First impression of the native Mactel Flash Player
June 29th, 2006
Yesterday was a big day for Adobe. The news of Adobe’s simultaneous official launch of Flex 2 and Flash Player 9 has begun to circulate the major media circles. Kudos to the team for catching the end of Q2!
Although less publicized, an equally significant apperance came one day later: Adobe has released the newest beta of a Flash Player native to Intel Macs. It appears to be intended as a soft launch for developers to test out.
After giving it a try, I am thoroughly impressed! There has always, up to now, been a performance gap between Flash Players on OS X and Windows; the more sophisticated or rich the application the more recognizable a difference. And as an OS X Flash developer, debugging applications using LocalConnection-based tracers such as LuminicBox or Alcon, while necessary, has always been a sluggish affair.
For those who’ve taken the leap for an Intel Mac, the gap has finally vanished! This new player seems to me every bit as fast as Flash Player on Windows. Luminic screams through traces, events are received promptly, and animations are especially responsive. Three cheers!
Expectations of a simultaneous OS X launch of Flex Builder 2 have so far been unfulfilled, but if today’s one-day-late Flash Player is any indication, I’m hopeful that we could be surprised by it very soon.
Until then, I’m very grateful to the Player team for this much improved version for Mactels!