard, of course, didn't work at all. I got rid of it after a week, because anything in Flash that didn't require mouse or keyboard input didn't really need to be in Flash in the first place.

      --
      I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
    5. Re:Sympathetic towards Apple though... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I use flash on my android tablet and phone and would miss not having it. Maybe im just the exception and not the norm, but its pretty helpful to watch flash videos on the tablet. Doesn't slow down my phone or tablet. I think the real issue with flash and android is so many people have older androids or those practically free androids and not the ones with the higher end tegra 2 or even last years snapdragon. (I have the dell streak 7 and hd2). A slow computer will hate flash, and phones/tablets/etc are no different.

  7. So now... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    we just need the freakin' Honeycomb source... Goooooooooooooooooooogle, WE WANT IT NOOOOOOOOOW!!

  8. Flash vs. HTML as opposed to hover vs. not by tepples · · Score: 1

    The big difference between mouse and (single-)touch interaction is the lack of a hover concept. Whether an application uses Flash or HTML technology has nothing to do with whether it uses hover or not. So in theory, Flash vs. HTML and hover vs. not are orthogonal; how does this differ in practice?

    1. Re:Flash vs. HTML as opposed to hover vs. not by Belial6 · · Score: 1

      Hover would be so easy to do. Just have a button or hotspot that when pressed says that your are hovering instead of tapping. Basically the opposite of a mouse that defaults to hover and clicks when the button is pressed.

    2. Re:Flash vs. HTML as opposed to hover vs. not by topham · · Score: 1

      Difference is most websites use hover to create a visual effect, while Flash often uses it to perform an action.

      It doesn't matter if a link doesn't highlight when I touch it, it does matter if I have to hover over it to trigger it.

    3. Re:Flash vs. HTML as opposed to hover vs. not by DaVince21 · · Score: 1

      Hover is used to perform actions? *Shudder*

      That's definitely the authors' fault. No web designer worth his salt would do that.

      --
      I am not devoid of humor.
  9. What makes Flash "touch friendly"? by tepples · · Score: 1

    As I understand it, any Flash application that has large enough buttons and doesn't rely on mouseover (that is, knowing the mouse cursor position while the button is up) is "touch friendly". Are there other things that figure into "touch friendly", or do most Flash apps fail even that?

  10. still sucks on xoom by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    just updated today. the performance is better but still crap. trying to play swords and sandals, flash couldn't figure out when i was touching a button or when i was trying to expand the screen so it just kept zooming in/out and occasionally getting it right. adobe had better get their act together or face becoming more irrelevant. they are going to need to provide a better, faster and cheaper resource than html5. so far, they are not.

  11. Android 3.1 is already out by PCM2 · · Score: 1

    I'm the guy that wrote the negative review of Flash 10.2 on Android 3.0 a while back. Even back then, the beta version of Flash Player needed Android 3.1. The Android update was released pretty much simultaneously with the beta. And for all you who complained about reviewing a beta product, the beta version of Flash Player was also available for download by anyone for free via the Android Market, so it's not as if today is the first day you could do that, either.

    I still stick with my original assessment: Adobe AIR on Android devices seems to make a good deal of sense. As far as the Flash Player for the Android browser, though, I think you're better off without it.

    --
    Breakfast served all day!
    1. Re:Android 3.1 is already out by VMaN · · Score: 1

      How can you be better off without it? If set to load on demand it doesn't cost you performance or battery, and it's a nice thing to have for those few required occasions.. It's like saying you are better off without a raincoat because it gets hot when the sun is shining.. except the raincoat is always there when you need it, and you don't notice it when you don't... I just don't understand the argument.

    2. Re:Android 3.1 is already out by PCM2 · · Score: 1

      You're better off without it because when the player is not installed, all the Flash content that would normally pop up in your browser is invisible. With it installed, you are suddenly aware of the Flash content, and it sucks trying to deal with it on a touchscreen. Also, it seems as though 75 percent of the Flash that you encounter in a browser is advertising, and I don't see why anybody would want to use their bandwidth on a phone -- with the carriers increasingly trying to lock down bandwidth -- to view Flash advertising. It's as if you're paying to allow someone else to telemarket you. Yes, you can set it to on-demand. I'd just like to hear an instance where it's worth your while to agree to see the content.

      --
      Breakfast served all day!
    3. Re:Android 3.1 is already out by timestride · · Score: 1

      Android 3.1 is not already out. Flash Player required Android 3.0.1 in order to be installed.

  12. But how did it become widespread in Flash? by tepples · · Score: 1

    Difference is most websites use hover to create a visual effect, while Flash often uses it to perform an action.

    So it's not the fault of Flash as much as bad Flash authors. But how did hover-as-action become more widespread in Flash than in HTML? Has Adobe specifically encouraged the use of hover-as-action?

    1. Re:But how did it become widespread in Flash? by topham · · Score: 1

      Simply became common practice as Flash apps were developed.

      Moving Flash to mobile touch devices didn't cause developers to go back and re-write existing Flash apps. So we're stuck with the crap that doesn't work on touch devices, or idiotic solutions that add button crap to the screen to work around it.

      Had Adobe created a Mobile Flash compatibility standard and only allowed Mobile Flash to load it, but otherwise supported the whole Flash environment it could have been possible to pressure developers to migrate.

  13. Hardware need to update too by bmservice · · Score: 1

    Haredware is not as compatialble as what flash needs.