We saw that there were some questions today related to Flash Player 10.3 support for Mac OS X Lion (10.7) related to hardware video acceleration. To avoid any more confusion, we wanted to clarify:
The final release of Mac OS X Lion (10.7) provides the same support for Flash hardware video acceleration as Mac OS X Snow Leopard (10.6). The previous “Known Issue” described in a tech note suggesting that video hardware acceleration was disabled in Lion was incorrect and based on tests with a pre-release version of Mac OS X Lion that related to only one particular Mac GPU configuration. We continue to work closely with Apple to provide Flash Player users with a high quality experience on Mac computers.
Today we are excited to announce the availability of the Adobe AIR 3 beta and the Adobe Flash Player 11 beta for desktop platforms on Adobe Labs. AIR and Flash Player continue to drive innovation for rich, engaging digital experiences with new features for cross-device standalone application development and expressive rich internet applications, games, and videos in the browser. Some of the features from the Flash Player Incubator, such as Stage 3D and 64-bit support, have been moved into this beta release. Developers can test and provide feedback on the new features, and should also focus on testing existing content for compatibility and stability.
Some of the features and performance enhancements included in the Flash Player 11 and AIR 3 betas:
Captive Runtime for AIR*: This popular feature from AIR for iOS will now be available on AIR for desktop. Simplify the app installation process, reduce testing and certification cost by encapsulating the AIR runtime in your Windows, Mac and and Android apps.
Native 64-bit support for Flash Player: Take advantage of new 64-bit operating systems and 64-bit Web browsers on Linux, Mac OS, and Windows.
Stage 3D graphics rendering: Stage 3D (“Molehill) is a new method of 2D and 3D rendering and is supported with a new Stage3D API. The Stage3D API is a set of low-level GPU-accelerated APIs enabling advanced 2D and 3D capabilities across multiple screens and devices (desktop, mobile and tv). These new low-level APIs will provide 2D and 3D engine developers the flexibility to leverage GPU hardware acceleration for significant performance gains. You can view examples on the Stage 3D page.
H.264/AVC SW Encode for camera encoding: Higher compression efficiency and industry wide support for real-time communications and non-real-time broadcast scenarios, like webcasting, livecasting, etc.
Native JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) support: Enables ActionScript programmers take advantage of fast parsing and generation of JSON-formatted data. Take existing data and integrate it with minimal or no modification into your ActionScript project.
* The AIR 3 desktop runtime beta is provided to ensure current AIR 2.7 and AIR apps targeting older version of AIR are compatible with this upcoming release of AIR 3. At this time the AIR 3 SDK and AIR 3 specific features (e.g. captive runtime)will not be available in a public beta. To learn more about the new AIR 3 mobile and desktop features and develop apps with AIR 3, please apply for admission to our private prerelease program.
We’re also pleased to announce a new public bugbase system where you can file bugs and feature requests for both Flash Player and AIR. The new bugbase is a public front end to our internal bugbase, which will improve tracking, communication, and responsiveness for issues and feature requests. The former bugbase will remain as read only, and we are in the process of transferring over all relevant issues and feature requests to the new system.
Finally, as 3D and security have been a topic of interest lately, I want to touch on a few points about how Adobe is bringing 3D to the Web in Flash Player and apps through AIR. Because two of our primary design goals were to ensure Stage 3D will run great on mobile devices without compromising security, the Stage 3D implementation exposes a specific set of GPU features, resulting in a small API surface, making it easier to secure. We also added restrictions that help mitigate many of the security concerns around accessing OpenGL. For instance, we limit the number of calls per frame, minimizing the risk of denial-of-service attacks. We also designed a simple shader language (AGAL – Adobe Graphics Assembly Language) with restrictions such as prohibiting loops or functions inside shaders. The simplicity of AGAL makes it also easy to verify and validate compared to the GLSL dialect that is used by other solutions like WebGL.
This first beta is a desktop release, and we’re hard at work on mobile, which will be coming soon. The runtimes team is looking forward to your feedback during the beta period, and the amazing experiences that will be delivered through Flash Player 11 and AIR 3!
To learn more about the Flash Player 11 features, and for compatibility testing, please participate in the Flash Player 11 beta.
To learn more about the AIR 3 features and for compatibility testing for AIR desktop apps, please participate in the AIR 3 beta.
Adobe is pleased to announce the availability of Adobe AIR 2.7 SDK and the Adobe AIR 2.7 runtimes. Adobe AIR 2.7 includes new features for both desktop and mobile applications with mobile support for Android 2.2+, BlackBerry Tablet OS and iOS 4+ operating systems. Companies can build and deploy AIR 2.7 apps using Adobe Flash Builder 4.5 with an upcoming update to AIR 2.7 later this month. (BlackBerry Tablet OS is scheduled to receive an OTA (over the air) update of AIR 2.7 by the end of June.)
New AIR 2.7 Features
Mobile
Enhanced rendering for iOS: AIR apps for iOS render up to 4x faster in CPU mode. This change will improve the performance of many AIR for iOS apps, including those built with the Flex framework. Watch the performance improvements
Faster development time for iOS applications: Developers can now debug and build iOS applications faster than with previous versions using a new mode available within the AIR Developer Tool (ADT). During the development of an application, developers can now choose to use “interpreter mode” to streamline the testing and debugging development cycle.
AIR installation on SD cards for Android devices: This feature allows end users to install or move the AIR runtime onto the SD cards within their Android devices so they can free up storage space on the phone.
Desktop
Integrated support for Media Measurement: The Adobe AIR 2.7 runtime now includes the same built-in support for media measurement as Adobe Flash Player 10.3, allowing companies to simplify the collection of real-time, aggregated reporting data for how content is distributed and viewed by users. With direct support for Adobe SiteCatalyst, powered by Omniture, developers can implement video analytics for existing or legacy video players with as little as two lines of code. For additional information, see the article on measuring video consumption in Flash.
Acoustic echo cancellation: With integrated support for acoustic echo cancellation, developers can now add real-time VoIP capabilities to games, enterprise, and other types of applications without requiring users to wear a noise-canceling headset. Users can now chat using the speaker built into their desktop or laptop computer. This new capability is also available in Flash Player 10.3.
Navigation Improvements for HTML Content: Enables seamless weblink-style navigation within desktop apps such as magazine viewers and ebook readers. Developers can now respond to a new event to be notified when content within the HTMLLoader control attempts to change the location of a page. This enhancement provides developers with a better way to implement intra-application navigation.
New AIR apps for Android, iOS and BlackBerry Tablet OS
Although these apps are not currently using AIR 2.7, I thought I’d call to your attention to a few new apps based on Adobe AIR that recently hit the market.
iOS (iPad)
Rossignol Experience: Ski season is coming to a close, but this fantastic app from this famous ski maker provides a rich interactive branded experience to learn more about Rossignal skis. Video demo.
G20-G8: This is the official app of the French Presidency of the G20 and the G8. Get real time updates and access to all the latest developments from the Summits and the preparatory meetings, as well as video reports and photos on the G20-G8 website.
Performance Improvements
Finally, performance improves with each release of AIR and the Flash Player. If you checked out the AIR 2.7 on iOS video, you can really see the difference. If you missed it earlier, here are a few Flash Player 10.3 on mobile related performance resources to check out.
GUIMark3 by Sean Christmann – Sean tests Flash Player and HTML5 on various phones and tablets. Check it out.
“In terms of interactive content overall, it’s safe to say Flash maintains a 2x performance lead over HTML5 on average”
“The Flash VM performs really well on mobile chipsets and I don’t see any evidence here to support the idea that Flash is slow on smartphones and tablets.”
“Our current testing finds that FP 10.2 on handsets and 10.3 on the Xoom: Provide a more consistent media consumption than Android’s built-in apps and services.
As the market for applications is increasingly led by mobile devices, Adobe is investing more in simplifying app development and deployment for mobile operating systems. By the end of 2011, we expect that there will be more than 200M smartphones and tablets which can download and run Adobe AIR apps, including devices running Android, BlackBerry Tablet OS and iOS.
The recent release of Adobe Creative Suite 5.5, including Flash Builder 4.5, enables developers to deliver their experiences on the web and as apps across all the major mobile platforms, as well as popular television, Blu-ray player and set top box platforms. We’re committed to working with our partners to bring Adobe’s runtime technologies to the platforms and devices that are important to end users and developers, including new hardware and operating systems as they come to market.
To support the variety of Linux-based platforms across PCs and devices, we are prioritizing a Linux porting kit for AIR (including source code), which Open Screen Project (OSP) partners can use to complete implementations of AIR for Linux-based platforms on PCs, mobile devices, TVs and TV-connected devices. We will no longer be releasing our own versions of Adobe AIR and the AIR SDK for desktop Linux, but expect that one or more of our partners will do so. The last Adobe release of AIR for desktop Linux is AIR 2.6. By focusing on the porting kit and support of partner implementations, we expect to provide broader support for AIR across Linux-based PCs and devices, whereas our own desktop Linux releases have accounted for less than 0.5% of lifetime AIR downloads.
Existing AIR applications will continue to work on Linux PCs provided they target AIR 2.6 or below, and users may continue to use their existing AIR applications without interruption. However, users will not be able to install applications or apply application updates (including security updates) that require a later version of AIR, unless and until such later versions are released by an OSP partner.
We will of course share more information about any partner plans to support AIR for desktop Linux. In the meantime, for more information please review the FAQ.
Thanks to everyone who has provided information on their system and driver versions. This has helped us work on identifying a fix for the SWF rendering issue. This bug was exposed due to some changes we made to blocklist certain incompatible drivers from using hardware acceleration in Flash Player.
We have a pre-release build ready for testing, which is available in the updated technote.
We have confirmed this fixes the SWF rendering in the wrong location on the machines where we have reproduced the problem. As there are many configurations and driver combinations that we don’t have in our testing lab, your feedback is important to ensure we have a good resolution. If your system has this issue, please download the pre-release and let us know either through the bug or on the forums if it resolves the issue. Make sure you re-enable IE9 hardware acceleration when you try the player.
The issue where the SWF rendering problem re-appears after exiting full screen mode now seems to occur sporadically, so please report your system information if you still experience this problem with the pre-release build. We are working with Microsoft to determine the cause of the full screen issue.
If you encounter any new issues please also report these, along with your feedback, through the Adobe Flash Player Bug Management System. Please review the instructions on this page for details on generating the information we’ll need for further investigation.
Update 5.25.2011 Folks that still see the top-left SWF issue, please verify that your installation was successful by selecting right click on SWF content and viewing the version in the “About Flash Player…” menu item or go here.
Update 5.26.2011 We will be releasing an update next week to address both issues (top-left and in/out full screen). We also continue to follow up on reports that the pre-release build doesn’t resolve the problem on some computers. The dxdiag info is very helpful, and also please post the URL where you are experiencing these problems.
Update 5.31.11 Flash Player 10.3.181.16 has been released and is available on adobe.com and through the auto-update notification. It addresses the Intel HD graphics and Internet Explorer 9 issue.
We are tracking and actively investigating the issues reported with Flash Player 10.3 and Internet Explorer 9. Users are reporting that SWF content is being displayed in the upper left corner of the screen. We want to give those of who are encountering these issues an update.
First, we apologize to everyone affected — we know you count on Flash Player as an integral component of the web and we strive for high quality and performance in each release. We are actively looking into the root cause and best fix for this issue, and many thanks to those of you who have submitted the necessary information via email and our online bug database which has given us the solid leads we are pursuing.
Flash Player 10 and later can use your system’s graphics hardware to accelerate video decoding, and can also accelerate video presentation on some sites. Starting with Flash Player 10.2, Flash Player also takes advantage of hardware accelerated graphics in Internet Explorer 9, utilizing hardware rendering surfaces to improve graphics performance.
The reports for Flash Player 10.3 indicate that systems with Intel HD Graphics adapters running Internet Explorer 9 are the systems being impacted by this particular bug. However, if you are encountering this issue and have a different configuration we’d love to hear from you. Please review the instructions on this page for details on generating the information we’ll need for further investigation.
There are a few workarounds that you can do on your end until this issue is resolved:
On some systems, you may be able to resolve this issue by updating the Intel HD Graphics drivers . It has been reported that driver versions 8.15.10.2361 and above do not exhibit this bug. Unfortunately, some systems might require updates directly from your system manufacturer. We’re working with system manufacturers to make sure they include the latest drivers in future releases.
You can disable hardware acceleration in Internet Explorer 9 using the instructions on this page . Please note that you shouldre-enable hardware acceleration once this problem has been resolved to enjoy the full benefits of hardware acceleration.
We will continue provide updates as new information becomes available.
5.19.2011 Update: Thanks for those of you that provided feedback on making this available on Adobe.com. We just posted it as a technote: http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/904/cpsid_90416.html. We are working on a hotfix release for this issue.
5.24.2011 Update: We have posted a build with a fix for this issue for testing in the technote above. See this update for more details.
We’re excited to announce that Flash Player 10.3 is now available for Android, Linux, MacOS, and Windows.Flash Player 10.3 improves stability, enhances security and user privacy protection, and provides new desktop video and audio capabilities for enterprises and developers. Intrepid developers can also check out a set of new bleeding-edge technologies in the Flash Player Incubator program on Adobe Labs. On the device side, with the rollout of Android 3.1 users of Honeycomb tablets like the Motorola XOOM will experience performance improvements introduced in Flash Player 10.2. For more information on how Google’s update to Honeycomb improves the experience of content designed for Flash Player, visit the Flash Platform blog.
New features in Flash Player 10.3 include:
Media measurement (desktop only) – Measuring video usage just got easier. Using Adobe® SiteCatalyst® with Flash Player 10.3, developers can implement video analytics for websites with as little as two lines of code for the first time. Media Measurement for Flash Player allows companies to get real-time, aggregated reporting of how their video content is distributed, what their audience reach is, and how much video is played. Mobile support will be available in an upcoming release.
Acoustic echo cancellation (desktop only) – With Flash Player 10.3, developers can create real-time online collaboration experiences with high-quality audio for telephony, in-game voice chat, and group conferencing applications. Developers can take advantage of acoustic echo cancellation, noise suppression, voice activity detection, and automatic compensation for various microphone input levels. End users will be able to experience higher quality audio facilitating smoother conversation flow, without using a headset.
Enhanced privacy protection – Flash Player 10.3 enables local storage clearing within browsers’ privacy settings and streamlines the controls of the Flash Player privacy, security and storage settings within the local control panel of desktop OSes.
Security enhancements including the support of auto-update notification for MacOS – See the Security Bulletin APSB11-12 for more details.
The Flash Player Incubator is also being updated today, highlighting new technologies and APIs that will provide further enhancements for performance, security, as well as support video and Customer Experience Management (CEM) solutions. See detailed feature descriptions on Adobe Labs, let us know what you think on the Incubator forum or report bugs.
Finally, we now have an official name for one of our first Incubator technologies — the project formerly known by the code name “Molehill” will be called Stage 3D. Stage 3D is a new method/model of 2D and 3D rendering developed by Adobe and is supported with a new Stage3D API. The Stage3D API is a set of low-level GPU-accelerated APIs enabling advanced 2D and 3D capabilities across multiple screens and devices (desktop, mobile and TV). These new low-level APIs will provide 2D and 3D engine developers the flexibility to leverage GPU hardware acceleration for significant performance gains. The excitement and community response has been amazing. Stage 3D (code name “Molehill”) was also recently honored byComputer Graphics Worldfollowing theGame Developers Conferenceas a recipient of itsSilver Edge Awards, a designation presented to companies whose product represents the best of show at the industry’s leading conferences and exhibitions. From Computer Graphics World’s April 2011 print edition, its editors noted, “Using the new 3D APIs in Adobe Flash Player and AIR will make it possible to deliver sophisticated 3D experiences across almost every computer and device connected to the Internet.”
We hope you enjoy the improved performance and new features in Flash Player 10.3 on desktop and Android devices, and please continue to provide us feedback on the capabilities we’re demonstrating in the Incubator.
The Chromium team announced today that the integration to delete Flash Player local storage from the Chrome “Clear browsing data…” panel is included in this week’s Chrome Dev Channel release.
Integration with browser privacy controls is a key feature of the upcoming Flash Player 10.3 release, currently in beta on Adobe Labs. Along with the local settings manager, Flash Player 10.3 focuses on addressing the ease of use of the player settings and making sure end users are able to easily manage their privacy and Flash Player settings.
Adobe is pleased to announce the availability of the Adobe® AIR® 2.6 SDK and AIR® 2.6 desktop runtimes for Windows, Mac and Linux. With AIR 2.6, AIR achieves feature parity for Android and iOS platforms. This new release provides major performance and feature enhancements for iOS (iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad) app development as well as updates for Android and desktop app development.
“Adobe AIR 2.6 enables me to develop once and publish across multiple platforms. There are slight tweaks required for each platform (Android vs iOS) but we’re talking about a few minutes not weeks. The majority of the optimizations revolve around screen sizes which would be an issue regardless of the development tool. If I were targeting Android and iOS natively vs Adobe AIR I would expect my costs to be at least 80% higher; and much closer to 100 – 150% higher should maintenance and updates be required for each platform.”
-Charlie Schulze, President and co-founder, Woven Interactive, LLC
Video: Watch Charlie Schulze’s demo of “Comb Over Charlie” a multiscreen app (Android and iOS smartphones, tablets and Windows laptop) developed using AIR.
New Features in AIR 2.6 for iOS and Android
AIR for iOS (iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad)
“I’m now getting 60 fps on an iPhone 3GS, it’s smoother than Packager for iPhone too!”
-Kevin Newman, Senior Developer, adcSTUDIO
“My project uses things like vector graphics, blend modes, and filters. In the past, many effects needed to be removed or altered for iOS to achieve decent performance. This gargantuan improvement means that I can now use the same project to target both iOS and Android. It’s likely to save me many hours of time previously spent on optimization.”
-Josh Tynjala, Founder, Bowler Hat Games
Updated AIR for iOS support with improved performance. Developers can take advantage of new features in iOS 4 like multitasking, Retina display support for higher screen resolutions, and front and back camera support. Developers can now build applications that capture audio with microphone support and take advantage of the same graphics hardware method used in AIR for Android using OpenGL ES 2 for high performance graphics.
Packager for iPhone (PFI) is now replaced with functionality integrated with AIR Developer Tool (ADT) a command-line tool for compiling applications in the AIR SDK. ADT can now be used to package AIR files, native desktop installers, AIR applications for Android and iOS.
Video:Learn more about what’s new in AIR 2.6 for iOS in this short video with Ryan Stewart, Senior Technical Evangelist.
AIR for Android
“I was blown away with how much AIR has grown in API support for Android and iOS as well as the improvements in speed. This is just amazing.”
-Boz Bundalo, Creative Director / Chief Technology Officer, Republic Project
Submit apps to be included in the Amazon Appstore for Android when the store launches. Companies now have an additional distribution option with one of the largest online shopping destinations on the web. Learn more in Christian Cantrell’s blog post “AIR 2.6 Applications and the Amazon Appstore for Android”.
USB debugging was added as an additional debugging option to WiFi. Learn more about AIR 2.6 features for mobile and desktop please read Scott Castle’s article“What’s new in AIR 2.6″.
Flash Player 10.2 is now available for download on Android Market. This is a production GA (General Availability) release for Android 2.2 (Froyo) and 2.3 (Gingerbread) devices and an initial beta release for Android 3.x (Honeycomb) tablets that include at least Google’s 3.0.1 system update.* To see if your device is certified for Flash Player 10.2, visit: http://www.adobe.com/go/cd1.
The beta of Flash Player 10.2 for Android 3.x is an exciting release that brings a full web browsing experience, including video, games and other interactive content, to the latest Android tablets. We have been working very closely with Google through the development of this beta to ensure tight integration and optimization between Flash Player 10.2 and new OS and browser capabilities.
Improvements include:
Performance enhancements to take advantage of new hardware in both Android 3.x tablets, as well as existing hardware in many Android 2.2 and 2.3 devices
Tight integration with the new Android 3.x browser to treat Flash content as part of the web page instead of as a separate “overlay.” This results in improved scrolling of web pages and the ability to display pages in the way intended by the page designer, including new support for compositing HTML and other web content over Flash Player rendered content.
Automatic soft keyboard support to simplify text entry for rich mobile and multi-screen experiences
We are working to complete additional optimizations of the interaction between Flash Player and the new browser before releasing a production GA version of Flash Player 10.2 for Android 3.x in the coming weeks, at which point we intend to enable hardware acceleration and Stage Video support in the production GA release.
These optimizations are expected to provide a better “embedded” in-browser experience, comparable to the full screen experience with this beta, and to also provide improved playback of many 720p high definition videos (including full screen). In the meantime, the best way to experience the performance potential of this beta and to enjoy an immersive Flash content experience is to view Flash content full screen.**
We hope you enjoy all of the rich web experiences that Flash Player 10.2 delivers to Android devices. As always, you can visit m.flash.com <http://m.flash.com> for great examples of websites which show off what you can do on your device with Flash Player.
** The best way to switch to full screen mode is to use buttons provided by many content providers, but it is also possible to tap content once, followed by a long tap, to bring down a button in the upper left corner which can be tapped to force full screen mode. For best performance with the beta we recommend viewing video in 480P or below. Improved 720P video playback will be included in the production GA release of Flash Player 10.2 for Android 3.x.
