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Adobe CEO promises Flash fix to help MacBook Air battery life

by Pete Mason on 17 November 2010, 10:13

Tags: MacBook Air, Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), Adobe (NASDAQ:ADBE)

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Like a dog with a bone

Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen was on hand to talk to attendees at the Web 2.0 summit this week, and unsurprisingly, he couldn't help but stoke the flames of the company's tiff with Apple.

Despite claiming to have moved past the ongoing row over Flash, Narayen threw down the gauntlet once again. "Anyone who wants to design for a multiplatform world is our customer," he said. "Apple would like to keep it closed and proprietary. Well, let the games begin".

However, the CEO was quick to try and downplay the significance of the competition between Flash and HTML5, adding that his company was "all about creating the best tools [for both]. It's really described in a narrow way [in the media]".

He added that "it's all about how you control content on the Web. Apple has their view. To a large extent, the media doesn't want to let it go".

Unsurprisingly, Narayen was adamant that Flash would continue to play an important role, noting that "Flash has changed the world. When you change the world with what you deliver, you'll have fans and supporters - and you'll have your detractors. We have to continue to innovate, and we will."

He also addressed the recent stir over Flash reducing the battery life of the MacBook Air. Instead of completely denying blame, he responded to questions from Engadget by saying that the software just hadn't been optimised for the platform and that a tweaked beta was currently in testing. Of course, he also hinted that the delay was, in fact, Apple's fault for not supplying the company's developers with the laptop prior to release.

Perhaps Narayen isn't quite ready to 'move on' after all.



HEXUS Forums :: 10 Comments

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In case the CEO missed the point completely - Flash is bad not only on Apple products, maybe they should patch them computers as well?
spoon_
In case the CEO missed the point completely - Flash is bad not only on Apple products, maybe they should patch them computers as well?

Whenever you have to patch for individual computers that - lets not forget - are based on the exact same silicon as other PCs, there's clearly something going wrong.
Ah yes, so it's Apples fault for Adobe developers not profiling Flash's power usage by not providing them with free laptops. OK then, what's their excuse for their equally crap Linux performance? After all, they can take just about any Windows laptop and slap Linux on it (Did Microsoft provide Adobe developers with Windows laptops? :rolleyes:).

Weak…

And Apple is being all closed and proprietorial by rooting for HTML5, and Adobe isn't by rooting for Flash? Extra weak.
If it wasn't for the fact flash was crap on all Apple products then yes they could claim that.

But it is also worth saying that my Z series (which weighs 30grams more than an air, but has a better screen, CPU, SSD, Blu-Ray, biometrics……) does loose a whole hour of battery life, bringing it to about 6.5 hours when surfing with flash turned on.

So there is *something* going wrong on that platform. Now a good example of how you can end up with issues would be something as simple as a progress bar animation.

You can do these in a couple of ways, but generally the most performant is to use a brush that is animated. Until you hit a graphics card which doesn't support this, and suddenly its MUCH worse as its emulated in software.

The other fact is that the news headline isn't a fully fair test, when you turn off flash its not a like for like comparison, plenty of sites resort to static images, or even text adds when its not available. Whilst most people will not be lamenting such loss, its is a valid point to keep in mind, its not always adobes fault with the increased power because people actually use flash (even if its for things you don't want) on their sites. If HTML5 takes off all that will happen is people making their adds with a canvas element? Probably using designer tools that create bloody bloated JS.
HTML 5 is quite a way off before coming a mainstream standard but sure enough will happen. Very nice things you can do with it.

Im no fan of Apple, but really Adobe? You make how many millions a year and you can't afford to buy a couple laptops? Not an excuse in my books and piss poor performance of the platform rests on not just adobe but the developers who poorly optimise their projects for the platform and end user. Inefficient code and poorly executed creative are just as bigger problem as the platform itself.