Flash 10.2 hits Android today
"With our trusty Droid 2's 1Ghz OMAP3 chip, we saw a slight but noticeable boost in framerate when playing a YouTube trailer at 480p, which admittedly only took took that particular video from "unwatchable" to merely "fairly jerky." With the Tegra 2-toting Motorola Xoom, however, 480p videos ran perfectly smooth, even as the tablet had trouble rendering 720p content as anything but a series of images."
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480p flash videos work perfectly on my Epic over wifi, but I still can't stream any type of 480p videos on 3g, the speeds seem to be too slow.
1) Almost every flash menu/interface I can think of utilizes mouse-over in some capacity, by way of drop down menus, hover-bubbles, etc. How in the heck do you mouse-over on a touch screen cell phone?
2) The only time I find myself annoyed with my flash-less iPhone is when I'm trying to watch a movie trailer on a website which utilizes flash. Inevitably I head to the website on my laptop, and load the video there, only to find that the video is pre-empted by at least 30 seconds of inescapable, mindless ads.
Outside of movie trailers, I can't think of another single reason why I would want Flash on my phone.
2) The only time I find myself annoyed with my flash-less iPhone is when I'm trying to watch a movie trailer on a website which utilizes flash. Inevitably I head to the website on my laptop, and load the video there, only to find that the video is pre-empted by at least 30 seconds of inescapable, mindless ads.
Outside of movie trailers, I can't think of another single reason why I would want Flash on my phone.
trailers.apple.com. Been around for about a decade.
Problem solved.
I'm in the same boat, being skeptical about Flash. I see two glaring problems with having Flash on a phone.
1) Almost every flash menu/interface I can think of utilizes mouse-over in some capacity, by way of drop down menus, hover-bubbles, etc. How in the heck do you mouse-over on a touch screen cell phone?
2) The only time I find myself annoyed with my flash-less iPhone is when I'm trying to watch a movie trailer on a website which utilizes flash. Inevitably I head to the website on my laptop, and load the video there, only to find that the video is pre-empted by at least 30 seconds of inescapable, mindless ads.
Outside of movie trailers, I can't think of another single reason why I would want Flash on my phone.
actually most developers also add click (or touch) actions to the mouseover menus. Very simple.
trailers.apple.com. Been around for about a decade.
Problem solved.
Some websites, including Comingsoon.net, Comicbookmovie.com, etc. get exclusive videos from time to time, weeks ahead of Apple, but they're embedded using flash.
As for mouse-overs, I still run across plenty of Flash websites that aren't optimized for touch screens; mostly when it's a small business or an artist's web-portfolio.
Having Flash is simply a good thing, as an option. In Android you can opt to only display Flash plugins when clicked like Click2Flash.
I'll be installing this soon.
Interestingly I just noticed Apple trailers don't play on Android. I thought Apple was all about open standards. Why haven't they released the QT plugin for Android?
I would be happy if someone else fixed this of course. Perhaps if VLC came out on Android and put a plugin in the browser to play video. Anyone know if a VLC or Mplayer like app is on Droid? I looked on App Market and saw some contenders but nothing like the those two A-list players. I think I read VLC will come soon though.
A lot of great websites require Flash. Some of them shouldn't use Flash but unfortunately do.
What great sites are you talking about?
Having Flash is simply a good thing, as an option. In Android you can opt to only display Flash plugins when clicked like Click2Flash.
I use click2flash on my Mac, and I rarely ever click it. Which is the point of having it.
Interestingly I just noticed Apple trailers don't play on Android. I thought Apple was all about open standards. Why haven't they released the QT plugin for Android?
Why do you assume this is Apple's fault?
Looking at an Apple trailer on my Mac, I don't see it running in the QT plug in. Its running as HTML video in the browser.
Google has said they are not supporting H.264 as native HTML video. So it may be a limitation of the Android browser.
However, the apple trailers don't work in Firefox or FireSky. They bring me to a QT page. Apple would release QT for Android if it was smart. Android will far outnumber iOS. It would be like not releasing QT on Windows. or iPod/iTunes on Windows. I hope VLC or someone take care of us. I am hoping for a perian-like plugin for a mobile browser.
However, the apple trailers don't work in Firefox or FireSky.
Firefox doesn't support H.264 as native HTML video either, I don't know what FireSky is doing.
Doesn't work in Opera either, brings me to QT Plugin page. That's a pretty big range of browsers: the built in browser, SkyFire, Firefox, and Opera. If it doesn't work in one of those, Apple either sucks at making a website or it requires a QT Plugin. It would seem that it simply requires a QT plugin. Which Apple should release for the popular mobile browsers on popular platforms (e.g. Opera and Firefox for Android, and perhaps eventually for Symbian, WP7 or BB). Unless, of course, Apple wants to further encourage the use of Flash for everything, including video.
edit: TenoBell or anyone else, if you have iPhone and Opera, would you test it? Does it work? Thanks!
Doesn't work in Opera either, brings me to QT Plugin page. That's a pretty big range of browsers: the built in browser, SkyFire, Firefox, and Opera.
Opera doesn't support H.264 as HTML video either. Google, Mozilla, and Opera have all publicly stated that they are not support H.264 in their browsers. Safari and IE 9 are the only two major browsers that support H.264 playback in HTML.
Another reason I don't believe that is Apple's fault is because on the desktop browser you can clearly see the H.264 file. It is not a Quicktime file. Even if the browser does not support H.264, the media framework built into the OS should be able to pick up the file and play it. The reason Android does not do this, I don't know.
edit: TenoBell or anyone else, if you have iPhone and Opera, would you test it? Does it work? Thanks!
I have Skyfire on my iPhone. It plays Apple trailers fine. Skyfire on the iPhone does support H.264 playback in HTML. But even if it didn't the built in media framework would pick up the file and play it.
You can point your Android browsers to html5test.com, under the video section you can see what video codecs those browsers support. If it has an X next to MPEG-4 and H.264. Then you know that the browser does not support playback.
Opera doesn't support H.264 as HTML video either. Google, Mozilla, and Opera have all publicly stated that they are not support H.264 in their browsers. Safari and IE 9 are the only two major browsers that support H.264 playback in HTML.
Another reason I don't believe that is Apple's fault is because on the desktop browser you can clearly see the H.264 file. It is not a Quicktime file. Even if the browser does not support H.264, the media framework built into the OS should be able to pick up the file and play it. The reason Android does not do this, I don't know.
I have Skyfire on my iPhone. It plays Apple trailers fine. Skyfire on the iPhone does support H.264 playback in HTML. But even if it didn't the built in media framework would pick up the file and play it.
You can point your Android browsers to html5test.com, under the video section you can see what video codecs those browsers support. If it has an X next to MPEG-4 and H.264. Then you know that the browser does not support playback.
Thanks Teno! That's a great site. None of the Droid browsers do any of those video codecs except the Ogg ones. Most support video element, though. I tried Rockplayer and Vplayer, standalone players, which do play Apple's example mp4 and h264 files, however. Very nicely in fact. They launch automatically from the browser, too. But even they don't work with Trailers. I guess Trailers require QT somehow. Oh well I guess I'll watch trailers somewhere else. Thanks for the info though.