Flash is dead. Long live Flash!
Ok, we admit that we might be going a little over the top with the number of Flash running on the Nexus One articles that we’ve been posting lately and we’d like to preface this post with the reassurance that this isn’t going to turn into a Flash fan site. But whatever you think of Flash it is kind of a revelation to see it running like this on a mobile device.
Interesting to note in this clip is how quickly the battery level indicator drops during the course of the demo. Apple have so far blocked the use of Flash on their mobile devices due to concerns over performance and if this demo is anything to go by it looks like this could be well founded. That said this is of course an early version of Flash for Android which hasn’t been hardware accelerated.
With the debate over the part that Flash will play in the future of internet video still ongoing we’d also recommend an article by Jason Garrett-Glaser who provides some fairly insightful comment on the state of various multimedia technologies:
…now it becomes clear why Flash is so disliked. It’s nowhere near the most insecure of popular browser plugins; Java has had far more vulnerabilities according to Secunia. It’s certainly not the least reliable, nor is it completely proprietary; as previously mentioned, the spec is public. Yet because of the above three mistakes, Adobe has made enemies of developers worldwide.
It’s interesting that Flash is coming to Android at the same time as many developers are searching for a better way of delivering multi-media content to the internet. It’s clear that users appreciate being able to run Flash as for the time being at least the experience of browsing the internet is not complete without it. But we’re coming to a crossroads. Apple have it seems already decided that the time has come to distance themselves from the technology, but with Flash still being so ubiquitous it’s a bold move. Flash may not be ideal but isn’t going away any time soon. And with Flash coming to Android later this year the choice will be put into the hands of consumers, who will be able to decide whether or not they want a Flash enabled mobile internet experience.