Flash Player 9 out for Intel-based Macs

Adobe Systems on Thursday said that Adobe Flash Player 9 is available on Apple Computer's Intel-based Macs.

Flash Player 9 for Windows and Macintosh was released in June. The new version delivers better performance for displaying Web applications and has a more robust development environment, according to Adobe. A Linux version for Adobe Flash is due in early 2007, according to the company. Adobe has not yet announced plans for a 64-bit version of Flash Player, a company spokesperson said on Tuesday. Download the latest version here.

[rklrkl]

How pathetic is this announcement?

Now, let me see, Adobe releases Flash 9 for Windows and Macs and not Linux (which is supposedly coming next year, despite Liunx users being outrageously stuck on Flash 7 for the last year - yep, there was never a Flash 8). Then we learn that not only is there no 64-bit Flash player for *any* platform, but there's no solid plans to produce one in the future!

With Linux 64-bit distros well established and 64-bit Vista due out in less than 6 months, then I can't be the only one to think that Adobe has *serious* issues with its development process. These poor announcements suggest the following:

* Adobe's code is 32-bit specific, which was excusable 3-5 years ago, but in these days where a large number of new desktops are 64-bit capable (though often laughably only shipped with a 32-bit OS), it's inexcusable for them to have not fixed this by now.

* Adobe's code appears to be hopelessly platform-specific. Witness the public debacle on the Linux Flash blog (yes, an actual Adobe employee is blogging about the glacial development progress of the Linux Flash Player), where Adobe seem to have stuck *one* bloke on the job who's actually been asking the public about which libraries he should use (er, isn't that his job to know?).

Basically, Adobe is giving near zero resources to either 64-bit or Linux versions and as such, it's utterly pathetic and they should be ashamed of themselves. Flash is no now longer ubiquitous or cross-platform in my books - sadly, open source projects like Gnash have failed to produce something yet that can be used to view Flash 8 either, so my recommendation is either don't install Flash in your browser or if you really must, use Firefox + Flashblock to selectively use it.

[Earl Benser]

Some one really cares?????????

More junk from a mostly worthless company.

[naddy69]

Given that no one is using LOTD

Given that virtually no one is actually using Linux on the desktop, or *any* 64 bit OS on the desktop, exactly how much effort should Adobe put into this?

Linux accounts for about 1% of desktop users, and any 64 bit OS is less than that. Adobe - like any software company with any brains - is concentrating their efforts where the action is: Windows and OS X. Anything else comes after these 2 - and rightly so.

I'm always amused when tiny minority OS users whine and complain when they are treated like tiny minority users. If you want mainstream support, then use a mainstream OS. You are a minority - don't expect to be catered to!

[ripntime]

Re: Nobody using LODT...

Boy your head must be so far up bills ass you are obviously oxegen deprived.
Real numbers show linux is about 25% of the market now. I run a computer shop and these days we see about 1 in 4 customers that are running linux at home (some still dual booting) but thier using it. and business's are switching even faster.
As a matter of fact this morning at the shop i have 2 PC's that came in to have windows xp removed and linux (ubuntu) installed because of WGA problems 1 customer is a gamer and he says no problem to throwing away his present selection of games (which laughingly are MS game studios products). so MS lost more than just an XP user they lost a gamer. so for him were buying him a subscription to transgaming's cedega and will also install wine so he can still run a few of his windows based games and then pointed him off to www.linuxgamepublishing.com to purchase native games.
The other client is a business user and is fed up with MS ********. so we are also getting 65.00 per hour to teach her linux. "Thanks Bill"
Oh and we switched her off MS Office to OpenOffice and she likes it. Now i'm trying to get the other realtors in her office to switch, I'll know within a week when the others see how awsome linux is and how secure and stable it is.
By By Microsoft. The bigger they are the harder they fall.

[ddesy]

No 64-bit? Might not need it.

With Mac OS X and Windows Vista both supporting full 64-bit environments in the near future, it does sound a little short sighted to not have a 64-bit version of Flash developed. That being said, they might not really need to develop a 64-bit version for said platforms as both can run 32-bit apps just fine.

The Linux issue is a bit of an annoyance for many, and I can definitely understand that. In my experience, Flash 7 for Linux is not very will implemented. I've seen the audio and video go out of sync too often to be excused.

Also, to those who question using Flash, take a look around. With ads on the web, corporate web sites, animations, games, and more using it, I think it has a pretty firm grasp on the market.

[grandmasterdibbler]

Yes it is a weak announcement but...

Flash is still really important on the web, lots of websites are still built around a flash base and whether you like it or not things look to stay that way. It looks like the only real competition is from Java which has gained a foothold in some internet games (e.g runsecape). As for all of this stuff about 64bit (which I don't particularly understand) can't any 64b platform run 32b apps side by side?