Flash Player 9 Update 3 Sim-Ships on Windows, Mac, and Linux

By James Ward | Published: December 4, 2007

Yesterday was a monumental day for Flash Player. For the first time ever, a major release of Flash Player was simultaneously shipped for all three of the major operating systems – Windows, Mac, and Linux! This illustrates Adobe’s commitment to being truly cross-platform. There isn’t a ubiquitous platform in existence that is as committed to cross-platform compatibility as Adobe is with Flash Player. This is one of the things I love about Flash Player. Sun promised us “Write Once, Run Anywhere” with Java and yet they have never been able to really deliver it. Theoretically maybe, but in reality how many Java apps / applets do you see with the breadth of use that Flash Player has? Despite Java’s disappointing failure of true ubiquitous cross-platform compatibility I am hopeful that the OpenJDK will fix this. The OpenJDK does seem to be fixing the recent problem of Java 6 not being available on OS X.

Congrats to the Flash Player team! This is a significant milestone that everyone benefits from!

For those of you building Flex applications you can download the debug versions of this new release here. Also there is more information about all the great new features and bug fixes in this release on Tinic’s blog, Mike’s blog, and Emmy’s blog.

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  • http://techpolesen.blogspot.com/ Tech Per

    Hi Jim, … hmm, nice with simultaneous releases on all platforms, but your comparing with Sun and Java seem to be a bit far fetched to me.

    When you write: “…There isn’t a ubiquitous platform in existence that is as committed to cross-platform compatibility as Adobe is with Flash Player. …… Sun promised us “Write Once, Run Anywhere” with Java and yet they have never been able to really deliver it. Theoretically maybe, but in reality how many Java apps / applets do you see with the breadth of use that Flash Player has?…”, I must respond :-)

    Both in theory *and* practise, have Sun and Java really delivered on Write Once Run Anywhere! That is a fact. That came with the byte-code and the magnificent JVM implementations. It is true though, that this has mostly been for server-apps, like application-containers and their apps, and also with standalone UI apps. Applets have failed, and yes, flash *is* the most ubiquitous platform for what applets was thought to be. But applet technology is SUCH a little part of the Java platform. I think Sun gave up on applets a looong time ago. Now they are doing something with JavaFX, but that is more head-on with AIR and Silverlight, if anything.

    In addition, when I read “…This illustrates Adobe’s commitment to being truly cross-platform.”, I must say, that we are *quite* a few people, that have had to live with really poor flash support on linux for many years. Something that made most of us hate websites with flash content. It is actually only recently with player9, that Adobe has released quality builds for linux. And the player has been, and still is, closed and proprietary. If Adobe stops delivering flashplayer to linux, we are screwed again.

    Not so with Java, which is truly open now.

    And the case with Java on OSX. There is Apple, and only Apple, to blame for that. They (Apple) said to Sun, that they, themselves, wanted to provide a specially well-integrated (with Cocoa and stuff) build for OSX. That is why Sun hasn’t committed to building one.

    Now, because Apple wont deliver, others are taking the OpenJDK and doing it themselves. Bear in mind, that we cannot do this with the flashplayer, should we need it. I think there is a missing 64bit player for linux right now, for instance.

    Anyways, it is great, that Adobe is releasing for linux now.

  • http://www.jamesward.org James Ward

    Thanks for your feedback. To understand more of where I’m coming from you might want to read my blog from a few years ago called “How I Overcame My Fear of Flash”:
    http://www.jamesward.org/wordpress/2007/02/21/how-i-overcame-my-fear-of-flash/

    I used to be a Flash hater mostly due to Macromedia’s poor Linux support. Since then Macromedia and now Adobe have done a lot to fix that. And if for some reason Adobe decided to shoot themselves in the foot and stop delivering Flash Player for Linux I have no doubt that Gnash would quickly gain more attention. But ultimately I trust that Adobe will actually further embrace cross-platform compatibility since going the opposite way would put their developer mind share at serious risk.

    -James

  • Ben Johnson

    James-
    I linked over to Emmy’s blog and saw that one of the items included the “Flash Player cache for local caching of common platform components to reduce SWF sizes and app loading times”. Is there any documentation on how to use the cache through the Flex SDK? Also, is this only available in Flex 3?

    Ben

  • http://www.jamesward.org James Ward

    Hi Ben,

    Yeah, this feature is awesome! You can read / watch more about it here. The cache is only available in Flex 3 since it requires Adobe signed SWFs and the only SWFs we have signed are Flex 3 framework SWFs.

    Let me know if you have any other questions.

    -James

  • http://greggbolinger.blogspot.com Gregg Bolinger

    That is really good news. The announcement would have been just as effective without the JVM FUD though. ;)

  • http://www.jamesward.org James Ward

    Hi Gregg,

    I debated including the “FUD”. But I do think it is important for people to recognize the effort that Adobe invests to build and ship a consistent and ubiquitous runtime. That is something I really wish Sun understood the value of.

    Thanks for the feedback.

    -James