Does Flash Really Sap Your iPhone Battery?
Posted on 25th Jan 2011 at 14:53 by Clive Webster with 57 comments
Famously, you can do almost anything on an iPhone apart from run Adobe Flash; a move that Apple has always defended on the grounds that Flash isn’t finger-friendly and that it drains the battery life too much.
According to IT Pro, this firmly held line has led to ‘one of the most bitter and unresolved disputes in the technology industry.’ What's more, the site has also undertaken some testing to discover the truth about the iPhone Flash video and battery life debate.
IT Pro sets the battle-lines between Apple and Adobe by pointing out that ‘Apple’s backing of H.264 over Flash has helped increase the popularity of H.264. For example, YouTube has converted its entire library to H.264 for playback on iOS devices.’
If this trend is widened to all mobile devices, one of Adobe’s primary products will be undermined by the increasing demand and importance of smartphones and tablet PCs. However, if Apple is incorrect to deny iOS devices access to Flash, alternative mobile OSes such as Android would become even more popular, leaving Apple’s shiny iPhones and iPads gathering dust on the shelves.
IT Pro’s testing methods involved creating two video files of the same movie, ‘one using the H.264 codec in a .m4v container and the other using the Sorenson Spark codec, one of the most popular codecs used in online Flash videos before the rise of H.264, in a .flv container.’
The tester then played back these videos in a few different playback apps, measuring the time before the battery of a Samsung Galaxy Tab and an Apple iPod Touch gave out. The test setup was actually quite complicated to ensure comparability, so for more details, see IT Pro’s test setup page.
The results were surprising to say the least – Apple’s Videos app was more frugal with the power draw than the VLC app, for example. ‘Either Apple's in-house app developers are very good (or have access to some trick or a private API for prolonging battery life) or Applidium, the developers of the VLC app, still have a lot of work to do.’
Meanwhile, the Android-powered Galaxy Tab lasted for half an hour less when playing the Flash version of the video than when playing the H.264 file. What's more, the difference was even greater on the Apple device.
For a bit more analysis, it's also worth heading over to the conclusion page.
Is Apple completely justified or totally wrong to ban Flash from iPhones and iPads? Let us know your thoughts in the forums.
According to IT Pro, this firmly held line has led to ‘one of the most bitter and unresolved disputes in the technology industry.’ What's more, the site has also undertaken some testing to discover the truth about the iPhone Flash video and battery life debate.
IT Pro sets the battle-lines between Apple and Adobe by pointing out that ‘Apple’s backing of H.264 over Flash has helped increase the popularity of H.264. For example, YouTube has converted its entire library to H.264 for playback on iOS devices.’
If this trend is widened to all mobile devices, one of Adobe’s primary products will be undermined by the increasing demand and importance of smartphones and tablet PCs. However, if Apple is incorrect to deny iOS devices access to Flash, alternative mobile OSes such as Android would become even more popular, leaving Apple’s shiny iPhones and iPads gathering dust on the shelves.
IT Pro’s testing methods involved creating two video files of the same movie, ‘one using the H.264 codec in a .m4v container and the other using the Sorenson Spark codec, one of the most popular codecs used in online Flash videos before the rise of H.264, in a .flv container.’
The tester then played back these videos in a few different playback apps, measuring the time before the battery of a Samsung Galaxy Tab and an Apple iPod Touch gave out. The test setup was actually quite complicated to ensure comparability, so for more details, see IT Pro’s test setup page.
The results were surprising to say the least – Apple’s Videos app was more frugal with the power draw than the VLC app, for example. ‘Either Apple's in-house app developers are very good (or have access to some trick or a private API for prolonging battery life) or Applidium, the developers of the VLC app, still have a lot of work to do.’
Meanwhile, the Android-powered Galaxy Tab lasted for half an hour less when playing the Flash version of the video than when playing the H.264 file. What's more, the difference was even greater on the Apple device.
For a bit more analysis, it's also worth heading over to the conclusion page.
Is Apple completely justified or totally wrong to ban Flash from iPhones and iPads? Let us know your thoughts in the forums.
57 Comments
Discuss in the forums Replywhat i suspect is happening is that VLC is using inefficient CPU to decode while we all know GPU decode is far more efficient in terms of speed and power consumption.
only real conclusion i think we can draw from this is that on from results on Galaxy Tab:
FLV 6h30m
H264 6h58m
H264 is easier on battery life, by a tiny little bit.
Bad journalism.
"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."
Or in this case, Apple are determined to sell to part of the market who can't be bothered to learn how do use a computer. Instead Apple sell them a dumbed down/easy to use phone.
You could even argue that it's a pro-competition move because their competitors can just point at their devices and say "unlike the iphone, it runs Flash".
I don't care, I've still got months of a bottom of the range nokia before I can upgrade, and when I do, it won't be an iphone even if I could afford it.
openoffice runs on windows without any problems...
it does on my windows 7 computer at least
You must be going to the wrong websites...
I don't have an iPhone so I don't have a clue, but does the VLC app not play H.264 as well as flv? Surely that is the only fair comparison to be made. All we learn here is that first-party programs are more efficient (shock horror!).
Same here, I got a win7 64-bit PC and the current version of open office and i've never had any problems getting it to run. It's quite smooth actually!
It's curious that Apple have gone from bemoaning Microsoft's anti-competitive practices to doing the same thing that they accused MS of doing...it's amazing what being a market leader does to your business practices :D
Or rather: It's curious what being a market leader does to public perception of said practices.
You can fully decode H264 via HW without overhead which (kind of) equals better battery life and performance. I gather that if Adobe had been out a lot earlier with built-in support for 90% of the HW-decode chips out there it would have been an entirely different game.
Adobe have been incredibly late in the game wrt GPU video acceleration. As far as flash being able to take advantage of decoding HW / HW acceleration...? Has anyone even heard of this?
It is never that dodgy piece of pr0n they downloaded, or that wonky program they installed by curious coincidence just before the fault occured, or (like happened with someone I know) the fact that you cannot continue using the Internet when you've just unplugged your WiFi router to free up a socket for an iron. So rather than getting undeserved bad press, those who cater to muggles try and make their stuff idiot-proof.
Having flash support would kill off apples #1 source of revenue, most of the apps on the App store are just iPhone versions of free flash apps / games that have been around for years.
Reckon Apple would change their tune if Adobe said "no Adobe products on Apple"
Would they loose like, 8-10% profit? Marketshare favours the PC.
100% Correct.
Currently video is part of the DisplayList in Flash, which gpu's don't like. So, in Flash 10.2 they have a new api that decouples the video from the DisplayList. Basically right now the video engine runs inside the vector rendering engine, whereas the new api separates and layers the vector rendering engine on top - giving massive benefits - You can google for a video demo from Max.
I cannot believe there is so much apparent support for their locked down system where everything you consume comes with at least 30% cut for Apple.... I swear half the comments on the technology sites come from Apple shareholders.
I will NEVER buy Apple products until they change their ways, always remember it was the apple that got us kicked out of the (non-walled) garden...
So what is "writing" an article that is only reporting on another article which is bad journalism? :|
What they should be doing is (privately) voicing the concerns with the software developers, getting a positive line of communication going and help them identify the issues and implement updates that overcome the issue at hand.
The alternative is a press slanging match and the developer waking up each morning thinking of new ways to make the device look worse than it already is :)
.....it's hardly rocket science.
They've obviously given adobe the chance.
Apple (like many others), are seeing adobe flash for what it is. A dying technology. HTML5 can already do 95% of what flash can without the big processing overhead and the need for a closed source plugin. Many websites are already making this change. New york times, aviary.com for a couple of examples.
Adobe is a locked down system. You can't develop for it without buying their overpriced flash suite. Why bother supporting and paying for a closed system when you can opt for HTML5 for free?
Fair enough apple takes 30% but developers for the iphone still make a massive profit. For that 30% their apps get shown in the app store. Something that millions of people browse everyday. It's like free publicity. How much do you think a developer would spend on internet marketing to get traffic to their website about a game? The reason it is closed is to give you a consistent experience. I agree that apple can be very black and white about what they allow on their devices, but it works.
Angry birds has always been 59p. Look how much money the developers made. Obviously a lot since the game has now moved to andriod, osx and windows. Oh and a board game is on the way! :P
I'm not an apple fan boy. I have an iphone but i've also had andriod phones too. There's just so much more choice on the iphone. Games running unreal engine 3? Dead space in your pocket? Yes please!
Flash, (Adobe is a company), is not a locked down system, please don't continue to spout the lies Jobs spread. You can indeed develop Flash content using any number of products, including notepad if necessary. Moreover the content you develop can be distributed any way you like, Adobe will never take a cut! Nearly all the specs of the Flash Player have been open sourced and released and the ones that haven't primarily deal with the streaming of copyrighted content. Moreover it costs NOTHING for the end user. The next version of Flash Player already in testing has a much improved 3D engine, support for stereoscopic 3D video and more, it's death has been greatly exaggerated....
The iPhone is a locked in closed platform, made in sweatshops where the workers are committing suicide due to the conditions. It is not the future of technology I want to see and will not be entering (or supporting) that garden thanks....
You notice the bad performance of the flash-plugin even on a normal PC.
And what is flash good for anyways? Annoying banners and menus or whole webpages that can't be indexed?
I used flash heavily myself in webdesign some 5 to 10 years ago, but nowadays I only do CSS and basic javascript for designing the same pages.
As soon as webbrowsers will natively support media-playback without any plugins needed, flash will die anyways.
FlashBlock plugin is available on all browsers, and i urge everyone to use it. it will save you a lot of crash, bother and energy. it really is the best plugin ever made. unlike Adblock where it blocks off ad revenue for great sites such as Bit-tech, Flashblock only blocks processor hogging, battery sapping adverts, leaving non-intrusive Google advert in place for you to click and to support websites.
i wish Flash a quick death. no one will miss the time wasting facebook games, no one will miss its generated browser crash and no one will miss flashy adverts. its sole purpose is to serve videos which can be done by better standards and thus Flash will never be missed. But it's like Internet Explorer, everyone know it's horrible, but its death will be painfully slow :(
And I suppose the millions of handsets sold by HTC and other companies that use andriod and windows phone 7 are manufactured in any better conditions?
Fair enough aspects of Flash are open source but you still rely on a flash plugin made by Adobe. Even on PC's and Macs, flash is one of the major causes of browser crashes,slowdowns and security flaws. Web development technology changes constantly and Apple have just put it's money on HTML5 and CSS3 coming out on top. Flash was created when browsers weren't designed to handle mulitmedia content. It's done it's job brilliantly but we're at the stage now where everything on the web can be developed with fully open source languages such as HTML5/CSS3 which are native to the browser.
But I agree with you. If you don't like a company then don't buy their products. Each to their own!
+1 to jrs77
Moreover Apple does not set the prices of apps on the App Store; the publisher does. If someone wants to port their Flash game to iPhone/iPod Touch for free, they can do so. If they don't it is because they want to make a buck.
Of course, whether Flash or HTML5, those games rely on internet connectivity. App-based games do not, because they are installed locally. Hey, come to think of it, perhaps that's why we have apps: to have instant functionality that does not depend on bandwidth and access through a web browser.
Steve made Apple a massive business success. You can find his brainchildren everywhere: it made geekware accessible to the masses. Just because he does it in a way that offends your personal desire to hack and mod things does not make him a bad person.
"640K ought to be enough for anybody." - Bill Gates, 1981
I'm glad there's still visionary people in the business like Steve.
Was going to post exactly that. The problem with Apple is not what you can/cannot do and how it results, the problem is that no decision is yours.
You are wrong. If you want flash don't buy an iPhone. That decision is yours.
+1
It's not that you wouldn't know about the product you're buying.
Except that most people buying Apple products WONT know, in fact Apple even removed the small lego logo that told people that the content was there but not accessible, now it just shows up as a blank box (so people will think the website is broken and not their device).
As I mentioned Flash runs fine on my Android mobile device, so all the arguments regarding its performance are clearly bogus.
As for html5's capabilities it is irrelevant as 60% of people accessing the internet are doing so using browsers that cannot access html5 content, as opposed to Flash which around 97% of people can view.
Even so, I should point out that the html5 specs aren't even finalised, the implementations vary wildly between the browsers that do support it, and for video alone there is a huge split in the capable browsers as to what formats they can or will support. Not to mention the fact that no one has produced a decent development environment for html5 yet either....
Moreover, no one is going to retro code every single piece of Flash content out there already.
I am glad you are ok with having content actively blocked from your device by the manufacturer, but you shouldn't expect everyone to feel the same way.
Where is this mindless support for having content blocked coming from, clearly it is better to have access to content than not, and it should be up to the guy who owns the device not the one running the company that made it.
Flash and HTML5 are comparable
Well, yes and no...When people compare Flash and HTML5 they mean Flash vs. HTML5/CSS3/Javascript.
HTML5 will mean the end of annoying, cpu-hogging adverts
Haha! Not on your nelly...The reason flash is used for those all-singing, all-dancing adverts is because flash is currently the only real option for creating them. They'll be just as annoying in HTML5...They'll hog just as much cpu in HTML5 (if not more because HTML5 wont have gpu rendering for yeeeaaars).
HTML5 will mean my browser won't crash
Again, no...Just as in Flash it won't be the platform that's to blame, but lazy developers who don't dump extraneous variables. I'm sure some of you are old enough to remember the early days of the web, where badly programmed javascript caused constant browser crashes...Well, that could be the case again, and what are you going to use then? HTML5Block? lol
Flash can't be indexed
uhh... yes it can http://www.flashnseo.com/category/flash-experiments/
Flash is closed source
The .fla format (the compile time format for Adobes flash editor) is closed source. However the .swf format (the flash player runtime format) is open-source. There are several other Flash IDEs out there...they just don't use the .fla format, but export .swfs just as well. The flash player itself is open-source, you can hack it any way you want...but it isnt generally done because you'd then have to distribute your version of the player.
Develpers would prefer to do away with Flash
Hell no, with HTML you have to ensure that your page will run on all the different rendering engines...the most important being Trident (Microsoft), Gecko (Mozilla), Webkit (Apple & Google) and Presto (Opera). Flash, on the other hand is a single runtime that behaves the same over 98% of browsers. Not only that, but you can take your flash application and with minimal modification distribute it as a desktop app (through AIR) or as a mobile app (including the iPhone). HTML5 is likely to be as it has always been - Fragmentation masquerading as Standardisation.
My Personal opinion
Flash and HTML will happily co-exist for years to come (just as they have for the last 15) because they each have their pros and cons for different scenarios. Things will go on as they always have...Dum dee dum...Sorry that isn't as exciting or dramatic as a flame war...
Any questions?
But were talking about flash on a mobile device. iPhones safari supports html5 just fine. The reason why most people are still unable to use html5 is due to the fact that they are stuck with an old version of ie which Microsoft has only started improving since firefox,chrome and safari came onto the scene.
Html5 may not yet be finalised, but web devs and big sites are already updating their sites with html5 functionality. It's the natural evolution of web standards. I think Steve jobs sees this like many other developers do.
Granted you can complain about the choice being taken away from you. But I'm a heavy net user and tech geek and I get by just fine without it. Need a utube video? No problem. Want to watch game trailers on my fav gaming site? No problem they have a mobile site with videos that don't require flash. Im willing to lose flash to have thousands of free games and applications at my fingertips. With the added knowledge that my mobile browser is future proof when HTML5 takes over.
The fact is they tried to disguise their anti-competitive practices in a shroud of lies regarding Flash, and the vocal Apple faithful lapped it up.... but it was just a smokescreen to further their own financial agenda.
Yes a lot of (the big) sites have had to adjust their sites and duplicate content to accommodate iPhones, but likewise a lot haven't. Apple's plan to push to html5 would increase the use of h.264 (and the licensing revenue the MPEGLA receives of which Apple is a major player). Of course Google have just scuppered that future increased revenue stream by giving away the VP8 codec and excluding h.264 from their browser (which has over double the users of Safari).
Apple have been working furiously to sign up magazine content, comics, television programming, films, music and software into exclusive deals for their devices. Every piece of entertainment you consume in the future will come with at least a 30% tax for them. They blocked all cross-platform development software from their platform (until anti-trust legislators started investigating), to ensure they were the exclusive suppliers of content. Their devices will only let you get content through their paywall.
In recent days, reports have emerged that they are heavily pushing retailers across the States to install near field payment systems for their new iPhones, how much of a cut will they take from your coffee and bun purchases then?
I fear a future where Apple play a dominant role, because they don't play nicely with others and they grab a cut of everything that touches their electronic devices (or where they are held nearby!), I will continue to actively discourage anyone from purchasing their goods, because they will ruin the freedoms the internet and competition have given us....
Oh and I also enjoy thousands of free apps and games through Android, safe in the knowledge I also get the FULL internet, past, present and future (Flash, html5 and all), and I can get them direct from the developer should I wish bypassing Google altogether.
Just to make it clear I'm not an "apple faithful". I've had andriod phones but felt the overall experience was lacking something special. And my next phone which is coming soon is running windows phone 7 (going to give it a chance). But like nexxo said, without the products apple has released the mobile phone market would still be stuck in the dark ages. There has never been so much innovation from other manufacturers in the past 3 years. Which is win win for all of us!
It's also not just Apple that's "pushing" HTML5. It's being used widely all over the internet.
When the first andriod phones came out their flash support was appalling. I had an HTC handset and was promised flash support. I was waiting and waiting and waiting. Even when it came it was buggy as hell and didn't work half the time. I think this is what put me off and made me get an iphone...I wasn't missing much.
That may have changed and the flash experience may be good now, but it was enough to drive me away. Imagine if Apple had done the same thing at the start (seeing as they had never launched a mobile before) I'm sure it would have put many users off.
As for near field tech. Google has also been pushing the tech. They were the first to release it with the samsung galaxy s.
We could go round and round in circles discussing the pros and cons to each side. But it all comes down to choice. Make one and get on with it! :P
Peace out!
/thread
Apple are pushing retailers to put in their terminals (as far as the rumours go anyway). I would be amazed if they aren't going to take a cut for purchases made using their (ostensibly your) phones... how about iPay, the most appropriately named Apple product ever.
Hahaha iPay. Brilliant. I'd imagine they have already trademarked it :-)
What I do know is that 90% of the time that I firefox crash reports, it's in the Flash sandbox. So either Flash is the problem (or at least badly coded Flash apps), or the Firefox sandbox is not what it's cracked-up to be.
I'm sure flash-enabled devices will have the most market share. But Apple aren't chasing majority market share, apart from with the iPod range.
Even then, I suspect if other manufacturers, and the record companies, had been more on the bounce iPods would be a premium, but niche product. And iTunes would not the the predominant music downlaod store.
Who needs flashblock, just use a 64bit web browser. Everyone knows Adobe won't get that updated for years.
Which also brings up one of the few advantages to IE.
Actually they're looking at a 64-bit release of the player this year or next. google "flash player square"
Apple wants H.264 as they own this with Microsoft and Sony.
This is why we se IE9 supporting this too.
Its free till 2016 and from this date Apple can name the price.
They have 5 years to push this, once everybody make switch it will not be free.
Apple do not give or support free stuff.
Its all about money. This is why Google its pooling plug on supporting H.264 and soon you tube may play only in flush or WebM (VP8).
There are certainly plenty of similar paid apps in the app store: more power to the developers. Good luck finding similar things for Android though... not saying there isn't anything, but iOS devices seem to be doing this much better ATM. Actually, I wonder how that runs on something like a Desire HD that apparently runs Flash 'seamlessly'.
I've seen some Javascript sound synthesis and for now it's relatively basic, I'm sure it'll come along eventually.
Yes, it's everyone's choice whether to get an iPhone / whatever... but the fact of the matter is, there are good reasons for choosing iPhone over other devices (particularly as a developer with the current gold rush and also perhaps for technical reasons), and then the stupid politics which make it irritating in other ways. Ho hum. Just saying 'well, it's your choice' doesn't really cover it IMO. People need to make some noise about this, or Apple will turn into an anti-competitive monster with more control over a lot of consumers than MS ever had.
I've always been anti-Flash in the past, but in many ways people have learnt to use it more selectively, maintain accessibility etc... and for Apple it really is all about making people develop for the App Store, on their hardware, with their APIs etc etc. IMHO.
But what we are seeing is that the iPhone is the most successful smartphone on the market, for years now. I think it is pretty obvious by now, to people who care enough to know, what the limitations of the iPhone are. Still, it sells like hotcakes. So perhaps people simply aren't as fussed as you are.
Seriously: market forces.
Apple just gives the consumers what they want, for a price they are prepared to pay. Welcome to free market capitalism: this is how it works. Everything else is state-controlled planned economy.
Google is not restricting ANY content on the internet, NO ONE is solely delivering h.264 video content, and Firefox (the second most popular browser) NEVER showed this content. By contrast MILLIONS of websites use Flash as integral components of their websites.
Please note: Just because people who own Apple stock are all over every forum on the internet., does not make their Draconian policies justifiable.
Your rhetoric is just plain stupid, (at best), this has nothing to do with economic systems, and everything to do with anti-competitive policies. Banning Flash has nothing to do with Capitalism or market forces, it has everything to do with restrictive practices by a hardware manufacturer. No one is saying they MUST bundle Flash with the iPhone, just that their customers should be ALLOWED to install it if they wish, how anyone can support a policy that does not let customers view content they choose to, is beyond me.
Purchasing devices where a manufacturer can control what their customers can and cannot see on the internet goes way beyond market forces, it goes directly towards censorship. The British advertising authority have BANNED Apple adverts from saying it provides the complete internet.
People are only making a choice if they are aware of the restrictions, while you and I may be aware of them, the average consumer is not. Pretending that people are choosing an iPhone because they don't want Flash content is stupid and naive (it remains the most requested feature of the devices, and led to the original spurious statement from Jobs).
Not getting your anti-competitive argument either. Both Flash and H.264 have licencing royalties attached, and the cost of Adobe, Microsoft and other companies involved in supporting these standards far outstrips any revenue they generate from it. MPEG LA, who oversees the patent pool that makes up the H.264 codec has announced that they will never charge royalties for the codec, as long as they are freely broadcast on the Internet.
The difference there is that google don't prevent you from running a plugin that enables support for that format.
Flash has no licensing royalties attached at all, complete BS, no one pays for the Flash player, and the developers only pay Adobe if they use their tools to develop for it. There are many ways to develop Flash content for free, and consumption and delivery is always free...
h.264 charge royalties from the browser manufacturers to the tune of (currently) $6 million per year.... the free forever (to consume content) statement is not true, only until 2016.
How is it different that Google has removed h.264 support? I thought I answered that, NO content is being blocked, and they are supporting a licensing free internet.
Why did Apple remove the lego block showing the content was being blocked on their device and replace it with a black square, was it to hide the deficiency in their device? Hide the missing content and people won't even know it is there.
Millions of people have bought these devices, therefore they are happy not to be allowed access to Flash content? Is that your argument? Why did they so vocally request it then? and why did Steve Jobs feel the need to make a statement regarding Flash? and why have millions of them installed the Skyfire browser which lets them access (some) Flash videos (badly)? You are living in cloud cuckoo land, (or a shareholder)...
Yeah okay, porn magazines and newsagents, what has that got to do with Flash content? It is not blocked because the content is objectionable, it is censored because the device manufacturer has decided it doesn't like the way it is delivered. Plus if you have bought an iPhone and are on a two year contract, you cannot go down the road, its like being forced to use a single newsagent. Apple is not selling the internet, endorsing it's content, or even curating it. I have heard this exact argument before on other sites, newsagents and porn, is this part of some Apple counter-arguments pack given to loyal shareholders? It is a weak and obviously flawed argument.
Are people truly aware of the true nature of the control Apple exerts over how their phones are used? I don't think so, people would not buy them if they did...