Thread: Nokia N900's Flash 9.4 announcement... and why it bothers me.
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gerbick
2009-08-31 , 10:57
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#26
Originally Posted by Milhouse View Post
Yes, this is the point I've been making - it hasn't shipped with FP10 yet, but will do. It's easy to misinterpret the press release by reading it too quickly and jumping to conclusions (as is the case with links one and most definitely three although link two does eventually spell it out correctly despite the tendentious title: it's Flash 9 now - still a first for Android - and Flash 10 next year)
Exactly. So why announce the more confusing 9.4 when it's really 9.0.124 to the population? To me, as a Flex/Flash dev, it means a few things specifically to me, even moreso to me if I use Flash Media Server - I have to be updated in order to allow proper H.264 and AAC streaming, otherwise I lock out those devices much like Hulu has been doing - rather unnecessarily too I might add.

The only confirmed dates are those I've already quoted from the Adobe press releases - ARM FP10 available to manufacturers in second half 2009 (and end users Q1 2010?), with optimised OMAP FP10 available to manufacturers in Q1 2010 with a likely release in H2 2010. No precise dates in relation to Android have been announced by any manufacturer or Google as far as I can tell, but please correct me if I'm wrong.
This is where I have to go by my memory - which isn't as good as it used to be - but I swear either John Dowdell or somebody from Adobe pertaining the Open Screen Project had stated that it was coming with FP10 in October...

However, I did find this article by John Dowdell and it further clarifies...

Originally Posted by that blog article
Adobe expects to provide a developer preview version of this engine at the MAX conference in October.
The preview for Android is coming in October. And from you've stated, it seems like Adobe's bringing the FP10 to the ARM platform in 2010. That's a bit more solid than the nebulous 9.4 announcement in those Maemo 5 vids.

So coming back to the original issue raised by this thread, it's not Nokia or ARM or Adobe's fault that FP10 hasn't shipped with the N900 as FP10 is clearly still a work in progress and will come in it's own good time.
Actually, I don't think this was the original issue. It was more about why announce 9.4 when it's merely a point jump from the already existing install used in Maemo now.

It's not even really a significant one either. From 9.0.32 to 9.0.124 or so is rather small in the realm of Flash. Both do support flv, AS3 and streaming media. The latter does support (better) AAC and H.264 and a few security updates - that really affected the Mac/Win side, but not Linux from my understanding (I don't mind admitting being wrong here) - but it's rather minor when desktop has upgraded past 10.0.32 right now.

That was the original concern. From my stand point, as a dev... it's still not far along enough for me to say that everything I do in Flex 3 w/ the 3.4 SDK and Flash Media Server 3.0 (not upgraded) will work. And the moment I make the jump to Flash Builder 4 (Flex 4) it won't work at all if I use any 3D outside of Papervision3D - which is strict AS3 anyway, but not reliant on the 3D capabilities of FP10 exclusively.

Which leads to the final concern... will it mean that the flash player will finally be update-able?

Those are the points of my confusion. I can't output to 9.4, it's either 9.0 or 10.0. But I have to be mindful of what code I use in my projects to avoid locking out people that might be using certain technology or levels of the flash player. And not knowing when or if they might be able to update, does affect me.

I can't carry my N810 to show off some sites already. Looking like I will be in the same boat until 2010 for the N900 if I choose it.

I hope that makes more sense. The concerns were there in the beginning.

Just badly spelled out.