Apple to Allow Hardware Accelerated Flash on Macs; Android Gets Flash, Air
Jason Mick (Blog) - April 23, 2010 9:30 AM
Despite the pair's icy relationship, Apple did just quietly release a new API that will allow for Adobe to finally offer hardware accelerated Flash on Mac computers. Technical Note TN2267 describes the new API, the Video Decode Acceleration Framework, stating:
The Video Decode Acceleration framework is a C programming interface providing low-level access to the H.264 decoding capabilities of compatible GPUs such as the NVIDIA GeForce 9400M, GeForce 320M or GeForce GT 330M. It is intended for use by advanced developers who specifically need hardware accelerated decode of video frames.
If this doesn't kill Flash, I don't know what will.
So... are we back in 1991? Or is OSX, after all, not a decent OS?
This could be a ploy by Apple to say "See, we gave Adobe API that wanted and they still can't make Flash perform worth beans on the Mac so why in the name of heaven would we let them near an iPhone?" some six months down the pipe. While the "such as" leaves some leeway it is strange that of the 15 some GPUs listed for OpenGL only three are presented for the Flash API.
Because there's a difference between an actual standard, as in a ratified spec of HTML, and a de facto "standard" which simply has to do with market penetration.
It would be like asking why we would ever want to change the Internet Explorer "standard" with unknown quantities like Firefox, which didn't (at first) even work with a lot of sites that had been built around the Explorer "standard."
The problem is even the so called Internet Explorer "standard" was and still is a joke. There are some web sites that do fine with one version of IE and barf on another and sometimes these are bug fixes within the same main version. The Explorer Exposed! shows just how much a joke this supposed standard is.
To paraphrase Yahtzee of the Escapist 'HMTL designed for Internet Explorer looks like PowerPoint threw up on a Scrabble board and died.'
Actually, Apple HAS been weeding out crappy content over the past 6 months. They trimmed tens of thousands of apps - which probably accounts for the tens of thousands of apps now on the Android store.
Yeah, well... I just typed "fart" on my iPhone app store and got plenty. Fart piano, atomic fart, you name it... so. Whatever they are saying (and doing), I'm not buying it yet.
Because there's a difference between an actual standard, as in a ratified spec of HTML, and a de facto "standard" which simply has to do with market penetration.
It would be like asking why we would ever want to change the Internet Explorer "standard" with unknown quantities like Firefox, which didn't (at first) even work with a lot of sites that had been built around the Explorer "standard."
In real life, de facto standard, if heavily implemented, has more weight that actual standard no one is using.
Flash, at present, is real life standard. All the fancy wording can't change that.
I'm simply finding it weird that well positioned (de facto) real life standard, spread over 100% of desktop platforms, and being hugely major web site component, has to explain something to emerging, on-the-paper-only standard... which, if I understood correctly, isn't completely standardised yet.
And I believe I'm being unbiased here. I'm trying not to look at it from any perspective - be it Apple, Microsoft, Adobe - but only from actual facts perspective. As in - majority web pages do implement Flash for their multimedia and interactivity. Flash developers are biggest group of web media developers. And Flash tools - I believe - are the best tools for bringing all that content to web pages.
You can say it is de facto standard. I say de facto it is standard.
This could be a ploy by Apple to say "See, we gave Adobe API that wanted and they still can't make Flash perform worth beans on the Mac so why in the name of heaven would we let them near an iPhone?" some six months down the pipe. While the "such as" leaves some leeway it is strange that of the 15 some GPUs listed for OpenGL only three are presented for the Flash API.
It could but, at the end of the day, I am more prone to believe Adobe passed Apple a note under the table, saying "we are tired of Flash being called crap by you. Give us what we need to make good Flash on OSX, or we will stop developing Flash on Macs".
Of course, lets wait and see how's hardware accelerated Flash going to turn out on Mac.
Comments
Think again.
http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=18207
In short:
Apple to Allow Hardware Accelerated Flash on Macs; Android Gets Flash, Air
Jason Mick (Blog) - April 23, 2010 9:30 AM
Despite the pair's icy relationship, Apple did just quietly release a new API that will allow for Adobe to finally offer hardware accelerated Flash on Mac computers. Technical Note TN2267 describes the new API, the Video Decode Acceleration Framework, stating:
The Video Decode Acceleration framework is a C programming interface providing low-level access to the H.264 decoding capabilities of compatible GPUs such as the NVIDIA GeForce 9400M, GeForce 320M or GeForce GT 330M. It is intended for use by advanced developers who specifically need hardware accelerated decode of video frames.
If this doesn't kill Flash, I don't know what will.
So... are we back in 1991? Or is OSX, after all, not a decent OS?
This could be a ploy by Apple to say "See, we gave Adobe API that wanted and they still can't make Flash perform worth beans on the Mac so why in the name of heaven would we let them near an iPhone?" some six months down the pipe. While the "such as" leaves some leeway it is strange that of the 15 some GPUs listed for OpenGL only three are presented for the Flash API.
Because there's a difference between an actual standard, as in a ratified spec of HTML, and a de facto "standard" which simply has to do with market penetration.
It would be like asking why we would ever want to change the Internet Explorer "standard" with unknown quantities like Firefox, which didn't (at first) even work with a lot of sites that had been built around the Explorer "standard."
The problem is even the so called Internet Explorer "standard" was and still is a joke. There are some web sites that do fine with one version of IE and barf on another and sometimes these are bug fixes within the same main version. The Explorer Exposed! shows just how much a joke this supposed standard is.
To paraphrase Yahtzee of the Escapist 'HMTL designed for Internet Explorer looks like PowerPoint threw up on a Scrabble board and died.'
Actually, Apple HAS been weeding out crappy content over the past 6 months. They trimmed tens of thousands of apps - which probably accounts for the tens of thousands of apps now on the Android store.
Yeah, well... I just typed "fart" on my iPhone app store and got plenty. Fart piano, atomic fart, you name it... so. Whatever they are saying (and doing), I'm not buying it yet.
Because there's a difference between an actual standard, as in a ratified spec of HTML, and a de facto "standard" which simply has to do with market penetration.
It would be like asking why we would ever want to change the Internet Explorer "standard" with unknown quantities like Firefox, which didn't (at first) even work with a lot of sites that had been built around the Explorer "standard."
In real life, de facto standard, if heavily implemented, has more weight that actual standard no one is using.
Flash, at present, is real life standard. All the fancy wording can't change that.
I'm simply finding it weird that well positioned (de facto) real life standard, spread over 100% of desktop platforms, and being hugely major web site component, has to explain something to emerging, on-the-paper-only standard... which, if I understood correctly, isn't completely standardised yet.
And I believe I'm being unbiased here. I'm trying not to look at it from any perspective - be it Apple, Microsoft, Adobe - but only from actual facts perspective. As in - majority web pages do implement Flash for their multimedia and interactivity. Flash developers are biggest group of web media developers. And Flash tools - I believe - are the best tools for bringing all that content to web pages.
You can say it is de facto standard. I say de facto it is standard.
This could be a ploy by Apple to say "See, we gave Adobe API that wanted and they still can't make Flash perform worth beans on the Mac so why in the name of heaven would we let them near an iPhone?" some six months down the pipe. While the "such as" leaves some leeway it is strange that of the 15 some GPUs listed for OpenGL only three are presented for the Flash API.
It could but, at the end of the day, I am more prone to believe Adobe passed Apple a note under the table, saying "we are tired of Flash being called crap by you. Give us what we need to make good Flash on OSX, or we will stop developing Flash on Macs".
Of course, lets wait and see how's hardware accelerated Flash going to turn out on Mac.