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Flash on Android

A

Arrqh

Vice Admiral
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Because we haven't beaten this topic to death enough yet!

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0y7XJI4NN7k[/yt]

This video was posted a few days ago and it demonstrates Flash 10.1 running on FroYo (Android 2.2). Cheekily they have the phone connected to power over USB, but in terms of both performance and usability it looks pretty solid.

FroYo is expected to launch on or around this year's Google I/O conference which starts May 22nd. Flash 10.1 will be released for Android sometime next month.
 
Over at Anandtech, they have a reveiw up on the new HTC Incredible which is a Android based smartphone.

Comment from the review is that why both with flash? It's on the phone (a lite version), it's supported and it's slooow.
 
That's pretty cool. I'm surprised by how decently it performs, although I'm sure it just gobbles up battery life. :lol:
 
Flash is coming to Blackberry smartphones second half of this year. I'm going to be moving to the new iPhone 4G though this summer, I wish Apple would get with the game and offer support :(
 
I don't really need Flash on a pocket phone smartphone, but if they can get it working well, all the better. Maybe if they had it off by default and you could switch it on in settings with the knowledge that it cuts your battery life.

I'd never buy an expensive large size device (read: tablet, slate, netbook, etc) without Flash though. Too many of my favorite sites use Flash.
 
Stone_Cold_Sisko said:
I don't really need Flash on a pocket phone smartphone, but if they can get it working well, all the better. Maybe if they had it off by default and you could switch it on in settings with the knowledge that it cuts your battery life.
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No idea what they'll do with Flash, but the default Android browser allows you to turn off Javascript and plugins, so I'd imagine Flash will probably be configurable as well.
 
Robert Maxwell said:
They'll have to unseat Apple first.
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From what I understand, Apple isn't as open as Android is. Android is more similar to windows than the iPhone OS is. Also, unlike the OS for the iPhone, the Anrdoid OS is poping up on phones from various companies in a way similar to how Windows pops up on computers from different manufacturers.
 
clint g said:
Robert Maxwell said:
They'll have to unseat Apple first.
Click to expand...
From what I understand, Apple isn't as open as Android is. Android is more similar to windows than the iPhone OS is. Also, unlike the OS for the iPhone, the Anrdoid OS is poping up on phones from various companies in a way similar to how Windows pops up on computers from different manufacturers.
Click to expand...

All of the above is true, however Apple still owns the non-Blackberry smartphone market. Android is gaining traction but it's also a more fragmented platform because it comes in several versions and manufacturers can put their own spin on it. With an iPhone, you know exactly what the screen resolution and other capabilities will be. With an Android, you can't really be sure, so you have to code cleverly if you want to take advantage of the myriad Android flavors out there.

Not saying it's a dealbreaker--I think Android is great--but it's a hurdle that the iPhone doesn't have to deal with.
 
Im not really talking about market share or quality with my statement. I'm talking about the philosophy behind the design. Windows is pretty open, as is Android. They're also not tied to a particular product but are adjusted to different computers/phones.

As far as being a fan of either android or iPhone OS, I really don't have a horse in this race. I've got a beat up samsung phone. The fanciest thing about it is that I have unlimited texts ;)
 
Robert Maxwell said:
Android is gaining traction but it's also a more fragmented platform because it comes in several versions and manufacturers can put their own spin on it.
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Google is trying to address this going forward with FroYo and the Nexus, but we'll see how successful that is. The Nexus is supposed to represent the baseline Android hardware that all the manufacturers can look to and FroYo is going to pull a lot of the core OS functionality into separate packages that can be upgraded by the user instead of waiting for your phone manufacture/carrier to port and distribute future OS updates.

I think at this point, most people are finally running Eclair... just in time to be left behind in the next release. :p
 
That's just first quarter sales... it's propped up by Verizon's "buy one get one free" Droid sale and when the next iPhone ships in June it'll get a huge spike as people with two year old iPhones renew their contracts and get a new one.

Not saying that Android isn't doing well, but it's not really accurate to say that they've surpassed Apple.
 
Arrqh said:
That's just first quarter sales... it's propped up by Verizon's "buy one get one free" Droid sale and when the next iPhone ships in June it'll get a huge spike as people with two year old iPhones renew their contracts and get a new one.

Not saying that Android isn't doing well, but it's not really accurate to say that they've surpassed Apple.
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Yup.

And no one is realistically going to unseat Blackberry, which is why I didn't mention them. There are basically two smartphone markets: the corporate market, which BB owns; and the consumer market, which Apple owns. Android is doing well but it hasn't quite overtaken Apple yet.
 
All I know is that I'm posting this from my Motorola Droid, and it is sweet.
 
I'm skeptical that Adobe can actually produce a decent Flash implementation for mobile, but I'll be happy to be proved wrong. There's no greater defence against the criticisms from Apple and Microsoft than for Adobe to ship a fantastic product. If a solid working Flash implementation propels Android to begin leading iPhone consistently in sales, you can bet your ass that Adobe's dream of getting Flash on the iPhone OS will come to fruition.
 
Brent said:
Flash is coming to Blackberry smartphones second half of this year. I'm going to be moving to the new iPhone 4G though this summer, I wish Apple would get with the game and offer support :(
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Apple won't allow flash because it could compete with the iTunes App Store. Look at the top App Store games, and they're all ported versions of free flash games. Flash represents lost revenue for Apple.

They have no interest in adding flash and they never will, unless the market forces it upon them. That's what all the blathering about HTML5 is about, Apple spinning the idea that Flash isn't needed ever, because there's a superior alternative, and for video, they're right. HTML5 cannot, however, do all the things flash can because it wasn't intended to.

Google doesn't care, they can post ads in apps or on the webpages hosting the games and they still make money. Google does want to be the one to serve those ads, so Apple's iAd gives Google something they didn't have before: an actual threat that requires Google to invest in Android. Before, Android was just an insurance policy, to make sure Google had a front row seat in the mobile advertising space. Now it's no longer insurance, but a defense and the best offense. Expect a more aggressive Android push because of it.
 
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