Flash Rocks on Android Handsets
- 6-14-2011
- Categorized in: Distributing your video
I have to say that Google's support for Flash on the Android platform always seemed like a case of strange bedfellows to me. After all, Google is the company that paid over $100 million for On2 just to open source the VP8 codec (as WebM), reviving the hopes of the HTML5 community. If Apple can live without Flash on the iOS platform, why can't Google do the same on Android?
Well, according to a new report from colleague Tim Siglin entitled The Right Fit? Video Playback Performance on Android Handset and Tablet Devices Using Adobe Flash Player 10.2 and 10.3, Google needs Flash to provide consistency of user experience and high quality video playback performance across a range of Android-powered devices. While many thought that HTML5 would dominate on mobile platforms, beyond iOS, that doesn't seem to be the case.
Briefly, Siglin tested 8 Android devices, comparing the frames per second produced by Flash playback with browser-based playback and non-Flash playback in Android utilities. Here's a blurb from his summary:
Our current testing finds that Flash Player 10.2 on handsets and 10.3 on the Xoom:
• Provide a more consistent media consumption than Android's built-in apps and services.
• Plays content at better frame rates than built-in apps and services, with minimal battery impact,
yielding significant frames-per-second performance gains.
Maybe it's just me, but HTML5 is increasingly looking like the emperor who wore no clothes. Google supports Flash because it improves the Android experience, nothing more, nothing less. While HTML5 gets all the positive press and favorable buzz, Adobe Flash keeps justifying its existence with pure utility on multiple platforms.
"Maybe it's just me, but HTML5 is increasingly looking like the emperor who wore no clothes."
Yes, it's just you. Hilariously, the animation part of the report doesn't even test features that can be considered as falling under the HTML5 umbrella. Using http://www.themaninblue.com/experiment/AnimationBe... as representing "HTML animation" for comparison to Flash is deeply flawed. Try http://www.themaninblue.com/experiment/AnimationBe... for a more realistic comparison. Performance will at least double. On my phone the canvas version 3.5 times faster than the dom manipulation version.
Hi Jim,
As the author of the report, two quick comments: first, I don't see HTML 5 as "having no clothes" although I can see Jan's point on the issue.
My sense is that Adobe will continue to innovate for some years to come. It will be interesting to see whether Adobe's innovations will stave off HTML5 from an interactivity standpoint, but even they understand the need to output HTML5-compliant content, as noted in the Wallaby Tech Preview [I covered Wallaby for Streaming Media magazine and found it lacking].
In terms of Canvas vs HTML/JS vs Flash, that was covered in the first report (with some overlap of handsets) and we found two things: first, that not all devices would render canvas since it's not implemented in all browsers; second, that it was a bit faster than HTML/JS but only about 85% faster and no where near the speed of Flash.
In addition, we found that current canvas implementations sucked down battery life, so we opted to compare HTML/JS to Flash for this round.
Hope that helps clarify, and I'd love to know what build of WebKit, Android and phone firmware you're using that gets you to a 3.5x performance boost!
"Hope that helps clarify, and I'd love to know what build of WebKit, Android and phone firmware you're using that gets you to a 3.5x performance boost!"
I'm not using WebKit. I'm using Firefox. Firefox Mobile's JavaScript engine significantly outperforms the stock browser. Firefox 4 is available now. Firefox 5 should be out in a couple of days.