Flash Player 11 in Early October, Says Adobe
by Andrew Cunningham on September 21, 2011 9:02 PM ESTFlash Player 11, the next major version of Adobe's near-ubiquitous browser plug-in, is now officially set for release in early October, the company said in a press release today. Adobe AIR (the runtime which allows Flash and other code to be run as desktop apps) will also be updated to version 3.
The press release details a few of Flash 11's new features, but there are two that are of particular interest to you, the discerning AnandTech reader: the first is GPU acceleration for 2D and 3D graphics, which is specifically designed to make Flash games run better (Flash's GPU acceleration was previously limited mostly to video). The second is 64-bit support under Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux, long a sticking point for users of 64-bit operating systems. As one of the modern Internet's most-used plug-ins, Flash carries a lot of weight, and I don't think I'm the first to link the absence of 64-bit Flash with the slow pace of 64-bit browser development and adoption.
Flash 11 promises to be an improvement over Flash 10.3 in many ways, but its competition is still stiff: the Unity Web Player is already driving 3D games in browser windows today, while the Silverlight plug-in also enables rich web content. Its most direct competition in the long run remains HTML5, which Apple (and soon, Microsoft) and others are pushing to enable rich content without the use of plug-ins
Source: Adobe
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name99 - Thursday, September 22, 2011 - link
Your argument makes no sense."Looking at the current crop of browsers, none of them fully support HTML5." Oh, as opposed to the way they ALL (Mobile Safari, Mobile IE10) support Flash? Many of those mobiles that supposedly do support Flash do it badly. Not to mention that all Macs now come without Flash installed --- how many users bother to add it --- and with Win 8 the same will be true of Windows.
The HTML5 trajectory is up, the Flash trajectory is down. As a programmer or a web site, you can choose whether you want to be part of the future or part of the past.
Bozzified - Saturday, September 24, 2011 - link
HTML5 trajectory is up and will always be bigger than Flash because HTML5 is next HTML. Every single page on the web is HTML5. What you are saying doesn't make sense at all.You are just hating for hating with absolutely no sense.
Bozzified - Saturday, September 24, 2011 - link
And there is a reason why many businesses even Youtube have not replaced Flash with HTML5 and only offer some content through HTML5 without all the features Flash version offers.They are ALL using Flash as the primary technology and HTML5 only for fallback for retarded iOS devices.
mindless1 - Thursday, September 22, 2011 - link
There is a reason for flash to continue, as the plugin and player at least, that there exists a huge amount of flash based animations, games, etc. that should not be made obsolete.I am against creating MORE, NEW flash animations but do want the existing ones to continue to function and do so on a broader array of hardware and exploit the features of that hardware.
Bozzified - Saturday, September 24, 2011 - link
How is HTML5 superior.. I'd definitely like to hear your brilliant reasoning?There is NOTHING that HTML5 is better than Flash and I use both in many projects.
Let's chat.. What is is that HTML5 does that's superior?
Performance? NOPE.
Mobile? NOPE
Features and compatibly? NOPE.
Creativity and tools? NOPE.
Let's chat.. I'm really interested at people who are constantly full of hot air about this and that HTML5 to explain to me how exactly HTML5 is superior?
Do you even know what HTML5 is? HTML5 is just the tags like video, audio, header, content etc etc..
If you are thinking of interactivity, that's not HTML5, that's JS and most likely JQuery.
So let's hear it.. what makes HTML5 better?
semo - Thursday, September 22, 2011 - link
I was surprised too when Adobe started frequently updating Flash not long ago. Also adding features too! I still believed that 64-bit support was years away. Adobe seem to be turning around but I wouldn't bat an eyelid if they disappeared off the face of the earthcaptainBOB - Thursday, September 22, 2011 - link
It wasn't just Apple complaining, Mac OS X has been on the march to 64bit for years now and its nearing completion, Lion only runs in 64 bit mode now with 32bit compatibility.The same goes for Microsoft, Windows 8 is the last Windows OS to have a 32bit edition, from then on it will be 64bit edition or nothing, 32bit will obviously be retained for legacy support.
Jambe - Thursday, September 22, 2011 - link
Slightly tangential, but am I the only one who hasn't in stalled Silverlight?I've seen a few presentations (the majority of them Microsoft's) that required flash and whenever I saw the plugin request I just went "eh" and left.
Jambe - Thursday, September 22, 2011 - link
* that required silverlight, ratherwebdev51 - Thursday, September 22, 2011 - link
Same here. I avoid Silverlight too.