While Flash will likely become irrelevant over time, this move by Apple should not be condoned by anyone. It could have been any other technology that they are not interested in partnering with.
Nearly all my hardware (computers, smart phones, wifi, tablet) are Apple products, and I m very unhappy with what Apple is doing here——they are obviously aggressively trying to kill or stifle the Flash technology. This is going too far; this is not about Flash not working well on the iPhone, as Apple has publicly claimed.
I have personally developed a ground-breaking Adobe AIR application that used Hardware acceleration on the MAC to play 1080 videos at fullscreen. Here is the link to the case study on the application:
http://interhaptic.com/case-studies/profiles-in-science/
Irrespective of the technology, this kind of stifling of technology should be spoken out against.
I'm not sure it is a "move by Apple" - Adobe have had months of access to Lion (like every developer in the world) and didn't bother to check or patch incompatibilities. Sloppy Adobe.
I see no evidence to suggest Apple is trying to kill Flash. It looks like a bug.
Due to performance issues, security issues (on a closed platform), battery life issues and finally, issues of building a strong and stable developer community Flash just isn't a good fit for iOS. I think it should be available in the App Store for those that don't care about the issues but it shouldn't be pre-installed on iOS with all of its problems.
Why is Adobe blameless for not testing in Lion and providing a working copy? I don't see how the blame lies squarely with Apple on this one. Adobe has just as much developer pre access as anyone else.
I realize everyone wants to blame Apple for anything wrong with Adobe on their platform, but this seems really towards the conspiracy theory side of the spectrum trying to say Apple is "aggressively trying to kill or stifle the Flash technology".
Bugs happen, but I really have no sympathy for Adobe not getting off their asses yet again for a non-windows platform change.
Update 2: Adobe sent us a message saying Flash hardware acceleration was, in fact, not disabled in Lion. The company declined to talk about all of the other problems mentioned in this story. Here is the company’s official statement:
The final release of Mac OS X Lion (10.7) provides the same support for Flash hardware video acceleration as Mac OS X Snow Leopard (10.6). The previous “Known Issue” suggesting that video hardware acceleration was disabled in Lion was incorrect and based on tests with a pre-release version of Mac OS X Lion that related to only one particular Mac GPU configuration. We continue to work closely with Apple to provide Flash Player users with a high quality experience on Mac computers.
Sadly, I don't think Adobe is alone on the "hey, did you miss the 6 month beta period?" wagon. I recall many instances of software breaking horribly after an OS update.
Yes, the beta run of Lion was shorter than others, but this isn't the first time something like this has happened with a major developer's software.
For those that didn't read the Ars review: Apple has done major security updates in Lion, including the use of sandboxing. I suspect the OS isn't giving Flash permission to directly access the hardware. If true, Adobe will need to release an update to fix it. They should have been testing and fixing issues like these during the beta period.
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[ 4.2 ms ] story [ 40.9 ms ] threadNearly all my hardware (computers, smart phones, wifi, tablet) are Apple products, and I m very unhappy with what Apple is doing here——they are obviously aggressively trying to kill or stifle the Flash technology. This is going too far; this is not about Flash not working well on the iPhone, as Apple has publicly claimed.
I have personally developed a ground-breaking Adobe AIR application that used Hardware acceleration on the MAC to play 1080 videos at fullscreen. Here is the link to the case study on the application: http://interhaptic.com/case-studies/profiles-in-science/
Irrespective of the technology, this kind of stifling of technology should be spoken out against.
Due to performance issues, security issues (on a closed platform), battery life issues and finally, issues of building a strong and stable developer community Flash just isn't a good fit for iOS. I think it should be available in the App Store for those that don't care about the issues but it shouldn't be pre-installed on iOS with all of its problems.
I realize everyone wants to blame Apple for anything wrong with Adobe on their platform, but this seems really towards the conspiracy theory side of the spectrum trying to say Apple is "aggressively trying to kill or stifle the Flash technology".
Bugs happen, but I really have no sympathy for Adobe not getting off their asses yet again for a non-windows platform change.
Update 2: Adobe sent us a message saying Flash hardware acceleration was, in fact, not disabled in Lion. The company declined to talk about all of the other problems mentioned in this story. Here is the company’s official statement:
The final release of Mac OS X Lion (10.7) provides the same support for Flash hardware video acceleration as Mac OS X Snow Leopard (10.6). The previous “Known Issue” suggesting that video hardware acceleration was disabled in Lion was incorrect and based on tests with a pre-release version of Mac OS X Lion that related to only one particular Mac GPU configuration. We continue to work closely with Apple to provide Flash Player users with a high quality experience on Mac computers.
Did anybody see a smoking gun that suggests ill intent? I missed it. Does anything point to anything but regression?
Yes, the beta run of Lion was shorter than others, but this isn't the first time something like this has happened with a major developer's software.