I have a couple questions about Flash and mobile phones....

rudeguy

Lifer
Dec 27, 2001
47,351
14
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First: Android users, how is your battery life affected?

Second: What's Adobe Air and is it a big deal that its coming to Android?

Third: What about WinMo? Will it ever get flash or does it already have it?

Forth: When the heck is Android going to support HTML5? And when it does...will it be device specific like flash?
 

TheStu

Moderator<br>Mobile Devices & Gadgets
Moderator
Sep 15, 2004
12,089
45
91
1: Can't answer
2: If I recall correctly, AIR is a Runtime, you can build applications in it, and they should work identically across platforms. I have tried it before (on desktop OSes), but I prefer OS native stuff
3: WinMo 6 (current) has FlashLite I think, WinMo 7, I have no idea
4: (Fourth) I thought that the browser already supported HTML5 at least in 2.2.
 

dougp

Diamond Member
May 3, 2002
7,909
4
0
1: Can't answer
2: If I recall correctly, AIR is a Runtime, you can build applications in it, and they should work identically across platforms. I have tried it before (on desktop OSes), but I prefer OS native stuff
3: WinMo 6 (current) has FlashLite I think, WinMo 7, I have no idea
4: (Fourth) I thought that the browser already supported HTML5 at least in 2.2.

I believe they said WinPhone7 will have Silverlight, and no Flash support.
 

rudeguy

Lifer
Dec 27, 2001
47,351
14
61
4: (Fourth) I thought that the browser already supported HTML5 at least in 2.2.



I remembered browsing some news website on my phone and it gave me an error that HTML5 wasn't supported. It must have been telling me the website didn't support it, not my phone?

Anyone know of a site besides youtube that uses HTML5?
 

dguy6789

Diamond Member
Dec 9, 2002
8,558
3
76
I can't really say how Flash affects Android battery life because I've never really used it for a very significant amount of time before. My suggestion is to keep it disabled(this way you avoid Flash ads which both make the browser slower to load and make scrolling slower) until you come upon some flash only content that you want to view and then disable it again after you're done.
 

TheWart

Diamond Member
Dec 17, 2000
5,219
1
76
I remembered browsing some news website on my phone and it gave me an error that HTML5 wasn't supported. It must have been telling me the website didn't support it, not my phone?

Anyone know of a site besides youtube that uses HTML5?

Vimeo and Scribd are two more big ones.
 

Spoooon

Lifer
Mar 3, 2000
11,563
203
106
No impact on battery life because I rarely use it. It's nice to be able to watch an embedded video every now and then while browsing but it's not like you're going to be spending hours watching anything.
 

TheStu

Moderator<br>Mobile Devices & Gadgets
Moderator
Sep 15, 2004
12,089
45
91
I remembered browsing some news website on my phone and it gave me an error that HTML5 wasn't supported. It must have been telling me the website didn't support it, not my phone?

Anyone know of a site besides youtube that uses HTML5?

That is probably the browser then.

Go to html5test.com and see what happens. My desktop with Safari 5 gets 208, Firefox 3.6.3 gets 139, Firefox 4b3 gets 190 and Chrome 5 gets 197. iPhone 2G with 3.1.3 gets a 125.

So it seems that if it does test HTML5 in a broad stroke, the score will be around 200, if it doesn't support it, then it will be around 100.
 

hanoverphist

Diamond Member
Dec 7, 2006
9,867
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as for the winmo 6 question, skyfire has had flash capability for a while. i used to watch hulu.com all the time on it. also worked with youtube, but now even in opera and IE it just downloads the videos and opens them in media player. that said, i cant think of any time i really needed to view a flash built site beyond those two.
 

rudeguy

Lifer
Dec 27, 2001
47,351
14
61
That is probably the browser then.

Go to html5test.com and see what happens. My desktop with Safari 5 gets 208, Firefox 3.6.3 gets 139, Firefox 4b3 gets 190 and Chrome 5 gets 197. iPhone 2G with 3.1.3 gets a 125.

So it seems that if it does test HTML5 in a broad stroke, the score will be around 200, if it doesn't support it, then it will be around 100.

I scored a 176 on my phone. Is that good?
 

Demo24

Diamond Member
Aug 5, 2004
8,356
9
81
One annoyance I found is that on a nearly all flash site you can't scroll around the page. On normal sites when you zoom in you can float around, but on a flash page you're stuck where you zoomed. At least on the page I tried it on thats what happened.
 

TheWart

Diamond Member
Dec 17, 2000
5,219
1
76
One android user's thoughts after playing with 2.2 and flash:

How bad is mobile Flash? When I went to ABC.com and tried to play a clip, I waited five minutes while the player said &#8220;loading.&#8221; During that time, it was nearly impossible to scroll around the page or tap objects on it. Eventually, I scrolled up to see a message that was previously obstructed and said &#8221;Sorry. An error occurred while attempting to load the video. Please try again later.&#8221; It gets worse&#8230;

When I visited Fox.com and tried to start an episode of House, the program actually played but, even over Wi-Fi, the playback was slideshow-like. Worse still, the player became unresponsive as it ignored my attempts to tap the pause, volume, and slider buttons. At some point during playback, an overlay message warned me that this video was &#8220;not optimized for mobile.&#8221; I encountered the same message when I tried to play a trailer of the Expendables that was embedded on the movie&#8217;s mySpace page. Wasn&#8217;t Flash 10.1 supposed to erase the boundaries between mobile and the desktop?

and the most troublesome (from Adobe's POV) point imo:
The difference between the smooth Flash trailers on Sony.com, the jerky episode of CSI, and the system locking Flash video on Fox.com is that the smoother ones were optimized specifically for phone playback. But if content providers have to go back and optimize their videos for mobile platforms, one of the key benefits of mobile Flash&#8211;backward compatibility with millions of existing videos&#8211;is lost. If you&#8217;re modifying your videos anyway, why not go the full monty and use an HTML 5 player instead of Flash?
 

rudeguy

Lifer
Dec 27, 2001
47,351
14
61
Like all of us have said before, Flash is more than just flash videos. Seeing as there's THOUSANDS of sites that are Flash only, Flash is a big deal. Isn't nice that a company gives you a choice in the matter rather than tell you that you just can't?

Choice? Why would we want choice?
 
Feb 19, 2001
20,155
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Like all of us have said before, Flash is more than just flash videos. Seeing as there's THOUSANDS of sites that are Flash only, Flash is a big deal. Isn't nice that a company gives you a choice in the matter rather than tell you that you just can't?

Overrated. When FF extensions became popular everyone and their mom was talking about FlashBlock and NoScript and eliminating flash.

Choice is nice, but it's not that big of a deal to me when it comes to flash. Half the time a mobile version of the site is better anyway because its easier to navigate and browse. Tons of sites that I read daily like AT, ATOT, any forum for that matter, Engadget, CNN, etc don't have flash.

So yes, it is a matter of videos and stuff, and quite honestly, do I really want to watch an episode of my favorite TV show on my phone? Maybe if I'm on a 1 hr subway ride, but I don't do that. PMPs to me have a purpose in long commutes or travel times. It's not a big issue for me because I drive, and if I'm really that bored in the office, I can play games on my phone. I've always said that watching HD videos on a tiny 4.3" screen at best is just overrated. I'd rather sit in a comfortable chair and at least enjoy it on my computer, if not a big screen TV. Even my laptop would be a better viewing experience. Sure you can argue that's not available all the time, but am I that desperate to sacrifice viewing experience to watch it on a phone? After all there should be other things to do on a phone like games, etc etc.

I know you love bashing on Apple for not giving consumers a choice, but Android isn't all about choice either. I mean take multitasking. If you wanted choice you would go with S60 or WebOS for true full blown multitasking. You get to choose what you open, what you close, etc etc. Not some OS telling you what it wants to keep in memory, what it chooses to close off on its own, etc. In fact in its current state iOS 4 is quite like Android in terms of task management. Also, Froyo hasn't really brought any improvements in push notifications as the only thing that uses push is Google Voice or Gmail.

Anyway, I'm getting off topic but seriously... i think most people admit that flash is a dying breed. There's no suitable replacement yet because we'd need widespread adoption, but quite honestly flash support isn't the biggest issue right now. In fact, as someone stuck on Android 2.1, I'd rather see the OS cleaned up before I get Flash support.
 

senseamp

Lifer
Feb 5, 2006
35,787
6,197
126
I would not buy a phone or tablet without Flash when I can buy one with it. Why do I need to concern myself with not being able to use some sites I may want to use now or in the future if I don't have to?
 

zerocool84

Lifer
Nov 11, 2004
36,041
472
126
Overrated. When FF extensions became popular everyone and their mom was talking about FlashBlock and NoScript and eliminating flash.

Choice is nice, but it's not that big of a deal to me when it comes to flash. Half the time a mobile version of the site is better anyway because its easier to navigate and browse. Tons of sites that I read daily like AT, ATOT, any forum for that matter, Engadget, CNN, etc don't have flash.

So yes, it is a matter of videos and stuff, and quite honestly, do I really want to watch an episode of my favorite TV show on my phone? Maybe if I'm on a 1 hr subway ride, but I don't do that. PMPs to me have a purpose in long commutes or travel times. It's not a big issue for me because I drive, and if I'm really that bored in the office, I can play games on my phone. I've always said that watching HD videos on a tiny 4.3" screen at best is just overrated. I'd rather sit in a comfortable chair and at least enjoy it on my computer, if not a big screen TV. Even my laptop would be a better viewing experience. Sure you can argue that's not available all the time, but am I that desperate to sacrifice viewing experience to watch it on a phone? After all there should be other things to do on a phone like games, etc etc.

I know you love bashing on Apple for not giving consumers a choice, but Android isn't all about choice either. I mean take multitasking. If you wanted choice you would go with S60 or WebOS for true full blown multitasking. You get to choose what you open, what you close, etc etc. Not some OS telling you what it wants to keep in memory, what it chooses to close off on its own, etc. In fact in its current state iOS 4 is quite like Android in terms of task management. Also, Froyo hasn't really brought any improvements in push notifications as the only thing that uses push is Google Voice or Gmail.

Anyway, I'm getting off topic but seriously... i think most people admit that flash is a dying breed. There's no suitable replacement yet because we'd need widespread adoption, but quite honestly flash support isn't the biggest issue right now. In fact, as someone stuck on Android 2.1, I'd rather see the OS cleaned up before I get Flash support.

So you're saying it's ok to not be given the choice? I like being able to go to small websites that were done in Flash years ago and won't be changing at all cus they don't have the money or time for it. Like I said, having Flash on a phone is more than just about embedded Flash videos. The ability to go to the thousands and thousands of sites that are Flash only. It includes large and small sites done by a guy in his bedroom. No one said that Flash wasn't dying but when you tout a device as being able to visit all the worlds websites when it obviously can't cus it doesn't have Flash is dumb. It's just a fact that Flash today is still a important part of the internet. I don't get why people bring up Flash ads or any of that when you are given the CHOICE to turn it on or off when you want it. It's fine if you don't want it but saying it's a downside to being able to use it is ridiculous. Anything that allows you to do more with a phone is great.
 
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