New MacBook Air ships without Flash installed
Users are reporting that Apple's MacBook Air models, which were unveiled Wednesday, are shipping without the Adobe Flash plugin installed.
The lack is a departure from previous Mac products, which came with Adobe Flash preloaded, although it remains unclear whether all future Mac computers will ship without the software. Engadget noticed the missing plugin, reporting that Flash content worked fine after Flash Player was installed on Apple's new ultra-thin notebook.
Apple announced the new 11.6-inch MacBook Air models and an updated 13.3-inch MacBook Air version with instant-on capabilities at its "Back to the Mac" event Wednesday. AppleInsider broke news of the 11.6-inch model well in advance of Wednesday's announcement.
Apple and Adobe have been at odds lately, with the two companies' CEOs exchanging barbs in a public war of words earlier this year. This spring, responding to criticism of Apple's choice not to support Flash on its iOS devices, Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs spoke out.
"Flash has not performed well on mobile devices," wrote Jobs in an open letter in April, noting that Adobe at that time had yet to ship Flash on a smartphone. "We have routinely asked Adobe to show us Flash performing well on a mobile device, any mobile device, for a few years now. We have never seen it."
Continuing to defend the lack of Flash support on the iPad and iPhone, Jobs claimed that Flash is the No. 1 cause of crashes on the Mac. Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen quickly denied the claim, pushing the blame onto Apple's operating system, calling Jobs' comments a "smokescreen." Narayen told the Wall Street Journal Jobs' accusation that Flash drains the battery life of mobile devices was "patently false."
In May, Adobe responded to Jobs' open letter with an open letter of its own and an advertising campaign. "We [Heart] Apple," the ads read. "What we don't love is anybody taking away your freedom to choose what you create, how you create it, and what you experience on the web."
Despite the tense words on both sides, Apple decided to 'play nice' last month when it relaxed restrictions on third-party development tools. Adobe had developed a cross-compiler to convert Flash apps into iOS apps, but decided to stop work on it after the tool was blocked when Apple banned intermediary tools in its iPhone 4 SDK license.
After Apple lifted its restrictions of third-party development tools in early September, Adobe revealed that it would continue development of its Packager cross-compiler for iPhone.
The lack is a departure from previous Mac products, which came with Adobe Flash preloaded, although it remains unclear whether all future Mac computers will ship without the software. Engadget noticed the missing plugin, reporting that Flash content worked fine after Flash Player was installed on Apple's new ultra-thin notebook.
Apple announced the new 11.6-inch MacBook Air models and an updated 13.3-inch MacBook Air version with instant-on capabilities at its "Back to the Mac" event Wednesday. AppleInsider broke news of the 11.6-inch model well in advance of Wednesday's announcement.
Apple and Adobe have been at odds lately, with the two companies' CEOs exchanging barbs in a public war of words earlier this year. This spring, responding to criticism of Apple's choice not to support Flash on its iOS devices, Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs spoke out.
"Flash has not performed well on mobile devices," wrote Jobs in an open letter in April, noting that Adobe at that time had yet to ship Flash on a smartphone. "We have routinely asked Adobe to show us Flash performing well on a mobile device, any mobile device, for a few years now. We have never seen it."
Continuing to defend the lack of Flash support on the iPad and iPhone, Jobs claimed that Flash is the No. 1 cause of crashes on the Mac. Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen quickly denied the claim, pushing the blame onto Apple's operating system, calling Jobs' comments a "smokescreen." Narayen told the Wall Street Journal Jobs' accusation that Flash drains the battery life of mobile devices was "patently false."
In May, Adobe responded to Jobs' open letter with an open letter of its own and an advertising campaign. "We [Heart] Apple," the ads read. "What we don't love is anybody taking away your freedom to choose what you create, how you create it, and what you experience on the web."
Despite the tense words on both sides, Apple decided to 'play nice' last month when it relaxed restrictions on third-party development tools. Adobe had developed a cross-compiler to convert Flash apps into iOS apps, but decided to stop work on it after the tool was blocked when Apple banned intermediary tools in its iPhone 4 SDK license.
After Apple lifted its restrictions of third-party development tools in early September, Adobe revealed that it would continue development of its Packager cross-compiler for iPhone.
Comments
But somehow I think it's now gone from all future Macs. LoL Abode started all this fuss about the iDevices not having Flash, publicly calling Apple "not open" etc, and now they're getting their payback.
I remember the original rev.A Macbook Air has all sorts of problems with Flash. Overheating, battery drain etc. Maybe that is the reason and the plugin will still come with bigger Macs.
But somehow I think it's now gone from all future Macs. LoL Abode started all this fuss about the iDevices not having Flash, publicly calling Apple "not open" etc, and now they're getting their payback.
I think Flash 10.1 should be okay on a 1.3GHz C2D, but I think you have a point. I think Adobe annoyed Apple and they?re going to stop letting them piggy back with their shoddy Mac support.
I thought it was meant to be an out-of-the-box experience!
I think there comes a point when certain things sour the experience. As acsii pointed out, flash has caused problems in the past. Maybe Apple wanted to make sure nothing would happen again. For instance, if a user kept having their Air overheat, they would blame Apple. Although, it was Adobe's fault.
Anyway, it's a non-news, almost every computer in the world doesn't have flash pre-installed
out of the box mac have already flash installed on ? Can't remember
Anyway, it's a non-news, almost every computer in the world doesn't have flash pre-installed
I've got used to not having flash on my iPad now. Don't miss it one bit. My lap has never been so cool.
Besides, this has only become "news" thanks to Engadget link bait for more page hits from the haters.
I remember the original rev.A Macbook Air has all sorts of problems with Flash. Overheating, battery drain etc. Maybe that is the reason and the plugin will still come with bigger Macs.
But somehow I think it's now gone from all future Macs. LoL Abode started all this fuss about the iDevices not having Flash, publicly calling Apple "not open" etc, and now they're getting their payback.
How professional of Apple, then. Apparently they can't take the slightest bit of criticism and thus have to play childish games and give "payback," similar to the "Get a Mac" campaign.
out of the box mac have already flash installed on ? Can't remember
Anyway, it's a non-news, almost every computer in the world doesn't have flash pre-installed
This is true. Mac OS X is the only platform I know that has a Flash plug-in installed by default.
How professional of Apple, then. Apparently they can't take the slightest bit of criticism and thus have to play childish games and give "payback," similar to the "Get a Mac" campaign.
I don't think it's a childish move. If they ship Macs with Flash, they are just contributing to the stats about how many people can view Flash content. If they remove support by default, they could get the number below 90%.
The share of HTML 5 browsers between Firefox, Safari, Chrome, IE9 and mobile devices will start to creep up to this number until content publishers have fewer excuses for authoring Flash video.
Apple shipped SL with an outdated Flash player, and people bitched. Apple learned their lesson, and just forgo bundling Flash completely, and people bitch too. Really? I rather install the latest Flash on my own than having an outdated version with security vulnerabilities pre-installed.
Bingo...
I've got used to not having flash on my iPad now. Don't miss it one bit. My lap has never been so cool.
i totally agree with you, exactly same here... my lap was never so cool from last 3 yrs with my black macbook as it is with iPad now... and the best thing is the websites which i visit regularly are still working on iPad (they have converted to html5)...
and i'm so glad that now i can watch the live video of apple new events (on my iPad and it played nicely with staying cool all the time)
How professional of Apple, then. Apparently they can't take the slightest bit of criticism and thus have to play childish games and give "payback," similar to the "Get a Mac" campaign.
I think it's Adobe that just can't face the truth. Flash Player got it's success due to functionality gaps in HTML4, but the web was always meant as an open platform. Flash Player was never long term viable because HTML v5 was always going to come along.
Now, with HTML5 imminent, it's Adobe's day of reckoning, and instead of facing it like a man they get hysterical as individual vendors drop their plugin one by one and adopt HTML5. And irony of ironies, their argument against such vendors is "They're not being open."
out of the box mac have already flash installed on ? Can't remember
Anyway, it's a non-news, almost every computer in the world doesn't have flash pre-installed
Agreed. I know the Apple vs Flash "struggle" seems more newsworthy/sexy, but I think one would be REMISS by not mentioning that Apple has been stung in the past for not keeping up with Adobe Flash security updates when including it in its releases.
This was June of this year:
http://www.macrumors.com/2010/06/17/...-flash-player/
Adobe released its new Flash Player 10.1 just five days before Apple pushed Mac OS X 10.6.4 to the public, and, as is frequently the case, Apple chose not to include the new version in the OS update without having time to perform sufficient testing.
In September 2009 Apple was also criticized for downgrading installed Flash updates when it released Snow Leopard.
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles...des_flash.html
Senior Technology Consultant Graham Cluley said the change is made without prompting the user. He called the move "pretty bad."
"I realize how much malware is out there," he said. "But after upgrading to Snow Leopard, when I went to Adobe's Web site, what it actually told me was I had actually downgraded. I was no longer running the latest version of Adobe Flash."
With Flash security issues cropping up at any time, this was the original reason Apple stopped updating Flash support in Quicktime. By not including Flash in the default install for MacBook Air, Apple is not making itself responsible for issues related to Adobe and its software.
Yes, its convenient to have it preinstalled, but its not unreasonable for Apple to avoid "problems" by having the user go directly to the vendor. I'm pretty sure Apple has enough balls to juggle right now without retesting for a zero-day vulnerability a week before releasing a critical new product.
~ CB
Apple shipped SL with an outdated Flash player, and people bitched. Apple learned their lesson, and just forgo bundling Flash completely, and people bitch too. Really? I rather install the latest Flash on my own than having an outdated version with security vulnerabilities pre-installed.
Besides, this has only become "news" thanks to Engadget link bait for more page hits from the haters.
Agreed. Systems manufacturers should NOT send systems out with flash pre-installed for exactly this reason.
I don't think it's a childish move. If they ship Macs with Flash, they are just contributing to the stats about how many people can view Flash content. If they remove support by default, they could get the number below 90%.
How could they when they only have a 5% market share?
Buh bye Flash.