Flash on Android is shockingly bad • Hacker News Board

Re: Flash on Android is shockingly bad

#21

Post by benmccann » Wed, Sep 01, 2010, 3:55 AM UTC

markkanof wrote: post #13

beej71 wrote: post #6

Articles that equate Flash with Flash Video are shockingly bad.

This point needs to be emphasized more. All these articles just deal with video and then come to the conclusion that HTML5 is better than Flash because the video playback is smoother. What no one seems to mention is the much more complex applications that are built in Flash. There is basically no existing tooling to build complex things in HTML5. A designer I know is working on a massive graphical timeline. It has to…

90% of my day-to-day flash usage is for video except for my fantasy football draft today at espn which kept crashing every 10 minutes because i was using flash on linux

Re: Flash on Android is shockingly bad

#22

Post by zmmmmm » Wed, Sep 01, 2010, 3:58 AM UTC

I've watched quite a lot of videos around the web without any particular problem. I suspect the ones he is trying are all very high quality streams, or using an encoding that Android doesn't support well.

I regularly watch iView (http://www.abc.net.au/iview/) here in Australia and Flash playback is flawless on the Nexus One across the board. I'm really glad I have it even if there are situations where it doesn't work well.

Re: Flash on Android is shockingly bad

#23

Post by fourlittlebees » Wed, Sep 01, 2010, 3:59 AM UTC

markkanof wrote: post #13

beej71 wrote: post #6

Articles that equate Flash with Flash Video are shockingly bad.

This point needs to be emphasized more. All these articles just deal with video and then come to the conclusion that HTML5 is better than Flash because the video playback is smoother. What no one seems to mention is the much more complex applications that are built in Flash. There is basically no existing tooling to build complex things in HTML5. A designer I know is working on a massive graphical timeline. It has to…

Did I miss the part where they said HTML5 was better? I took it to be more of a slam of the Android fanboys who insist that Android is better than iOS because look! we have Flash and you don't! Reality is, video just plain sucks on mobile, period and until the various lunatics quit pimping which platform is cooler and actually work on fixing it, it's all going to suck.

Re: Flash on Android is shockingly bad

#24

Post by JangoSteve » Wed, Sep 01, 2010, 4:07 AM UTC

It's interesting how differently we sometimes treat "release early, release often" depending on how big the company is that's doing it. With headlines like these on the front page, I can see why so many people feel like they need their product to be absolutely perfect before they release it.

I for one have been enjoying flash on my droid, but I guess my expectations weren't set nearly high enough.

Re: Flash on Android is shockingly bad

#25

Post by seanalltogether » Wed, Sep 01, 2010, 4:12 AM UTC

Since the video review requires flash to view it, I decided to fire up my nexus one to watch it. The video started at 10 fps and jumped to ~25 after 5 seconds of decoding. This seems completely contrary to what the author is claiming.

Re: Flash on Android is shockingly bad

#26

Post by kyleslattery » Wed, Sep 01, 2010, 4:14 AM UTC

zmmmmm wrote: post #20

kyleslattery wrote: post #10

For what it's worth, I've had a similar experience on my Motorola Droid. The worst part about having Flash, though, is all the Flash advertising that I now see.

Why don't you just turn it off and have it run only on request?

Ah, didn't know that setting existed, much better now :)

Re: Flash on Android is shockingly bad

#27

Post by guelo » Wed, Sep 01, 2010, 4:17 AM UTC

I've been surprised how often Flash has come in handy on my Evo. From the WordPress Audio player, to random FunnyOrDie videos, to NYTimes infographics, even for watching embedded YouTube without having to leave the context of a web page.

It's not perfect but it seems to work pretty well 9/10 times. It is very useful and nice to have, no matter how much the diehard Apple fanboys want to believe otherwise.

Re: Flash on Android is shockingly bad

#28

Post by albemuth » Wed, Sep 01, 2010, 4:27 AM UTC

guelo wrote: post #27

I've been surprised how often Flash has come in handy on my Evo. From the WordPress Audio player, to random FunnyOrDie videos, to NYTimes infographics, even for watching embedded YouTube without having to leave the context of a web page. It's not perfect but it seems to work pretty well 9/10 times. It is very useful and nice to have, no matter how much the diehard Apple fanboys want to believe otherwise.

The killer feature is having it on demand, if you weren't able to turn it of I would have uninstalled it long ago.

Re: Flash on Android is shockingly bad

#29

Post by darrenkopp » Wed, Sep 01, 2010, 4:29 AM UTC

The daily show video works quite well. Can't watch that for free on any apple product, so I'll stick with flash

Re: Flash on Android is shockingly bad

#30

Post by weaksauce » Wed, Sep 01, 2010, 4:30 AM UTC

guelo wrote: post #27

I've been surprised how often Flash has come in handy on my Evo. From the WordPress Audio player, to random FunnyOrDie videos, to NYTimes infographics, even for watching embedded YouTube without having to leave the context of a web page. It's not perfect but it seems to work pretty well 9/10 times. It is very useful and nice to have, no matter how much the diehard Apple fanboys want to believe otherwise.

I would like it on my iPhone and iPad but I can live without it for the most part. I like the fact that a lot of video sites are doing the html5 video route and the iPhone and iPad popularity is pushing that adoption. funny or die works fine on my iPad. There are the ocasional restaurant websites and some other sites that don't work correctly without flash but they are a small minority of the sites that I visit.