The next generation of the Flash Player is here. Adobe has released a beta version of Flash Player 10, which promises better performance, improved text handling, custom photo effects filters and native 3D animations. It's available as a free download at the Adobe Labs website.
Adobe Flash is the most widely-used presentation technology for
video, audio and animated user interfaces on the web. The current version of Flash Player is installed
on roughly 95% of the world's internet-connected PCs. It also runs on a number of phones and mobile devices, though the
percentage of such Flash-capable hand-helds is much smaller. In an
effort to speed the adoption of Flash across mobile devices, Adobe
recently lifted many of the licensing requirements necessary
to develop for the platform.
As Tom Barclay, senior product marketing manager for Adobe's Platform Business Unit told Wired.com in a telephone interview, many of Flash Player 10's improvements are based on feedback the team has received from the development community. He says that most of the features in this release were included in direct response to their demands. By aiming to transcend specific limitations within the previous versions of the Flash player, Barclay hopes to help developers push the
envelope and extend their online applications even further than was previously capable.
Once piece of welcome news is that Adobe is releasing the Flash
Player 10 beta for all major platforms - Windows, Mac and Linux. Adobe
has even upped the Linux ante with a new installer specially tailored
for Ubuntu users. Barclay says that Adobe considers Linux a major
platform and will continue to make all Flash releases simultaneous
across platforms.
Flash Player 10 beta packs a slew of new developer-centric features, but the most visible change for users will be the speed boost, which comes from new hardware acceleration tools that can offload some rendering tasks to your graphics card rather than relying solely on the CPU. That means your favorite sites using Flash interfaces will be much snappier.
Video playback gets a boost in Flash Player 10, as well. Although it only works with video streaming from Flash Media
Server, the new Flash Player can new detect and modify bitrates on the fly,
automatically adjusting video quality as bandwidth fluctuates. That
could mean much smoother streaming without the annoying pauses or
stuttering that happens when you watch videos online.
It might be some time before these new feature make to your favorite
sites, especially given that this is only beta release. But don't
expect to wait too long, the last Flash Player update (which wasn't
even a major update) managed to reach 62 percent of users in the first
three months. That may not be a wide enough adoption for sites as big
as YouTube, but it's great news for nimbler sites looking to push the
envelope a little bit.
One place where Flash developers are really pushing the envelope is online photo editing -- taking tasks usually reserved for desktop apps like Photoshop and making them available in the browser. Indeed, this is one area where Flash Player 10 can make a significant impact.
Users of online photo editors like Picnik may one day benefit from Flash's new custom filters and effects for tweaking and enhancing images. While Creative Suite 3, Adobe's software suite for building Flash presentations, ships with a wide range of effects, the new tools will allow Flash developers to come up with their own effects. Adobe is even planning to set up an exchange site where developers can swap filters. Developers can create custom filters and effects using Adobe Pixel Bender (formerly code named Hydra) which is also the engine behind many of the special effects found in Adobe's After Effects video editing software. Pixel Bender is a free download and can be found on Adobe Labs.
If sites like Picnik or FotoFlexer choose to leverage the new filter
tools, expect your online photo editing capabilities to shoot through
the roof.
For those users worried about bloat or sluggishness in their favorite Flash apps, fear not. Adobe claims that even very sophisticated effects or photo filters won't slow down performance thanks to the new hardware acceleration feature.
Adobe is also introducing a new set of 3D tools aimed at beginner-level developers. Adobe's 3D offerings aren't as sophisticated as some of the third-party libraries already available, but if you're looking to build a 3D interface without needing to revisit your high school trig class, this could be the ticket.
Flash Player 10 also brings some much-requested improvements in Flash's text handling capabilities. International developers will be glad to know that Flash can now handle vertical, bi-directional and right-to-left text. Font nerds will also be happy about Flash Player 10's support for anti-aliasing for device fonts, as well as more sophisticated text handling like proper rendering of complex ligatures.
Another item that will be welcome news for a small but vocal group of Flash developers - Flash Player 10 ships with a number of new low level audio APIs. The new version also fixes a nasty latency bug that has hindered many an attempt at building online audio editors.
If you'd like to test out the new beta of Flash Player 10, head over to the Adobe Labs site to download a copy. To check out some of the new features in action have a look at Adobe's demo apps.
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