Mike Chambers

For today’s myth, I want to cover one that has its roots in some fundamental misunderstandings around video technologies. That is the idea that H.264 Video (deployed via the HTML5 video tag) will kill Flash. This is a more recent meme, which has spread with the growing awareness of the forthcoming HTML5, but is unfortunately based on some fundamental misunderstandings about Flash, video capabilities, and the web in general.
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As you probably noticed, yesterday Adobe ran some ads expressing its thoughts on the importance of open markets. I think Adobe’s position is best summarized in an open letter from Adobe’s founders, John Warnock and Chuck Geschke:
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Today I wanted to look at a more recent misperception around Flash. That is the idea that Flash cannot work on devices with touch screens. If you know your Flash history then you will probably find this a bit ironic, considering that Flash was originally created specifically for tablets with touch inputs. Regardless, lets take a closer look at this myth.
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This is one of the most prevalent misperceptions associated with Flash. Basically, the myth is that Flash uses an inordinate amount of CPU compared to other, similar technologies.

Before looking in more detail at this misperception, I think it is important to point out that when one makes the statement “Flash is a CPU hog”, they are making a comparison of Flash CPU usage to some baseline. This then begs the question: Flash uses a lot of CPU compared to what? By comparing Flash CPU usage to other similar technologies and content, it becomes clear that Flash CPU usage is not excessive for the type of content that it displays and executes.
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Interview with Kevin Lynch at Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco. Covers Adobe, Flash, innovation, HTML 5, thoughts on the direction the web is moving, competition, and omniture. Highly recommended.
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A little over a week ago Apple released a new draft of their iPhone developer program license which contained the following clause:

3.3.1 — Applications may only use Documented APIs in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any private APIs. Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine, and only code written in C, C++, and Objective-C may compile and directly link against the Documented APIs (e.g., Applications that link to Documented APIs through an intermediary translation or compatibility layer or tool are prohibited).

Essentially, this has the effect of restricting applications built with a number of technologies, including Unity, Titanium, MonoTouch, and Flash CS5. While it appears that Apple may selectively enforce the terms, it is our belief that Apple will enforce those terms as they apply to content created with Flash CS5. Developers should be prepared for Apple to remove existing content and applications (100+ on the store today) created with Flash CS5 from the iTunes store.
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I have just posted information about FlashCamp San Francisco, a free developer / designers event that we will be holding in the Adobe San Francisco Office on Friday night, April 16th. This will be similar to the other world wide FlashCamps going on this spring, with this event focusing on Flash Player 10.1, Flash CS5, Flash Builder and Flash mobile development.

Register for FlashCamp San Francisco

From the event page:

FlashCamp San Francisco is a free one night event hosted by Adobe covering everything you need to know about about the latest Flash Platform tools and technologies, including Adobe Flash Player 10.1, Adobe Flash CS5, Adobe Flash Builder 4 and mobile design and development.

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There has been a lot of buzz in the mobile space lately, and I suspect there will be even more around Windows Phone 7 at next week’s Microsoft Mix conference. One thing I wanted to clarify as it may have been lost in some of the other news is that Adobe and Microsoft are working together to bring Flash Player 10.1 to Internet Explorer Mobile on Windows Phone 7 Series.

I dont have an eta or other specifics right now, but it is something that both Adobe and Microsoft are working closely together on.

Two of the things that Flash is often criticized for is that it:

1. Uses too much CPU
2. Performs significantly worse on the Mac than on Windows

This got me thinking about whether some quick tests would bear this out, and if so, whether it was isolated to just Flash content.

Below are some raw numbers showing CPU usage of various rich content across different browsers and operating systems. This includes video deployed via HTML 5, JavaScript / Canvas animations, Flash Video, and Flash animations. This is by no means a scientific study, but I do think the results show that:
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Here are my slides from my FITC Amsterdam talk titled Building High Performance iPhone Applications with ActionScript 3.

Sorry I ran a little short of time, but you can find all of the info in the slides.

Here is the link to the Simple Game Framework which I discussed during the session.