At the big Google I/O conference, Flash on Android was promised, causing howls of appreciation from the assembled crowd. So how well does it work? Unfortunately, it’s not great. While this is still a beta plugin, the guys at PocketNow compared Android 2.2 (Froyo) on a Nexus One, Opera Mobile 10 on the HTC HD2, and iPhone 3GS. They tested the browsers with Flash turned on, and off.
When Flash was on, websites with Flash elements slowed to a crawl. Seriously, it looks painful to use. However, with it off, Froyo was the fastest thing around. The Flash plugin also has an on-demand option, where you have to okay specific Flash elements to run, so as not to utterly destroy your browsing experience.
What can we take away from this? Flash is very, very tricky to do on a cellphone. If you leave it on, it really kills the browsing experience. Watching the comparison vid, you can see why Apple would not be thrilled to browse like this. Hell, I have a brand spanking new MacBook Pro, and Flash still stalls on it sometimes (especially Firefox).
On the other hand, with some judicious engineering, and controlled use of the plugin, its downsides can be dealt with. Having it so that you need to allow each Flash element means you keep the functionality and speed. If Apple were to allow Flash, this would be the way to do it.
If you’re interested in Android and its capabilities, hit up our sister site EverythingAndroid and their forum.
[via Gizmodo]
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Your conclusion is off.
Other Adobe staff are spending more time analyzing what that eleven-minute video actually saw (and what it missed), but proselytizing headlines have gotten out of control this morning.
Is there an actual author name on this item which got promoted into Techmeme…?
jd/adobe
^^^^ I guess I have to thank you and the Google team for singlehandedly proving Jobs right. Every item that he detailed as a reason to not carry flash was documented in this video. Low memory? Requires a reboot?
Are you serious?
But nice to know the adobe team likes to read this site.
Ive got it here. No flash problems. Some websites with heavy flash run slow, but that’s expected. I can choose to selectively activate it at the press of a button on the video if I want. It’s gonna get better though. It’s only beta.
^^ Sorry, I don’t buy a $700 “superphone” to be a guinea pig. After all, it must be nice to have an 11 month head start. At the Google io I didn’t hear one mention of it being “buggy” or
laggy “as expected”. I heard the usual it’s perfect.
Google’s lesson of having inexperience in the retail world will come knocking any day now. It already started with the failure of the N1 launch.
Believe whatever you want, lol. My phone cost me a fraction of that btw.
Yeah, let’s rip on a work-in-progress… we surely can’t be missing any data from a beta build of their 2.2 update, much less the beta of the plugin. I’m not saying that this is innacurate, I mean that video is pretty cut/dry, but why don’t we just wait til a final build releases to make definitive statements on how it works?