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Adobe Brings Flash-Free Flash To iOS Devices
CWmike writes "At long last Adobe Flash has come to an iPad or iPhone, writes Jonny Evans. Adobe appeared at Europe's NAB equivalent, IBC, this week to introduce Adobe Flash Media Server 4.5 and Adobe Flash Access 3.0. Adobe's solution repackages content in real-time, changing the protocol to suit the target device, HTTP Dynamic Streaming or HLS, for example. This should mean that iOS devices will get much of the advantages of Flash video support, without the processor degradation and battery life cost of the format in use on other devices. 'With Adobe Flash Media Server 4.5, media publishers now have a single, simple workflow for delivering content using the same stream to Flash-enabled devices or to the Apple iPhone and iPad,' Adobe says."
If it's streaming using HTTP, then there has to be vulnerability in the browser. It has nothing to do with the client side Flash, this is for Flash media servers. Furthermore, this doesn't bring the full Flash in to iDevices, only media streaming. Flash is a lot more than that. People seem to forget that every time. It's also one of the reasons why HTML5 video will never replace Flash completely.
And say what you want about Flash, but web would had been much more boring place the last 10 years if it wasn't for Flash. It also brought casual people to internet.
This is a silly, biased article and summary. This does NOT bring Flash to iOS devices. This is merely Adobe spinning out a new version of their video serving software with a new protocol option than plays nice with iOS devices.
The things Flash is really good at -- multimedia experiences that can be delivered to a wide audience via a ubiquitous plugin -- are not emulated here. But way to go timothy for trolling! You wear your bias on your editorial sleeve.
The things Flash is really good at -- multimedia experiences that can be delivered to a wide audience via a ubiquitous plugin
The thing is, Flash SUCKS at that. Can you name a single site that really does that well? The only thing I can think of off hand is the MINIUSA configurator. But even there the site is rife with all the things that make Flash a terror - I can't copy text from just anywhere, sometimes the loading goes wrong, and the site bogs down my DESKTOP never mind what would happen to a mobile device.
Pretty much every other site I've seen that relies heavily on Flash for a "rich multimedia experience" is just awful, non-intuitive and performs very badly. So many sites trying that kind of thing would be so much better serving users simplifying the site into something that would work with DHTML, never mind HTML5 and canvas stuff...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Out of curiosity, I just tried a few flash games on an Android phone. Maybe I was just lucky, but the first 3 I tried worked fine. Crappy games, but they did work.
Adobes only goal here is to stop the slow but steady adoption of html5 video formats. By offering this upgrade they tell their clients they no longer have to work in a transition to target the huge and growing iOS user base.
This is good for Apple as most video services are just a server patch away from providing video content to iOs users, drastically diminishing the "it cant play flash video" bashing competitors like to use.
Flash gaming may not be available still, but most iOS users are far from game starved. It's video content most iOS users actually complain about.
So, good for Apple and good for Adobe. Who is it bad for? Web standards, and perhaps Android users. Adobe still wants flash to be required anywhere that it can run so it's likely they won't offer the same HTML5 video streams to Android devices. Many of the handsets out there still can't handle flash properly and the ones that do do so with heavy battery penalties.
With this available, it's very unlikely content providers will bother pursuing web standards for the sake of low end Android handsets or users that refuse to install flash in their computers.
It's likely that sooner or later Adobe will provide the capabilities for all clients, but I doubt they have any intentions to do it soon. I do hope im wrong though.
PS: unsure if it's related but have been streaming blip.tv episodes of the Nostalgia Critic on my iPad all night so I guess at least they (blip.tv) already updated.
This sounds like the best complaint against flash ever. Flash 1. caused pages to contain far more worthless noise makers, longer loading times, and stop focusing so much on including content etc... 2. Brought the kind of people who like big flashing noises and lights screaming on every page, 3. cleared the way for intrusive obnoxious advertising, 4. opened up a whole new mess of security vulnerabilities. The internet wouldn't have been more boring without flash, they just would have been more focused on actually providing content in pages instead of blinking jumping crap and animated buttons. As far as those that were drawn to the internet by flashing blinking screaming things, do you really want to talk to those people, I'm known for unfriending at the first stupid chain foward etc...
Seriously, the HTML5 video tag works - just start using it. The problem here is of course dynamic streaming (and a few other things) but the thing is Flash can stream mp4 files just fine - internally it's the same stuff with just the flv container being different. Transcode your video into mp4, if Flash loads play it in Flash (or even better give the user an option), otherwise use an HTML5 fallback. If both of those cases fail direct your users to download a browser that doesn't suck or something.
Oh, and the whole process I just outlined is something you can do easily with a variety of libraries and modules, just search for it. Oh, and cut out the whole trying to stop people from downloading video by wrapping it in 8 different concentric SWF interface wrappers - if you don't want someone downloading your video then don't put it on your website in the first place.
Erm, I meant that the other way around. Serving Flash to devices that support it, and non-flash video to those who don't. In other words, Adobe's own server software doing exactly what you suggest it should do.
And what are those advantages, actually? As far as I can tell, the "advantage" is mainly to content producers who haven't updated their skill sets since around 2002. And these tools cost a pretty penny.
The advantage is that HTML5 video tags do not support anything with DRM, and sadly there are many content producers who will not allow their content to be available without DRM. As a result, there is always going to be video content exclusive to Flash that iOS devices miss out on. I don't actually know how Adobe expects to get around there here (since they are effectively serving up HTML5 video in h.264), but I suspect sites that are concerned about DRM simply won't use this feature.
P.S. I need to go to sleep.
Fuck games, if the game developer want his game out on iOS device he have to do it the right way: make an app.
In other words, Apple just wants the $649 to put a Mac mini on each developer's KVM switch plus $99 per year from each developer, and it also wants to waste developers' time to rewrite the game from scratch in Objective-C.
Video using a compressed pixels codec can be taken care of with HTML5. How can vector animations (e.g. Homestar Runner) be taken care of? Converting an SWF animation to H.264 bloats it by a factor of ten or more in my tests, which makes a 2 GB/mo plan feel like it's 200 MB/mo.
Transcode your video into mp4
Convert vector animation to compressed pixels and it'll become ten times bigger. See this comment.
if you don't want someone downloading your video then don't put it on your website in the first place.
Then how would you recommend that the publisher of a video provide an electronic service with a revenue structure similar to video rental?