Topping the list, posted by Flash Platform representative Matt Rozen right after Christmas and featuring input from the platform team, was Flash Player 10.1 for mobile. The software was “completely redesigned and optimized for mobile,” said Rozen, who emphasized the ordering of the Top 10 list features his personal preferences.
“[Version 10.1] has new interaction methods with support for mobile-specific input models, support for accelerometer and smart zooming, to scale content to full screen mode. Built initially for desktops and laptops that have loads of battery and processing power and storage — it was no small feat getting Flash Player to work on small devices,” Rozen said.
While hailing developments that made the list, Rozen acknowledged challenges Adobe faced challenges last year as well. “There was some adversity to overcome, sure, but there were many more successes, innovations, and milestones; all those things you can look back on and say, ‘Cool — that happened,’ ” he said. While not being specific about the adversity, an Adobe representative acknowledged Rozen was referring to Adobe’s ongoing battle with Apple, which has banned the Flash Player from its formidable iPhone and related devices, favouring instead a standards-based HTML5 approach for playing multimedia.
Other developments on Rozen’s list included:
Flash Player 10.2 beta, which Rozen said might squelch performance issues for users watching video. Featured is a “Stage Video” method for video playback enabling developers to leverage complete hardware acceleration of the video rendering pipeline.
3D Molehill APIs for Flash Player, offering low-level GPU-accelerated APIs
AIR (Adobe Integrated Runtime) for TV. “AIR for TV, to me at least, is pretty intriguing. I’m hoping it means that I’ll be able to watch a football game at home, with my buddies who are in front of their own TVs, and maybe we can text each other about the game in real time, on our screens with the game on the screen,” Rozen said.
Partnership enabling use of Flash Media Server on the Amazon Web Services cloud
Open Source Media Framework 1.0, enabling development of Flash-based video players with customized playback controls and maintenance of an application’s design
Flash Access 2.0, software that provides access to premium content and features content protection
Adobe’s Max 2010 conference in Los Angeles in October, which featured Droid 2 and Google TV giveaways
InMarket, offering a centralized portal to publish and manage mobile applications in multiple stores
Mobile/multiscreen development with Flex and Flash Builder