Droid Sector » Flash

Adobe Flash Player 10.1 on Droid X

Jeff — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 21:23:12 +0000

Buyers guide: iPhone vs Android

Jeff — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 02:15:30 +0000

The new iPhone 4 now on par with the latest Android handsets hardware wise, making it harder for potencial buyers to choose between these two platforms. This is my take on the current situation.

Screen

The screen in the new iPhone is very impressive: IPS matrix with 960×640 resolution. It has a wide viewing angle, similar to AMOLED and Super AMOLED. Blacks are really good on these displays, since no backlight is used. AMOLED screen is less usable under direct sunlight.

The winner here is the Super AMOLED screen. If you need a perfect screen, get a Samsung Galaxy S. Just make sure it has no problems with Wi-Fi…

What about a “retina” resolution? It would make sense on a bigger screen. I’m afraid you’ll need a microscope to see the difference between the iPhone 4 and Droid screens. Why so many pixels then? Apple simply can’t use an other resolution without breaking all existing apps.

Controls

The Back button on Android devices is not only used to return to the previous screen within the same application, but also to return to the previously started application. Menu button might not be very intuitive in the first day of use, but it saves a valuable screen space. You’ll miss these buttons if you switch from Android to the iPhone.

The Trackball is rarely used, but it’s useful for precise link navigation in a browser and text selection.

Applications

Both Market and AppStore have a lot of apps now. Some apps in the AppStore are more mature, some apps exclusive to Android Market. One thing is true – most people can find everything they need on both platforms.

A few things are making the Market more attractive for users and developers: 24 hours money back and instant app publishing. Money back isn’t very attractive for developers with crappy apps though.

Flash

This one is simple, iPhone doesn’t have a Flash and most likely will never have. If you think that Flash is mostly used for displaying annoying ads, don’t worry, ads in HTML 5 format coming your way..

Flash is running just fine on the Nexus One. I can listen to podcasts, see streaming videos right on a webpage, without launching a dedicated app. Is it really necessary to kill Flash? Probably it will be replaced by HTML 5 in 2-3 years, but right now there are tons of Flash contents.

Notification system

Notifications are still the same on iPhone 4. See an example. Notification bar in Android is a much more elegant solution.

Cloud/Sync

Another strong point of Android is higher level of integration with online services. Address book can be synchronized over the air with FaceBook and Twitter, photos with Picasa web albums, podcasts with Google Reader… Google even has a demo of automatic over-the-air sync with music store recently at Google IO. Apple still charges $99/year for MobileMe and no sign of cloud-based music store yet.

Of course the iPhone/iTunes media sync still wins in terms of simplicity. Rating and playback stats sync is very nice feature to have.

Customization and open source

Widgets, home screens, messaging apps – many parts of Android can be customized or even entirely replaced. Open source helps coders like Cyanogen tweak the system on a deeper level and create a great mods.

That’s it, but maybe I’ve missed something? What features in Android / iOS is important for you?

Battery Life with Flash Player on the Nexus One

Jeff — Sun, 30 May 2010 21:39:38 +0000

On full brightness, the Nexus One without Flash Player got 3 hours and 45 minutes. Playing the video through Flash Player gave a battery life of 3 hours and 8 minutes. Not a big dropoff. At half brightness it was even better. The Nexus One without Flash got 3 hours 56 minutes and the Flash version got 3 hours and 31 minutes. Just a 10.5% change, which isn’t bad at all considering everything Flash Player does.

blog.digitalbackcountry.com

How to watch Hulu on Android 2.2

Jeff — Mon, 24 May 2010 19:29:30 +0000

Dolphin Browser:

Go to settings and select User Agent
Select Desktop.

Stock Browser:

Open your Browser and type about:debug and press Go. The browser will not show anything, but this is normal
Go to settings and scroll to the bottom and select UAString (User Agent)
Select Desktop.

Block Flash in Android Froyo browser

Jeff — Mon, 24 May 2010 19:12:12 +0000

Complex web pages with a lot of flash ads make scrolling very choppy. To make Flash content load only after you click on it, go to the settings, tap Enable plug-ins and select On demand. Related posts: Video: Flash 10.1 and a new home screen Android Froyo mini review Download Flash 10.1 for Android 2.2 Related posts:

Download Flash 10.1 for Android 2.2

Jeff — Sat, 22 May 2010 22:42:49 +0000

Just click this link in you Android browser: www.adobe.com/go/getfp10android Related posts: Video: Flash 10.1 and a new home screen Flash 10.1 will be available in June Adobe Flash 10.1 coming to devices with Android 2.1 Related posts:

Video: Flash 10.1 and a new home screen

Jeff — Tue, 11 May 2010 12:26:24 +0000

In a video below Ryan Stewart demonstrates how various websites running flash work on the Nexus One. As a bonus, you can see a new home screen (Android Froyo?) at the end of the video.

He also posted a few comments on YouTube:

ryanstewart: re: enable/disable flash. Yeah. There are three modes in the browser settings for plugins. Always disable, always enable, or on demand. On demand seems to be just like “click to Flash” so the Flash content is replaced by a little arrow icon and doesn’t load until you click it. I’ll try to do a screenshot or demo of how that works.

ryanstewart: yeah, double tap is the zoom mode. And yup, on YouTube it works exactly like the desktop player, when you press the button it takes you into full screen mode on the phone. You have to zoom in to make the button easier to press, but it’s not too bad.

blog.digitalbackcountry.com

Flash 10.1 will be available in June

Jeff — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 13:03:43 +0000

We already know that Flash will be included in Android Froyo, and now Adobe gives actual rollout date:

We look forward to delivering Flash Player 10.1 for Android
smartphones as a public preview at Google I/O in May, and then a
general release in June. From that point on, an ever increasing number
and variety of powerful, Flash-enabled devices will be arriving which
we hope will provide a great landscape of choice.

blogs.adobe.com

Wuzhenhua media player

Jeff — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 20:41:32 +0000

A free media player that plays a lot of audio/video formats. Tested with a few files (WMV,FLV,MOV,MPG) and it works well. It kind of slows down on HD videos, as well as on AVI and VOB files – apparently no hardware acceleration is present.

Full list of supported formats:
4xm/8bps/aac/ac3/eac3/amv/ape/dca/imc/alas/rm/rmvb/nuv/
ptx/tta/wma/wmv/flic/flac/flv/g726/h261/h263/h264/mp1/2/3/4/smc/tmv/dvdsub/dvbsub

Download: http://www.mediafire.com/?hagtzcn7qdz

XDA thread: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=642713

CorePlayer on Android: playing H.264 Video

Adobe Flash 10.1 coming to devices with Android 2.1

Jeff — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 11:57:08 +0000

Adobe is promising Flash 10.1 is going to hit smartphones in the “first half” of this year as OTA update. Some tablets will get flash too, with accelerated performance on Nvidia’s Tegra 2, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon and Freescale’s i.MX515. Unfortunately Android 2.1 is the minimum requirement. Related posts: Notion Ink Adam will support Flash, App Competition [...] Related posts: