Dropping Adobe Flash boosts Apple's MacBook Air battery life by 2 hours

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Comments

  • Reply 61 of 94
    It is good that Apple is no longer bundling it - I'm not anti-Flash, just doesn't make sense to ship something with Mac's that Apple cannot control and backup with their own engineering. If people really want Flash it is probably best to download the latest version directly from Adobe themselves than the problems of Apple and Adobe synchronising their schedules.



    Btw, Adobe have released their Flash update to fix the malware/worm issue that was talked about recently.



    My personally experience with Flash since the release of 10.1 has been pretty good - the most I see when using YouTube for example is 23% CPU utilisation when playing a video and it lowers once all the video is downloaded and reading from cache. I don't think that Flash is as bad as people make out and I hardly think it is Adobe's fault that there are those who abuse an otherwise good technology when used in the right place and right time.
  • Reply 62 of 94
    jfanningjfanning Posts: 3,398member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Matthew Yohe View Post


    This is not true. Easy example to convince yourself: HTML5 Youtube vs Regular Youtube in the same browser. Check activity monitor.



    It is true. Anything that uses the CPU etc will decrease battery life
  • Reply 63 of 94
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Cpsro View Post


    Uh, except Apple provides quality support for efficient h.264 video decoding, HTML5 and Safari. Adobe couldn't possibly and won't support Apple platforms to such a degree.



    If you like the status quo, just keep using Flash and enjoy (hah!). HTML5 is enough for the rest of us. The world doesn't need a poorly supported, proprietary standard like Flash on any platform.



    Did you mean to reply to someone else, you made no relative comment to my post?



    You obviously aren't a developer, the world before Flash was an awful one for professional developers and for MANY purposes, especially in marketing, it is still a very useful tool. You may hate Flash, but to openly display ignorance of its many uses invalidates any point you may be trying to make.



    I LOVE HTML5 and develop in it as much as I can, but I'm not going to say I hate Flash, that's just silly as Flash didn't create all the annoying ads, people did. Bad developers made bad sites which annoyed a LOT of people and they blame Flash for it because they don't know any better.



    Flash will be around for at least another decade probably longer so get used to it. The only sad part of all this is that Jobs trying to lock people in to the App store for simple Flash based games that are free online, has pushed more advertisers to start making ads that are harder to avoid!



    So Jobs is a jerk who doesn't care about users, but who cares, I still love my iPhone.
  • Reply 64 of 94
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by jfanning View Post


    It is true. Anything that uses the CPU etc will decrease battery life



    Well... offloading to the GPU makes the CPU graph look better, but it still uses power.



    Anecdotally I think it's fair to say that offloading work to the GPU is far more power efficient than letting the CPU handle the full load. I couldn't tell you how much more power efficient though!



    I do have a power monitor, but I don't know if it would be sensitive enough to pick up the difference. I'll have to give it a go.
  • Reply 65 of 94
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by theshaka2 View Post


    this is such a skewed article (like all apple fanboy articles about flash).



    if you gimp a website of some/many of its features, of course it will load faster and use less memory/processor.



    a VALID comparison would be to replace all flash ads, content, tracking, etc with universally-acceptable replacements. the power of flash is that the same thing can run on all platforms. t



    i'd like arstechnica or this site to replicate all the functionality of flash, have it work on all browsers, and then do a study. the comparison of "sites with flash turned on" vs "sites with flash turned off" is essentially a study in "what would the internet be without advertising and instead all free and fast just for me to consume without paying" and that's just sticking your head in the sand



    until flash-bashing articles show a apples to apples comparison of flash games, ads, tracking, video, etc - that work for everyone including ie6 or whatever, the apple bias against flash is strictly fanboyism



    Just in case, I want you to know I am not a fanboy (I have a MBA [new] and Dell Inspiron - I prefer the Dell, but school prefers the mac).



    As you must know, many websites check whether you have the Flash plugin, and if you have it, they display the video in Flash, if you don't, they display HTML5.



    I used the code to make a page on my school intranet that checks whether you have the Flash plugin, and if you have it, it displays the video in Flash, if you don't, it displays HTML5. This webpage showed a repeating two hour movie of a ball bouncing. I recharged fully. Accessed this page from my MBA (with Flash). I started the video, then timed how long my MBA lasted till it shut down. Then, I recharged fully again, uninstalled Flash, and accessed the same page. Again timed till it shut down. With the Flash, my MBA lasted 3 hrs 22 min 12 sec. With the HTML5, it lasted 5 hrs 13 min 48 sec.



    #41|_



    Face the Facts
  • Reply 66 of 94
    tjwtjw Posts: 216member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by mbarriault View Post


    Wait, I thought Adobe said Flash had no effect on battery life? </trolling>



    No surprise here, and actually inspires me further to just uninstall Flash altogether.



    You are a hero. Saint Jobs would be proud my child
  • Reply 67 of 94
    tjwtjw Posts: 216member
    Massive fail.



    I can just see all the mac fan boys loading the crippled mobile version of websites just so they can be cool and say 'Hey look, I use no flash! I am going to bend over now so you can butt fuck me Steve!'
  • Reply 68 of 94
    bk212bk212 Posts: 11member
    LOL. You must not be reading AppleInsider articles carefully. Whenever I read this site, it's like reading Pravda.

    All I have to say is good luck to Steve with OS X app store. EU regulators will shut that down, since Java and Flash are "deprecated" and forbidden from app store.





    Quote:

    Apple is not a political movement, religion, or moral ideology.



  • Reply 69 of 94
    jfanningjfanning Posts: 3,398member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Firefly7475 View Post


    Well... offloading to the GPU makes the CPU graph look better, but it still uses power.



    Anecdotally I think it's fair to say that offloading work to the GPU is far more power efficient than letting the CPU handle the full load. I couldn't tell you how much more power efficient though!



    I do have a power monitor, but I don't know if it would be sensitive enough to pick up the difference. I'll have to give it a go.



    all the components need power to operate, so any extra load on any of them will drain the battery faster.
  • Reply 70 of 94
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by SaltWater View Post


    If you just use it to read with very low bright screen or use it as an iPod only, it will last lot longer duuhhh



    So, battery life going from 6 hrs to 4 hrs just because of Flash isn't surprising to you? That is enough to make me un-install flash on my mac at home...it is absolutely, staggeringly unbelievable that one plug-in has that much of an effect.
  • Reply 71 of 94
    steve-jsteve-j Posts: 320member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Orlando View Post




    I'm actually surprised Chrome isn't using the GPU for video playback.



    Yeah.



    What's up with that? Is Chrome somehow less capable? I've been using it lately, and it seems about the same as other browsers in most respects.



    But if it fails to utilize the GPU, then maybe it's back to Firefox?
  • Reply 72 of 94
    steve-jsteve-j Posts: 320member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Cubert View Post


    Most importantly, many porn sites use Flash.





    True.



    Interestingly, the "Android is for porn" meme never really took off any more than the Flash is for porn meme.



    Maybe that is because so many millions and millions of people enjoy porn, making it an unspoken-about norm in society? Dunno.
  • Reply 73 of 94
    steve-jsteve-j Posts: 320member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by BUSHMAN4 View Post


    Two hours worth of battery time is a nice bonus for passing on Adobe Flash, especial with skyfire now available and HTML5 being used in more than 50% of all applications.



    Yeah. 2 hours is a lot.



    But doesn't that assume that you run flash continuously? I'd trade 15 minutes of battery to watch an important breaking news story. There is no need (and indeed, no opportunity) to suddenly lop off two hours of battery, or to make a yes/no zero/two hour decision.



    The two hour spec is impressive, but it is only a spec produced by an artificial usage pattern. In normal life, trading 10 minutes to an hour of battery for increased capability is a trade-off that makes a lot of sense. And if you are in a pickle where you won't be able to recharge, THEN turn it off.



    But not always. That is just foolish.
  • Reply 74 of 94
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by lkrupp View Post


    This begs the question. When a user installs Flash on their shiny new Air and sees their battery life cut by 33% who will they complain to and blame? Hint; it won't be Adobe. The Apple discussions forums will light up with blathering, outraged users who will blame Apple for their "terrible battery life". You know they will.



    You are right about that. Flash uses a lot of battery life.
  • Reply 75 of 94
    steve-jsteve-j Posts: 320member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by wildag View Post


    I'm also highly amused at Apple Insider's constant barrage of Flash bashing articles, while their main advertising banners at the top are made in Flash. Uninstalling Flash, or installing ClickToFlash means Apple Insider's advertisements are blocked, and therefore they receive less revenue. Way to go Apple Insider!



    If you use Click to Flash to avoid the adverts, then you are basically pirating the content. If not for those Flash ads, there would be no AI and no forum.



    The right thing for all of us to do is to click those ads every once in a while, and to buy stuff from AI's advertising customers. We should also let those advertisers know that we are buying from them because they advertise on AI.



    If you use Click to Flash to avoid AI's advertisements, you are basically stealing the content from AI, just like pirating software.
  • Reply 76 of 94
    tjwtjw Posts: 216member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Steve-J View Post


    If you use Click to Flash to avoid the adverts, then you are basically pirating the content. If not for those Flash ads, there would be no AI and no forum.



    The right thing for all of us to do is to click those ads every once in a while, and to buy stuff from the companies that are AI's advertising customers. We should also let those companies know that we are buying from them because they advertise on AI.



    If you use Click to Flash to avoid AI's advertisements, you are basically stealing the content from them, just like pirated software.



    +1 Insightful
  • Reply 77 of 94
    steve-jsteve-j Posts: 320member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by macintoshtoffy View Post


    It is good that Apple is no longer bundling it - I'm not anti-Flash, just doesn't make sense to ship something with Mac's that Apple cannot control and backup with their own engineering.



    That makes sense. But that is not what Apple is doing.



    Many somethings are shipped with Macs that Apple cannot control and backup with their own engineering.



    If that were the reason for no longer bundling it, Apple would stop bundling the other stuff too. So I doubt that reason is valid.
  • Reply 78 of 94
    steve-jsteve-j Posts: 320member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by fishstick_kitty View Post


    So, battery life going from 6 hrs to 4 hrs just because of Flash isn't surprising to you? That is enough to make me un-install flash on my mac at home...it is absolutely, staggeringly unbelievable that one plug-in has that much of an effect.



    If you browse flash sites for 4 hours straight, then yes. Otherwise, not quite so much.
  • Reply 79 of 94
    charlitunacharlituna Posts: 7,217member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by bk212 View Post


    Talk about an unfair test. If Apple had any GUTS,



    These comments imply that you believe that Apple ran this little test. They didn't. A blogger at Ars Technica did. So blame him for his bias test.



    As for Apple telling you how many folks installed Flash. They likely can't. Because the installation is direct from Adobe so Apple won't have the numbers. Now Adobe could publish them, but probably won't unless the numbers show a vast majority of users installing the software would means folks still want it





    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Cubert View Post


    Most importantly, many porn sites use Flash.







    And yet:



    http://gigaom.com/video/youporn-goes...s-on-the-ipad/

    http://touchreviews.net/porn-industr...e-flash-html5/

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/0..._n_629313.html

    http://www.conceivablytech.com/1553/...to-drop-flash/

    http://blogs.forbes.com/velocity/201...sh-for-html-5/



    google porn html5 and you'll find many many more articles.
  • Reply 80 of 94
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Steve-J View Post


    Yeah.



    What's up with that? Is Chrome somehow less capable? I've been using it lately, and it seems about the same as other browsers in most respects.



    But if it fails to utilize the GPU, then maybe it's back to Firefox?



    See results above for the Chrome v9 dev build.
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