Filed under: Software, Internet Tools
Adobe releases Flash Player 10, ships CS4
It's been in beta for a while, but now Adobe's ubiquitous media plugin (warning: LOUD) has turned 10 officially for the Mac. The 5.5 MB download (available in separate versions for Intel and PPC) gains a host of new and improved features, including custom After Effects-style filters, advanced text support, 3D effects, better hardware acceleration and streaming support, vamped-up APIs, and file upload/download improvements.
Flash 10 requires a 500 MHz G3 or better on the Mac, and runs on Tiger or Leopard: OS X 10.3 Panther users are out of luck. Download now from Adobe if you dare. Authoring content that takes full advantage of Flash Player 10 means using Flash CS4, which -- what a coincidence! -- is shipping as of today, along with the rest of the CS4 suite.
Flash's ubiquity in the marketplace (99% of Internet users have some version of it installed, says Adobe) does give it a wide advantage over media alternatives like QuickTime and Silverlight, but one of the ongoing challenges for Flash is version upsell; getting people to move to the new build sometimes has to wait until a popular service requires it. For Mac users, the lure of upgrading includes a move away from the traditionally lackluster performance of Flash on the Intel hardware -- I know many MacBook users who can tell when a Flash ad is playing in a hidden Safari tab just by the sound of the cooling fans ramping up -- so with any luck, version 10 will address the challenges in that area while simultaneously adding all these cool new features.
Thanks Richard
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Alexander said 12:23PM on 10-15-2008
How do I quit the DashboardClient? The thing just keeps popping back up! Why would I even have to quit it?? This sucks bad to me
Reply
Phlake said 12:30PM on 10-15-2008
Dashboard is run by the Dock, so if you type
killall Dock
in terminal, it will restart the Dock and Dashboard will quit. You can then continue the installation, assuming you don't open Dashboard until it's done.
Alexander said 12:35PM on 10-15-2008
Thanks, it worked.
Still, it's weird and many users won't know what to do and who to ask.
Rachel said 12:30PM on 10-15-2008
well, using it to play bbc news through firefox on a 2GHz Macbook and the fans are going nuts as usual, so don't hold your hopes up on that score.
Does work though...
Reply
totoro said 1:16PM on 10-15-2008
crap, really? There are only two apps that consistently crank up the fans on my Macbook: VisualHub (which makes sense, since it is doing some serious conversions), and Flash, which is, you know, busy running that TRUE dating ad in the sidebar. :p
Shunnabunich said 12:57PM on 10-15-2008
Um, Flash performance has always sucked on PPC too, not just Intel.
Reply
Buckingham said 1:29PM on 10-15-2008
I just installed 10. And now the fans go off more frequently (MBP 17 2.4Ghz).
Reply
Matt said 1:36PM on 10-15-2008
I don't understand why Adobe Flash animations always run so sloooowly on the Mac!! One YouTube video usually doesn't give me grief, but when I try to load multiple pages with a few Flash advertisements, my whole system starts to freeze up. It's always been that way and apparently always will be. Since it's the "industry standard" though, we will just have to put up with it, won't we?
Reply
Rachel said 1:46PM on 10-15-2008
who knows, maybe one day, one century, one of the opensource flash players will actually work with enough content to be worth using; even though they're mainly a linux thing, if they actually got that usable they'd soon be of interest on other platforms I expect. As it stands though, even on Ubuntu one of the first packages i install is flashplugin-nonfree :-(
Proprietary standards. Don'tcha just love 'em? :-)
Galley said 1:50PM on 10-15-2008
So, this new version sucks even more than the last one? I didn't think that was possible!
Reply
Milo said 2:02PM on 10-15-2008
Does anyone know how to download and then downgrade to the previous version of flash? I installed 10 and need to go back but can't find any instructions for doing this with a mac online.
Reply
Milo said 2:38PM on 10-15-2008
Found it!
http://forums.techsmith.com/showthread.php?t=6863
Fuzzbeans said 2:27PM on 10-15-2008
And the downloader application (for Flash CS4) won't work with Safari. I really preferred the days when Adobe was attuned to its Mac customer base.
Reply
Jash Sayani said 2:40PM on 10-15-2008
I need to start developing some nice AIR apps this Christmas.... Here I come Flash 10 & AIR SDK.....
Reply
Kahnyl said 3:35PM on 10-15-2008
Is there any way to customise Flash? Like disabling the "Press Esc to exit full screen" prompt for example.
Reply
reallycrazyguy said 3:52PM on 10-15-2008
This is just the next crappy version of Flash for MacOS X... It always seems to be more bloated, while working slower than the Windows version.
Reply
Matt said 4:40PM on 10-15-2008
Maybe these performance issues follow the knocks Steve Jobs was giving Adobe about Flash for the iPhone. I'd still like to have a version for the iPhone though =/.
Reply
Patrick said 2:33AM on 10-16-2008
Hi there,
I just wanted to let you know that with SafariStand (http://hetima.com/safari/stand-e.html) you can actually configure Safari to load Flash only when clicked on.
That's especially useful if you open more than 1 YouTube site at once and don't want to let the videos auto-play (why oh why can't it be disabled?). It also prevents those crazy ads from showing up.
This makes flash rather enjoyable than nerve wrecking…
Greetings
Reply