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Comment by raganwald | Hacker News Reader

I feel for them on the subject of Flash performance. They're discovering what has been biting Apple for years: Adobe's timeline for making their software work properly on your platform is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key. That key is Adobe's fiscal interest.

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That's not entirely true. Up until version 7 of Flash Player, Adobe (Macromedia at the time) provided a Flash Player SDK which basically gave you full access to the Flash Player source code (if you checked out as a genuine hardware provider, like Nokia, Apple etc. and where willing to sign some sort of NDA). Some old link: http://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer_sdk

I don't believe the SDK is available like it was back then. I think Adobe has rolled all of this into their Open Screen Project (http://www.openscreenproject.org). I believe the SDK is still available to all the open screen project partners. Apple of course is not an open screen partner. They haven't even tried...

I was mostly thinking of Adobe dragging their heels on keeping their software suite up to date with Apple's OS progress. But it sounds like you're saying that all Apple needs to do to get crash-free Flash performance is to fix Adobe's bugs for them. You may be right.

I don't think so. Opera have a long history of working in the mobile, embedded, consumer space with Adobe and I only recall them expressing frustration with the limitations that Adobe placed on them. Paraphrasing from memory: "why are you only shipping Flash 7 when 9 is available? Because that's all that Adobe allows on these platforms."

I'm fairly certain they were being charged a great deal of money for the privilege too.

Here's a direct quote, talking about the Wii:

"Why didn't we update the Flash plugin to a more recent version?

The answer is simple: there is no way to do so. It is out of both Opera and Nintendo's hands.

The latest version of the Flash SDK (Software Development Kit) offered by Adobe is version 7, so that's what anyone who is not a Windows, Linux or Mac PC have to settle with. To support Flash on a phone or device, you have to license the Flash SDK from Adobe, and as long as they do not provide a more recent version, there is nothing you can do.

If Adobe had offered a more recent version, no one would have been more thrilled than us. It would have made more sites work, and that would lead to less frustration to our users."

I think it's all in the tone of voice there really.

From the list of partners, it looks like they're all basically either handset manufacturers or content providers, which is . . . interesting. Microsoft and Apple are noticeably absent, and not too surprisingly there aren't any Linux-related organizations on there either. Their "Why" page for partners specifically targets chipset vendors, OEMs, operators, content providers and developers, and end users.

So it certainly doesn't look like they're going out of their way to play nice with browser or OS developers, or that they're trying to open up the actual implementation: the program seems more geared towards getting Adobe's software onto devices, getting hardware acceleration from chipsets, and getting content providers and developers to deliver content in their formats.

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