The lone cruiser among the tablet computers, iPad and its partner from the smartphone world, iPhone have been the best in their respective fields, but still were lacking quite a few features which have been its disadvantage. One of them was Flash. Android tablet owners have been barging a lot about this advantage they have enjoyed over iPad. but they would no more be able to smile their way over iPad with this as an advantage. Adobe Flash has finally landed in the iOS territory. This even means that in future, Flash would be running on all Apple devices. This might even help Adobe to come to truce with Apple as the dispute related to once important media encoding technology which has now been long-running.
Adobe appeared at IBC this week and introduced Adobe Flash Access 3.0 and Adobe Flash Media Server 4.5. The way in which it would support iOS devices is the perfect way to proceed as it has enabled the server to stream a version of a Flash asset to an iPhone or iPad. media publishers now will have a single, simple workflow for delivering content using the same stream to Flash-enabled devices or to the Apple iPhone and iPad with Adobe Flash Media Server 4.5.
Adobe’s solution thus would help in repackaging content in real-time as well as would help to change protocols which would suit the target device. This would now make the iOS devices enjoy the benefits of Flash video support, battery life cost of the format in use on other devices and without the processor degradation. However, it is still waiting till the full fledged Flash experience of embedded ads make it to the new streamed system.
There are a few important points which can be derived from the release of Adobe:
Premium Video Streaming with Flash Media Server 4.5
Flash Media Server 4.5 expands on its mobile delivery options with the addition of iOS support and enables content owners to create HTTP content on the fly to reduce costs brought on by device proliferation. New features of Flash Media Server 4.5:
Delivery to iPad and iPhone enables businesses to use the same media and live streams to deliver full adaptive bit-rate experiences to platforms supporting Flash, as well as Apple devices, including iPad and iPhone.
Integrated Content Protection simplifies deployment and reduces infrastructure cost, enabling seamless streaming for advertising-funded online video.
On-demand Stream Packaging eliminates the need to prepare and protect assets ahead of time, reducing complexity and storage costs and simplifying publishing for businesses so they can use one set of source video to reach multiple downstream devices.
Adobe has with this extension, determined that Flash can be supported on iOS devices which was determined by Apple that its devices cannot support flash. Last year, Steve Jobs, Apple CEO had even challenged Adobe to get with the new post-PC times in his much-cited ‘Thoughts On Flash‘ note. However, this extension now even open doors for Adobe to move further ahead and add in support for those low power devices in future which have dependence majorly on cloud-based services for their media assets.
Talking about ‘still to be explored’ areas, battery life is one thing which Adobe can still concentrate on. Flash on every mobile device has been a battery killer and/or processing power which degrades batter life. This has been the worst even for Android devices.
Other details of the Adobe release can be briefed in detail here.
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