Flash On Android Fails To Impress

snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Neil McAllister test-drives Flash Player 10.2 for Android 3.0 and finds its shortcomings too sweeping to be chalked up to beta status. 'The worst part is the player's inconsistent behavior. This gets really frustrating when there's lots of HTML and Flash content mixed on a Web page. The UI turns into a tug-of-war between the browser and the Flash Player, where each touch produces varying effects, seemingly at random,' McAllister writes. 'As far as I could tell, there was one thing and one thing only that the Flash Player for Android 3.0 accomplished successfully. On the stock Android browser, Flash content is invisible, so you don't notice Flash-based advertising. With the Flash Player installed, however, all those ads suddenly appear where once there were none, their animated graphics leaping and scuttling under your fingertips like cockroaches on a dinner tray — some achievement.'"

Re:Could it be?

[xMrFishx]

Thing is, Flash stuff is made by artists, and artists are commanded by marketeers, and marketeers exist to annoy the shit out of you, and we all know what Flash ads do... Flash let adverts become the new embedded midi. I browse with flashblock on, with a small whitelist for things like YouTube, but generally it stops my browser doing annoying things like lock up, play sounds I really don't want to hear or throw shit across the site whilst I'm browsing. Like frames, flash will eventually be dropped for the sake of everyone's sanity. Unfortunately JavaScript is allowing web designers to do some more annoying shit again, but it takes longer to appear as it's nowhere near as draggy and droppy as Flash is.

Well at least I get the choice

[Reapman]

Do I make use of Flash on my phone a lot? Not really.. Am I glad that for the few times I need it that it's there? Yup.

Since I'm sure the comparisons will be made:
iPhone - Flash uses up 0% of CPU, works on 0% of Flash based sites - for some people this is ideal.
Android: Flash uses up CPU (potentially lots) when I allow it to (it's set to on demand), works on... 20% of Flash based sites? - for some people this is better then the above option.

I guess I'm in the camp that prefers to have the tools, even if they're far from perfect, then to not be allowed the choice. Each to their own really.

Re:flash without flashblock is idiotic

[mattcasters]

The default way that Flash presented itself on my Android 2.2 tablet (Point Of View Tegra 2) was by showing an empty block with an arrow in it where you would normally see the Flash content. If you then tap on it, it is activated.

I disabled that tap-enabled mode for the following reasons:
1) the Tegra2 dual core is plenty fast
2) I only visit fairly straightforward sites with Flash, like news-sites and such.

Personally I couldn't be happier. Flash on Android, even on 2.2 works as advertised as far as I'm concerned. Later I indeed would like to use it with Firefox 4 and add-block & flashblock plugins but for now it works fine for the things I expect from it.

Re:The Whole Web!

[0123456]

I remember back when I used to run Windows on my laptop, if the battery suddenly dropped 50% in ten minutes I'd go to the task manager and find some minimized Firefox window maxing out a core running some Flash crap. Firefox seems to handle that better these days, or maybe Linux Flash does.

It really is an evil monstrosity.

Re:Wrong question

[DJRumpy]

Someone has to take a stand. Apple did. Had it been some other company, /. would have most likely cheered them on, as they used to despise flash as if it was the devil itself. When Apple said no, suddenly /. loved flash and couldn't wait to get it on their mobile devices. It would be funny if it wasn't so painful to watch.

Frankly I don't miss it (I have an iPhone). I have yet to need it on any site I frequent on my phone. Without fail they all seem to have either M. sites for mobile devices, or they just have shit sites that don't require Flash to navigate or for some core functionality.

Re:Were Apple right?

[pushing-robot]

It is perhaps ironic that Apple is the driving force behind the anti-Flash movement, since IMHO the biggest problem with Flash is that it caters to anal-retentive developers who want everything just so.

While HTML and CSS contort themselves to suit the browser and user, Flash was designed to be a window unto itself; a stage on which everything works exactly as the developer intended. At first, that may seem like a good thing—especially to developers. However, it conveys a false sense of conformity, causing developers to lose sight of the reason why HTML was made to be so flexible. The Internet is a diverse place where Flash's attitude of one-design-for-everybody breaks down:

Oh, you've got a small screen? Sorry, we didn't plan for that.
Oh, you want to translate the text? Sorry, we didn't plan for that.
Oh, you're using a touch interface? Sorry, we didn't plan for that.
Oh, you need large fonts? Sorry, we didn't plan for that.
Oh, you have a low-end CPU? Sorry, we didn't plan for that.
Oh, you use a screen reader? Sorry, we didn't plan for that.
Oh, you're on an unsupported/64-bit browser or OS? Sorry, we didn't plan for that.
And so on.

As handheld devices take off, the Internet is becoming even more diverse, and the notion that Flash can provide the same experience for everyone is becoming less and less plausible.

Re:Could it be?

[toriver]

So when an Android 3.0 user writes about how Flash sucks on Android 3.0, he's a "fanboy" of a totally different platform? You are not making sense, and believe that performance for 2.3.x (which I guess you have) indicates anything at all about performance under 3.0. When it does not, ref. all the writing about how Flash for Honeycomb and the Xoom was delayed at launch.

Does actual Flash applications - and not just the YouTube video player, or animated Flash ads - but for instance hover-dependent Facebook games, do they actually "work very well" there?