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IPhone Flash prototype got 30 min battery life

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Re: IPhone Flash prototype got 30 min battery life

#31

Post by jrockway »

notauser wrote: post #10
veemjeem wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flash doesn't run "acceptably" on OSX or Linux. It uses around 30% of my cpu on either platform, compared to using only 3% of the cpu on my windows machine. Clearly they have some work to do before they can make flash as efficient as running on their core platform. Adobe should make flash work decently on other platforms before making one for the iphone... Running any flash app on my macbook causes the fan to turn on…

Performance is much improved on Linux these days (at least the x64 version). My Macbook Pro running Ubuntu 9.10 uses about 5-10% CPU at most for flash video, and usually a little less for flash-only sites. The only problem is that when it crashes the browser is sans-flash until you restart it.

Of course, playing the same flv file full-screen in mplayer uses almost no CPU at all.

Re: IPhone Flash prototype got 30 min battery life

#33

Post by tjogin »

yumraj wrote: post #4
X0nic wrote: post #3

For 90% of the sites that I visit, I would prefer no flash. Not to mention the battery, last thing I want is flash chewing through my battery for flash that I dont even want to see. I wouldnt mind the ability to click on a flash movie that isnt youtube, and have it launch a player.

- I guess since it's on the Internet it must be true. - All the other smartphones which have Flash must have 30 min battery life. - Apple is saint and Adobe is evil. - iPhone is such an open platform.

Adobe can't even make a performant flash plugin for Mac OS X or Linux, why on god's green earth would it be any different for lesser hardware?

Re: IPhone Flash prototype got 30 min battery life

#34

Post by ynniv »

kwantam wrote: post #25
kwantam wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, this "story" smells fishy. How is it that flash works acceptably on other platforms but not the iPhone? A much more likely explanation is the one everyone has been assuming, viz., Apple doesn't want any code they haven't approved running on the phone, period.

Wow, I'm being downvoted into oblivion for observing that other mobile devices can run flash apps and pointing out that Apple keeps tight control over their platform. Neither of these are particularly controversial, as I see it. I realize that Flash is annoying, and of course I'd expect to be able to turn it off on any reasonable platform---most of the time, I really don't want it. But when I do, let me make a big-bo…

> Are you really under the impression that Apple is in a better position to decide whether the tradeoffs are worthwhile than I am? On my phone?

Yes, I am under that impression. If Apple shipped with Flash, people would constantly complain about the battery life of the phone. I have been working on user interfaces for a couple of years now, and I can tell you that my user interface code is constantly at fault. Every segfault, random pause, incorrect data, data corruption, missing file, and plugin bug gets filed under "user interface" by anyone who is not directly part of the project.

Now, its possible that you're the guy who would spend a week testing battery life under various conditions to determine that Flash was at fault. Maybe you would publish all of this to your blog, and 1,000 people would read it and agree. Even if these were both true, the other 21 million iPhone users would be bitching about battery life all day long - and they would not care that Flash is at fault - and they certainly would not be able to live without it now that they spend 29 of their 30 minutes of battery life in FarmVille.

Apple has no control over Flash, and Flash sucks on every platform except maybe Windows. If Flash really mattered, one of the other smartphones would support it and make the iPhone obsolete. This is what competition is for. What we need is more diversity and interoperability in this industry. Flash on every device is not diversity.

Re: IPhone Flash prototype got 30 min battery life

#35

Post by tjogin »

veemjeem wrote: post #6
kwantam wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, this "story" smells fishy. How is it that flash works acceptably on other platforms but not the iPhone? A much more likely explanation is the one everyone has been assuming, viz., Apple doesn't want any code they haven't approved running on the phone, period.

Flash doesn't run "acceptably" on OSX or Linux. It uses around 30% of my cpu on either platform, compared to using only 3% of the cpu on my windows machine. Clearly they have some work to do before they can make flash as efficient as running on their core platform. Adobe should make flash work decently on other platforms before making one for the iphone... Running any flash app on my macbook causes the fan to turn on…

Let's add insult to injury: Apple has reported that a majority of crashes on a Mac — across the board — are due to Flash.

Re: IPhone Flash prototype got 30 min battery life

#36

Post by rayval »

yurisagalov wrote: post #21
veemjeem wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flash doesn't run "acceptably" on OSX or Linux. It uses around 30% of my cpu on either platform, compared to using only 3% of the cpu on my windows machine. Clearly they have some work to do before they can make flash as efficient as running on their core platform. Adobe should make flash work decently on other platforms before making one for the iphone... Running any flash app on my macbook causes the fan to turn on…

My macbook goes absolutely nuts when I watch even a 2 minute flash video -- CPU usage spikes to close to 100% as the fans try to compensate by ramping up to a speed that makes watching the presentation without headphones unbearable. Adobe definitely has a lot of work to do on Flash on OSX :(

I don't know what you have running on your Macbook, but I have two Macbooks, one new and one about 2 years old, and my kids watch hours of Flash videos and Flash games until I have to wrestle the computer out of their hands because it is bedtime.

This "30 minute battery life" smells fishy. It is a friend of friend of a friend who woke up one day in his hotel room with his kidney removed and his iPhone battery drained.

Re: IPhone Flash prototype got 30 min battery life

#37

Post by ryanpetrich »

viraptor wrote: post #22
ajg1977 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I call bullshit. Some of the most intensive games out there are using about 100% of the iPhones power and still get several hours of battery life. Even if the app used some pathological combination of CPU/GPU/Disk/Network resources you wouldn't get it down to 30 minutes,

How do you know it uses 100%? If it has smooth animation, it most probably doesn't. It's easy to check if you're really interested - just run a typical busy loop in your app and measure the time until it the battery runs out.

well, run a busy loop and something that works the GPU and network activity

Re: IPhone Flash prototype got 30 min battery life

#38

Post by kwantam »

ynniv wrote: post #34
kwantam wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, I'm being downvoted into oblivion for observing that other mobile devices can run flash apps and pointing out that Apple keeps tight control over their platform. Neither of these are particularly controversial, as I see it. I realize that Flash is annoying, and of course I'd expect to be able to turn it off on any reasonable platform---most of the time, I really don't want it. But when I do, let me make a big-bo…

> Are you really under the impression that Apple is in a better position to decide whether the tradeoffs are worthwhile than I am? On my phone? Yes, I am under that impression. If Apple shipped with Flash, people would constantly complain about the battery life of the phone. I have been working on user interfaces for a couple of years now, and I can tell you that my user interface code is constantly at fault. Every s…

Flash on every device is not diversity.

And Apple's walled garden does nothing to promote either diversity or interoperability.

Separate your dislike of Flash from your reasoning on this subject for just a moment. What if it were Sun wanting to deploy a JVM for the iPhone? How about a .NET CLR? These certainly promote both interoperability and diversity.

Now, would Apple allow them? Why not? Because they'd impact battery life? Hardly. They'd disallow them because it would loosen their grip on the iPhone software ecosystem. The bottom line is, Apple's business model with respect to the App Store relies on being the only game in town.

Downvote away. No matter that I'm on topic and making reasonable, if contentious, points. My karma isn't so important to me that I'll let y'all's fanboiism gets in the way of actual discussion.

Re: IPhone Flash prototype got 30 min battery life

#39

Post by ubernostrum »

rayval wrote: post #36
yurisagalov wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My macbook goes absolutely nuts when I watch even a 2 minute flash video -- CPU usage spikes to close to 100% as the fans try to compensate by ramping up to a speed that makes watching the presentation without headphones unbearable. Adobe definitely has a lot of work to do on Flash on OSX :(

I don't know what you have running on your Macbook, but I have two Macbooks, one new and one about 2 years old, and my kids watch hours of Flash videos and Flash games until I have to wrestle the computer out of their hands because it is bedtime. This "30 minute battery life" smells fishy. It is a friend of friend of a friend who woke up one day in his hotel room with his kidney removed and his iPhone battery drained…

I loaded up this classic video in Safari:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsSHlCDIzNg&feature=relat...

and watched the resource use. While the video was playing, the minimum CPU use from Safari was 48%, with frequent spikes above 60%. As soon as I closed the tab, CPU use dropped to about 2% and stayed there. On a laptop with a full charge and power-management profiles to optimize usage you can get away with this; on a power-constrained mobile device you most certainly can't.

Re: IPhone Flash prototype got 30 min battery life

#40

Post by pronoiac »

daeken wrote: post #14
timdorr wrote: post #13

No offense, but something you read on Reddit that some random dude heard from "a good friend" is probably complete bullshit. Nonetheless, it's still totally believable. But it probably represents almost no optimization on their end. If I can play a 3d multiplayer game over 3G for an hour without the phone crapping out, a think some vector graphics are surmountable. There just has to be a desire there. And clearly App…

> Now, we just need a Flash (the big desktop creation app) equivalent that spits out HTML5 code. Anyone working on that? I was just discussing this exact idea with a friend yesterday (although it's something I personally wouldn't be interested in). If done correctly, you could backend to HTML5+JS+CSS and still emit SWF for legacy support. Would certainly be interesting.

I heard about OpenLaszlo - http://www.openlaszlo.org/ - a few years ago, but I never got around toworking with it. It emitted Flash & Dynamic HTML.
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