Now let’s chat about Flash 10.1 support. It works pretty damn well. But you have to keep in mind that a lot of sites that stream video, for example, are optimized for a desktop with broadband connectivity. This is still a mobile device with a mobile browser. You’ll get notifications that some videos aren’t optimized for mobile. They still stream but they can be choppy. And it’s still in Beta. This isn’t Adobe’s problem since they have no control over which sites are built with just desktop optimization and the like. I’d love to have an Android tablet running 2.2 with full Flash support.
(More on Techland: Adobe Goes After Apple In New Ad Campaign)
Flash 10.1 is still on schedule to launch in June. The Beta will be released to the Android Marketplace today, which means Froyo could be released today. Again, this was prepared ahead of Google’s announcement so I’ll change as the press conference goes on. Users with 2.2 will be able to download the app through the Marketplace or they’ll be prompted when navigating to a Flash site. Adobe tells me that they’re pushing to have it pre-installed at the manufacturer level.
The following are snippits about performance from Adobe.
• Video playback: More than 3 hours of H.264 video playback on the Nexus One when streamed over 3G network – with hardware acceleration turned off (in software only)
• Online gaming: Casual web games experienced 4 hours of continuous playback.
• Animation and graphics benchmarking: Flash Player 10.1 runs at more than 3 times the frame rate as HTML with approximately the same battery consumption.
• Automatic Memory Reduction: Decrease content usage of RAM by up to 50 percent
The fact that I can stream music from mog.com blows me away. I’m really impressed with the Flash implementation. But it stops streaming when the browser is closed. We’ll have video shortly.
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Google Shutting Down Nexus One Store