Adobe today announced the upcoming launch of Flash Player 11 and AIR 3, promising "console-quality 2D and 3D games" delivered over the Internet to a full range of computers, mobile devices, and other connected appliances.
Dozens of new features in Flash Player 11 and AIR 3 allow developers to deliver a new class of gaming and premium video experiences, as well as sophisticated, data-driven applications with back-end systems integration across devices, including the iPhone and iPad via AIR. AIR native extensions add support for unique device features and native code libraries, empowering developers to freely choose the right mix of Flash, HTML5 and native code to provide powerful user experiences across PCs and devices.
AIR 3 is also bringing improvements to video streaming, offering the ability to stream full frame rate HD video within AIR applications for iOS via H.264 encoding.
Hardware-accelerated rendering of 2D and 3D graphics is said to see a 1,000-fold increase in performance over Flash Player 10.2 and AIR 2, offering animation of millions of objects at 60 frames per second for smooth video performance on computers and connected televisions, with support for mobile devices currently in a pre-release state. Other improvements include new support for content protection, rentals and subscriptions, as well as support for thousands of AIR native extensions to allow developers to increase the functionality of their software.
Public release versions of Flash Player 11 and AIR 3 will debut early next month.
Thursday January 23, 2025 6:41 am PST by Joe Rossignol
iOS 18.3 should be released to the public next week, following beta testing since mid-December. While the software update is a relatively minor one, it still includes a handful of new features, changes, and bug fixes for iPhones.
Below, we recap everything new in iOS 18.3.
Notification Summary Changes
Examples of inaccurate Apple Intelligence notification summaries
Apple Intelligence...
Friday January 24, 2025 1:55 am PST by Tim Hardwick
Apple is set to release iOS 18.3 next week, bringing further refinements to Apple Intelligence features, a couple of neat new capabilities to iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 devices, and bug fixes.
While not quite as packed with new features as Apple's preceding iOS 18 point releases, iOS 18.3 still introduces capabilities that aim to make your iPhone smarter and more intuitive. Below, we've...
Friday January 24, 2025 8:16 am PST by Joe Rossignol
iOS 18.3 is expected to be widely released next week, and that means the first iOS 18.4 beta for iPhones should be just around the corner.
Apple has previously implied that iOS 18.4 will be released in April, as that is when it promised to make Apple Intelligence available in even more languages.
Below, we outline what to expect from iOS 18.4 so far.
Apple Intelligence for Siri
Siri ...
Thursday January 23, 2025 7:32 am PST by Joe Rossignol
Walmart still does not accept Apple Pay or other NFC payments at its more than 4,600 stores across the U.S., and it stood firm on its reasoning for that today.
A spokesperson for Walmart today informed MacRumors that its position on contactless payments has not changed since we last reached out about the matter in 2022. The big-box retailer said it remains focused on its own convenient...
Wednesday January 22, 2025 6:01 pm PST by Joe Rossignol
A new Apple TV is expected to be released later this year. In this article, we recap rumored features and changes for the device.
The next Apple TV will be equipped with Apple's own combined Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chip, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. He said the chip supports Wi-Fi 6E, which would be an upgrade over the current Apple TV's standard Wi-Fi 6 support. Wi-Fi 6E extends the...
Tuesday January 21, 2025 4:31 pm PST by Juli Clover
Apple provided developers and public beta testers with the release candidate version of iOS 18.3 today, and with it comes release notes confirming what's new. While we knew about several of the features that are in the update, there are some lesser known tweaks and bug fixes.
The update adds new Visual Intelligence features for iPhone 16 models, it tweaks Notification summaries on all...
Friday January 24, 2025 9:09 am PST by Juli Clover
The upcoming iPhone 17 models that Apple plans to release this year will not feature a smaller Dynamic Island, Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said today.
On social media, he said that he is expecting the size of the Dynamic Island to remain "largely unchanged" across the iPhone 17 lineup. His statement is contrary to prior rumors that we've heard about planned changes for the iPhone 17 models.
...
Saturday January 25, 2025 5:07 pm PST by Joe Rossignol
Apple's retail stores will be rolling out "merchandise/floor marketing updates" next week, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman.
Gurman did not explicitly say if the store updates are related to any upcoming product announcements, but he did mention that next week is around the time that Apple rolls out its annual Black Unity watch band for the Apple Watch.
In each of the past four years, ...
Thursday January 23, 2025 2:48 pm PST by Joe Rossignol
It's also time for Apple's first product announcement of the year.
Last year, Apple said it would be launching Powerbeats Pro 2 in 2025, and the wireless earbuds are expected to launch very soon.
Powerbeats Pro 2 images found in iOS 18 code
In his Power On newsletter last weekend, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said the Powerbeats Pro 2 are "due imminently." In addition to Apple filing the...
Hasn't Adobe buried that bloated zombie yet? Who the hell cares about Flash these days?
Adobe's eternal promises for 1000x "better" performance over whatever last version of its crappy software means nothing to any reasonable consumer, and even less to Mac users in general.
Once more, bury that rotten corpse and let us move on, please...
Flash IS DEAD.
Is that your opinion or just because Steve said so? Tough talk = more Apple brownie points I guess. You give us real Apple fans a bad name.
Hope so, there is no reason why it shouldn't be an option for us consumers.
Consumers do have the option, they can buy Android. Its no different to a physical keyboard or removable battery, if those features are critical to a consumer then the iPhone is not the best mobile device choice.
Its like saying I really need a four wheel drive, hybrid electric SUV. I see no reason why Ferrari should offer those options on their F450. They dont and have no moral, legal, ethical or financial responsibility to do so.
Most of web developers ( at least freelancers) are Mac users and I can tell you that 99% of us are excited for HTML5 and CSS3 and does not care about flash anymore.
The future of web design is websites that adapt it's design to the device you are using, one web, multiple devices with no need of using pinch to zoom or whatever, and this is something you do with CSS3, no flash
Html5 is a nightmare.
My company develops complex web banners and sites. for companies like ATT and Fedex to name a few. I can't tell you how many times a Firefox update has killed a site. Or how many times we built things for Facebook only to have Firefox like it but not Chrome. Or having to make mp4 videos for Safari and Firefox while having to make an .ogv version for Chrome. Or having CSS work in one browser but not fully in another.
Flash has its faults for sure but its far from dead. Media companies ask for 95% of their content in flash because they know the user experience will be the same across all browsers.