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.

Doors open at 5, and we will have plenty of food and drinks (beer is being provided by City Beer Store!). Kevin Lynch is launching the event with a keynote around 5:45, and then we will move into sessions on Flash Player 10.1, Flash CS5, Flash Builder, etc… (all presented by members of the respective teams). Speakers include Richard Galvan, Jim Corbet of the player team, Trevor McCauley, aka senocular, also of the player team, Arno Gourdol from the AIR team, Heidi Williams and more….

We will also have a dedicated space setup if you want to chat with any of the engineers or team members of the product teams (this has been really popular in the past).

Here is the current agenda:

You can find more information on the event, as well as register on the event page at:

http://flashcampsf.eventbrite.com/

The event is free, but please register as soon as possible as the FlashCamps have been filling up fast (Tokyo and Seoul sold out in two hours!).

We don’t have a huge marketing budget (we spent it all on the beer and swag for the event), so I would appreciate any help in getting the word out about the event (blogging, twitter, facebook, etc…).

You can follow the latest news and information on the event via twitter at:

http://www.twitter.com/flashcamp

Btw, if you are on the east coast, make sure to check out FlashCamp Boston, being held in a couple of weeks.

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:

1. Flash does not necessarily perform worse on Mac as opposed to PC
2. All rich media content, including that created with JavaScript / HTML 5 content show (sometimes widely) varying levels of performance across browsers and operating systems

All numbers below show CPU usage as a total of all CPU resources available on the system. This means that if you are running on a machine with more than one core processor, then CPU usage can be over 100%. This is how Mac shows CPU usage, and I feel it gives a clearer picture of how much CPU any individual item is using. Windows CPU usage have been normalized to show CPU usage in terms of this overall CPU usage.

All tests were run on the following hardware:

I have both a Windows 7 and OS X partition on this computer, and Windows 7 tests were run while booted into Windows 7.

For browsers, I used the latest release browser versions. For Flash Player, I used the latest labs release (Flash Player 10.1 Beta 3 : 10,1,51,95).

Mac OS X Versions

Windows 7 Versions

IMPORTANT, THE ONLY RELEVANT COMPARISONS ARE BETWEEN PERFORMANCE OF THE SAME CONTENT ACROSS DIFFERENT BROWSERS AND OPERATING SYSTEMS. COMPARING FLASH CONTENT TO JAVASCRIPT CONTENT IN THIS TEST IS NOT VALID GIVEN THE DIFFERENCES IN THE CONTENT AND / OR FUNCTIONALITY.

Below are the pages / content run, and the amount of CPU they took to run. Lowest CPU usage is highlighted in green, and highest CPU usage is highlighted in red. I have also included a platform delta line, which shows the range in performance between the high and lowest CPU usage per operating system. Note, that as time passes, the content at some of the URLs may change, and not reflect the content tested.

Note: I am looking into why Internet Explorer is reporting 0% CPU usage on some of the JavaScript and Flash examples.

MacHeist Dynamic Canvas / JavaScript animation example

9elements JavaScript / Canvas Dynamic Animation Example

Sublime HTML 5 HD Video Example

HYPE Dynamic Flash Animation Example

Vimeo HD Flash Video Example

Overall Comparative Performance (shows how often each platform performed the best per content type)

I am not going to draw any definitive conclusions from this, but I do have some observations based on the results above.

• From these tests, Flash content does not perform consistently worse on Mac than on Windows.
• There is a wide range of CPU usage for HTML 5 video, depending on the browser / operating system it is being played back on, with Mac generally being slower.
• Canvas / JavaScript animations (at least those tested) seem to have high CPU usage, and generally run slower on Mac than on Windows (although not in all cases).
• Some of the HTML / JavaScript content would not run across all browsers.
• There seems to be some bug in the tested Flash Player when playing back video in Firefox. CPU usage would climb very high, and then drop. (I have reported this to the team).
• Availability of hardware acceleration for playing back video looks like it makes a huge difference in CPU usage (duh!).
• Regardless of technology (Flash and JavaScript / HTML), performance of rich media can vary widely depending on which browser / operating system it runs on.

AGAIN, AS I STATED BEFORE THE ONLY RELEVANT COMPARISONS ARE BETWEEN PERFORMANCE OF THE SAME CONTENT ACROSS DIFFERENT BROWSERS AND OPERATING SYSTEMS. COMPARING FLASH CONTENT TO JAVASCRIPT CONTENT IN THESE TESTS IS NOT VALID GIVEN THE DIFFERENCES IN THE CONTENT AND / OR FUNCTIONALITY.

Please keep comments on topic. Off topic comments will be moderated / deleted.

Update (March 10, 2010) : You can find similar (but separate) tests and discussions on this topic here and here.

Update (March 11, 2010) : Updated to make it clearer which Flash Player version was being used.

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.

In response to my post on Mouse Events and hover in Flash Player content on touch devices, John Gruber (daringfireball.net) raises an issue:

The problem, though, for a hypothetic Flash plugin that renders pages within web pages (as on traditional desktop browsers), is how to tell whether a tap-and-drag within a Flash element is supposed to scroll the entire web page or be passed as a mouse movement event to the Flash element. It can’t do both, and it can’t read the user’s mind.

This is a potential issue, and as John notes, is one not isolated to Flash content (scrolling textareas have similar issues on a touch device).

Here is how the current pre-release builds of Flash Player 10.1 handle this on the Nexus One (I havent had a chance to confirm for the other devices).

When the page is loaded the Flash content is embedded within the HTML and laid out as specified by that HTML. If all of the web page content cannot fit on the screen (i.e. you can scroll) and if the user swipes / drags their finger (including over the Flash content), it will scroll the page.

However, if the user double taps the Flash content, it will go into a scaled full screen mode, and the swipe / drag gesture will then be passed to the Flash content. In the case of the Nexus One, the user presses the device back button, which takes the content out of fullscreen mode.

If the scroll position is at the top of the page, and the user drags down on the Flash content, then the drag will be passed to the Flash content. This makes sense to me, but I am not sure if that is a feature or a bug at this point.

In practice, this works very well, and at least among the people I have watched interact with the content, appears to be pretty intuitive.

You can see a video of the interactions here:

Now, this is all pre-release software, and could change. I would be interested in hearing any other suggestions on how this particular interaction could be made better (for Flash and HTML content). Again though, this is just as much a potential HTML issue, as it is a potential Flash issue, so think about solutions in that context.

Please keep comments constructive and on topic. Off topic comments will be assassinated.

So, the Interwebs is all a buzz again around the latest article that “proves” that Flash will not be useful on mobile devices (much less the iPad). From the article:

Current Flash sites could never be made work well on any touchscreen device, and this cannot be solved by Apple, Adobe, or magical new hardware.

That’s not because of slow mobile performance, battery drain or crashes. It’s because of the hover or mouseover problem.

Basically, the writer is arguing that because some Flash content uses Mouse over / hover events (MouseEvent.MOUSE_OVER), and because there is no such event as a hover on a touch devices, then apparently, most Flash content just flat out wont work on touch devices.

I wanted to make a quick post that corrects some of the false assumptions and conclusions presented in the article, which include:

1. Hover events do not work in Flash content on devices with touch screens. That is false, they do work.
2. Any issue with hover or any other mouse events on a touch screen device, are specific to Flash. They are not. They affect HTML and any other web content as much as Flash.
3. Most Flash content relies on hover events. Wrong. I dont have a scientific breakdown on how much Flash content RELIES on hover events, but at least in my experience with the Nexus one, almost all content I have come across has worked well with touch screen input, including those that use hover events.

First, lets look at all of the Mouse events that Flash developers normally have access to.

• MouseEvent.CLICK
• MouseEvent.DOUBLE_CLICK
• MouseEvent.MIDDLE_CLICK
• MouseEvent.MIDDLE_MOUSE_DOWN
• MouseEvent.MIDDLE_MOUSE_UP
• MouseEvent.MOUSE_DOWN
• MouseEvent.MOUSE_MOVE
• MouseEvent.MOUSE_OUT
• MouseEvent.MOUSE_OVER
• MouseEvent.MOUSE_UP
• MouseEvent.MOUSE_WHEEL
• MouseEvent.RIGHT_CLICK
• MouseEvent.RIGHT_CLICK_DOWN
• MouseEvent.RIGHT_MOUSE_UP
• MouseEvent.ROLL_OUT
• MouseEvent.ROLL_OVER

Now, lets look at a list of events that will not work on a device whose primary input is a touch screen:

• MouseEvent.MIDDLE_CLICK
• MouseEvent.MIDDLE_MOUSE_DOWN
• MouseEvent.MIDDLE_MOUSE_UP
• MouseEvent.MOUSE_WHEEL
• MouseEvent.RIGHT_CLICK
• MouseEvent.RIGHT_CLICK_DOWN
• MouseEvent.RIGHT_MOUSE_UP

As you can see that list doesn’t include the MOUSE_OVER and ROLL_OVER events. It only includes middle and right mouse button events, as well as mouse wheel events, which in general, are used as a secondary means of user input / interaction.

Basically, hover events do work in Flash content on touch screen devices. The main difference is that on a touch device, you will get also get a MouseEvent.MOUSE_DOWN event prior to the MouseEvent.MOUSE_OVER event, where as on a desktop machine, you MAY only get the MouseEvent.MOUSE_OVER event.

I put together a very simple Flash example for the iphone, that shows all of the MouseEvents being generated. You can view the video here:

View Video on YouTube

Here is a list of the events which were generated in the video:

• doubleClick
• mouseUp
• mouseDown
• click
• mouseUp
• mouseOver
• rollOver
• mouseDown
• rollOut
• mouseOver
• rollOver
• rollOut
• mouseOut
• click
• mouseUp
• mouseOver
• rollOver

So, to summarize:

1. Hover events do work in Flash content on touch devices.
2. Any issues with mouse input on a touch device are not specific to Flash, but affect all content, including HTML based content.
3. If your content RELIES on MIDDLE, RIGHT and / or SCROLL_WHEEL mouse events, then you will need to update your content IF you want users on touch devices to be able to use it. This applies just as much to HTML content as it does to Flash content.

Now, this doesn’t mean that all Flash content designed and developed for mouse input on a desktop computer will run well on a mobile device with touch input. Indeed, some content will not run well due to differences in input (such as keyboard input), user interface, or performance. However, again, those are all issues that affect HTML content as much as they affect Flash content.

Again, any potential input issues apply as much to HTML as they do to Flash, and as browsing the web on the iPhone has demonstrated, these have not been a major barrier to consuming content on a touch device.

As a content creator, you should focus on creating content that provides a good user experience across all platforms that you are targeting. However, even though most Flash content on the web today is not designed with mobile viewing and touch input in mind, my experience has been that existing content works surprisingly well when viewed on a mobile device with touch input.

Here are some links to videos of existing Flash content running on mobile devices. A lot of this content is content never designed to be run on a device with touch input.

• Demos of Flash Player 10.1 on various mobile devices (iPhone, Palm Pre, Nexus One, Droid, and more…)
• Flash Player content on Nexus One
• Unofficial Nexus One Flash Demos

Please keep comments constructive and on topic. Off topic comments will be moderated.

You may have noticed that since September, the public Flash Platform (Flash Player, Flex, etc…) bug base has required a login in order to browse and view bugs. This was not the case when we initially launched the public bug base but after a number of issues (primarily caused by spam), we had to disable viewing bugs without registration.

Starting last night, we are rolling out some new updates and tweaks to the bug base, and will be doing some testing to ensure that the original issues are addressed. As of right now, you can once again browse the Flash Platform bug base without registration (although logging issues or commenting still requires registration). Over the next couple of weeks, you may see some changes in access as we test and ensure everything is working, but the ultimate goal is to allow viewing and browsing of entries without requiring registration.

Yesterday, Apple announced their new tablet device, the iPad. Even if you are able to step back from all of the hype and reality distortion field surrounding the announcement, it is still an impressive device, once which I would love to get my hands on.

However, as a developer and Mac user, I am increasingly concerned with Apple’s movement toward creating a locked down, and closed ecosystem and platform. A platform where Apple controls which applications developers can deploy, and which applications and content users can consume.

And yes, Flash is currently one of the casualties of Apple’s control over the platform, but that is not why I am posting this. Apple already has a history of removing or preventing competitive (and non-competitive) applications from being distributed on the iPhone / iTouch. There is no reason not to expect that as the scope of functionality and applications that Apple creates expands, so will the number (and type) of third party applications that Apple will prevent from running on their platforms.

Don’t get me wrong. I love Apple’s operating system and hardware. I really enjoy building content for it with Cocoa, and am drooling to get some of my existing iPhone and desktop apps (Timetrocity, WoWTCG Utility, AS3 Reference Guide, Shortboard) running on the iPad. But, I am concerned about Apple expanding its control over the platform into new classes of devices. First Apple released the iPhone, with a locked down ecosystem. People seems to accept this, because the device was so revolutionary, and traditionally, mobile devices were already locked down platforms. However, with the release of the iPad, they are now expanding this model up the chain. I am pretty confident that if Apple felt they could get away with moving their desktop operating system to the closed / locked down model that they have been successful with on the iPhone, they would do it in a heart beat. Moving to such a model allows Apple to monetize content they could not directly monetize before, as well as lock out competitors. As a Mac user, and developer who does Cocoa development, that is not something I want to see.

Now, this is where someone is going to step in and say that Apple does it to control the experience, and ensure that there is only quality content available for the user. I think that is incredibly naive. Apple has shown that if crappy experiences and / or quality makes them money, they have no problem allowing it (there are tons of crappy, low quality apps on the app store). In addition, I do not want nor need Apple to decide for me what apps I can or cannot use.

What really surprises me though, is how the “open web” people are embracing this, especially as it relates to Flash. I am not sure if they are just being shortsighted, or are somehow kidding themselves because the iPhone includes a browser and is thus supporting the “open web”. Apple is not supporting the “open web”. In fact, they are doing the exact opposite by creating a platform which only allows a single browser (mobile Safari). Want to use Firefox or Opera on your iPhone? Tough. What about the iPad? Nope. Who knows, maybe next year, you wont be able to choose your browser (without Apple’s blessing) on the desktop. Does anyone doubt that Apple would not create a locked down desktop platform if they felt they could get away with it?

In addition, once HTML 5 is adopted widely enough to where developers can create applications, games and content as rich as native iPhone / iPad apps, does anyone think that Apple won’t make moves to cripple or restrict such content? Why pay $3.99 for a game on the app store when you can have the same game and experience for free in a web browser. Apple is not going to allow developers to circumvent the app store and cut them out of the revenue chain for that content. (Personally, I believe this is why Apple has not allowed Flash on the iPhone, but that is a post for another day).

Now, I completely understand WHY Apple is doing this. It makes great business sense for them (at least in the short to medium term). They get to sell a lot of hardware, control the experience, prevent competition, and monetize and control all of the content deployed to their platform. It also allows them to move into new markets, and monetize third party content they were not able to monetize before (music, videos, apps, books). I also understand HOW Apple has been able to do this. They have created an amazing platform, which provides not only the best hardware, and software experience, but the best combination of the two.

I love my Mac, I love OS X and I love developing with Cocoa. What I don’t love is the prospect of having Apple being the gatekeeper and arbiter of what software I develop and run on my own computers and devices. While I do have a vested interest in seeing Flash be able to run on the device, it is just one of many examples of software that Apple has prevented from running on their platform. Apple is creating a locked down ecosystem where they, and only they, control what content is able to be deployed on the device. They are actively expanding this locked down ecosystem to a wider range of devices and hardware. That is something that is not good for developers, is not good for users, and it not good for the web. Indeed, ultimately, it is only good for Apple.

As a Mac user and developer, this is a trend that concerns me.

I have just completed running all of the performance tests for the ActionScript 3 Development Task Contest #1.

The result below are tentative until I have confirmed that the code follows the rules (and spirit) of the contest. If you see any issues with any of the top 5 submissions, please post them in the comments. You can view all of the entries in the contest’s GitHub repository.

Here are the results:

You can download the raw results in CSV format from here, or view them on google docs here.

All examples were compiled with MXMLC from the Flex SDK 3.4 (Version 3.4.0 build 9271), with the following command:

mxmlc --target-player=10.0.0 -compiler.source-path ~/src/PerformanceTest/ -- TestRunner.as

Results were obtained by running TestRunner.as. TestRunner.as ran each test 300 times per run. The TestRunner was run a total of 5 times (with the SWF reloaded each time).

Test were run in Safari Version 4.0.4 (6531.21.10) on Mac 10.6.2 in Flash Player 10,0,32,18 (regular). The Mac was a MacPro 2 x 3 GHZ Quad Core Intel Xeon with 8 GB RAM.

I will finalize results and announce the winner either late tonight, on Wednesday (I am traveling on Tuesday). Check back here for updated information, or follow my twitter account at @mesh. I will be awarding prizes to multiple submissions.

UPDATE : (November 17th, 2009) : I am declaring the entries final. Arnaud Gatouillat is the overall winner, and wins Flex Builder, a tshirt, etc…. In addition, given some of the great results that we got from the submissions, I am also going to award a prize (their choice of a tshirt from threadless.org) to the next 3 top entries, which include Grant Skinner, Jim Cheng, and Jean Phillipp Auclair. If you are one of the top four entries, please email me at mesh@adobe.com and we will work out the details.

I have uploaded all of the entries for the ActionScript 3 Development Task Contest #1 to the contest’s GitHub repository.

If you sent me an entry and do not see it in the repository, email me ASAP (without the file). Adobe’s spam system can be a bit overzealous at times, but if I know you sent me something, I can find it.

Also, I have not validated all of the entries yet. I will do that later today or over the weekend. If you see any major issues in a submission, then post them in the comments (do not email me directly about it). My plan is to post the initial test results on Monday, and then finalize Monday night or Tuesday. However, I am traveling early next week, so that might slip a day.

All of the source code is fully commented, so please feel free to ask question, or comment on general techniques in the comments for this post. I think it is a great opportunity to learn from the code, and different approaches. My guess is that we can get something even faster by combining some techniques used by different submissions.

Note that I also submitted my entry, although I am not eligible for the contest. Also, I did not update mine any once I started receiving submissions.

Btw, if someone wants to modify the TestRunner to run all of the entries at once, then I will run it on multiple platforms and devices (including iphone), and report back the results.

Finally, thank you to everyone who submitted. When commenting, please keep in mind that there are various levels of developers who submitted content, so no “j00r (0D3 $U><0r$” comments.