I don't know why this kinda update isn't pushed right away. Wasn't the last OS update geared towards updates they can just patch instead of an entire new OS? My Samsung S2 got the Flash 11 update last night. I am looking forward to seeing OS 2 finally come though.
I don't know why this kinda update isn't pushed right away.
I expect it's because even this relatively painless OTA updates take effort, and support staff for the inevitable problems, and they've kinda got their hands full right now.
We should be happy they've stopped with the smaller updates, now that they're not absolutely critical... all hands on deck for a solid 2.0 release ASAP.
Can anyone, please, explain why Flash 11 would make any difference? Non-developer here. I've installed Flash 11 on my computer and haven't seen any improvement in content rendering whatsoever. I do have a pretty powerful laptop though. Is the expectation that Flash 11 will somehow benefit less powerful devices?
I don't know why this kinda update isn't pushed right away. Wasn't the last OS update geared towards updates they can just patch instead of an entire new OS? My Samsung S2 got the Flash 11 update last night. I am looking forward to seeing OS 2 finally come though.
The last update that included Flash 10.3 (from 10.2) was preceded by a developers beta. Since one of the development environments for the Playbook includes the SDK for Adobe Air (Flash), they wanted to make sure that there were no problems with exiting apps not compiled against the new version of Flash - and that was just a .2 to .3 upgrade. This is a 10.x to 11.x upgrade so I'm sure that there will have to be compatability testing before it's released.
Can anyone, please, explain why Flash 11 would make any difference? Non-developer here. I've installed Flash 11 on my computer and haven't seen any improvement in content rendering whatsoever. I do have a pretty powerful laptop though. Is the expectation that Flash 11 will somehow benefit less powerful devices?
Yes, very much so, in some cases. Hardware accelerated stuff including 3D, and numerous additional features. Also we expect to see it coupled with AIR 3, which should provide new APIs for things including compass and others.
Details are too many to summarize here, at least when I'm typing it on the PB. :-)
Yes, very much so, in some cases. Hardware accelerated stuff including 3D, and numerous additional features. Also we expect to see it coupled with AIR 3, which should provide new APIs for things including compass and others.
Details are too many to summarize here, at least when I'm typing it on the PB. :-)
Thanks. So how will the end user benefit? Faster page loading with flash content? Better gaming?
Yes, very much so, in some cases. Hardware accelerated stuff including 3D, and numerous additional features. Also we expect to see it coupled with AIR 3, which should provide new APIs for things including compass and others.
Details are too many to summarize here, at least when I'm typing it on the PB. :-)
So not only will OS2.0 bring us new features, but also FASTER PERFORMANCE ! YAY!
Thanks. So how will the end user benefit? Faster page loading with flash content? Better gaming?
Will the changes be noticeable?
Not sure about the faster page loading... I don't think we really understand what affects the performance of the current PlayBook browser, nor what impact the Flash 11 changes will have on that.
Better gaming, for sure.
Changes should be noticeable in many ways, some big, some smaller. Aside from the raw graphics stuff (as mentioned above: "Unreal" etc), stuff that should improve performance include some new "garbage collection" stuff (should eliminate those little periodic pauses seen in some Flash games), asynchronous bitmap decoding, and several other things that should improve the "responsiveness" of apps.
The new APIs should let developers deliver things that we really haven't been able to do before. For example, the compass (and maybe gyroscope) support would let the "What's up" app reorient the star map to corresponding exactly to where you actually point the tablet.
The addition of "AIR Native Extension" support (in conjunction with the NDK) will allow developers to implement many things in AIR apps they could not up till now, among other things by letting them pull in existing libraries to use in their apps.
There are changes that will allow apps to better protect your data with encryption, support for recording H.264 video, better (Dolby, DTS) sound, TLS sockets, and more.
It should be a pretty significant change, for developers and ultimately for users.
It seems Flash 11 will be released tonight.
10-03-11 08:23 PM
