Appatic

Just 3 months from the Flash 10.2 release and here we are again.  I seriously don’t know for sure if this is a record but Adobe is now surely moving faster than ever with their Flash Player releases. 

Flash 10.3 is all about bug fixing and adjustments more than anything. It really didn’t brought as many changes as Flash 10.2 or Flash 10.1 did for the desktop OS side. But on the mobile side? Now that is another story.  10.3 represents the very first release of Flash on Mobile that can be called both stable and polished. It is also no surprise that the first to benefit from this release is Google, As the big G is now the biggest strategic partner of Adobe. Something that may read as a exaggeration until you realize how integral (as in "bundled in”) Flash now is to Google strategies with Android, Chrome, Chrome OS and even Google TV. 

New Features

• Media measurement (desktop only) – Measuring video usage just got easier. Using Adobe® SiteCatalyst® with Flash Player 10.3, developers can implement video analytics for websites with as little as two lines of code for the first time. Media Measurement for Flash Player allows companies to get real-time, aggregated reporting of how their video content is distributed, what their audience reach is, and how much video is played. Mobile support will be available in an upcoming release.
• Acoustic echo cancellation (desktop only) – With Flash Player 10.3, developers can create real-time online collaboration experiences with high-quality audio for telephony, in-game voice chat, and group conferencing applications. Developers can take advantage of acoustic echo cancellation, noise suppression, voice activity detection, and automatic compensation for various microphone input levels. End users will be able to experience higher quality audio facilitating smoother conversation flow, without using a headset.
• Enhanced privacy protection – Flash Player 10.3 enables local storage clearing within browsers’ privacy settings and streamlines the controls of the Flash Player privacy, security and storage settings within the local control panel of desktop OSes.
• Security enhancements including the support of auto-update notification for MacOS – See the Security Bulletin APSB11-12 for more details.

Plus

• Ton of Bug Fixes and Adjustments

As you will see from the list of new features, for the Desktop side the only really relevant news is that now your browser will also be able to flush out Flash based cookies on demand at the same time regular cookies.  A small feature, but a big win for personal privacy management and something that should be taken as a big deal.

Overall a good release that continues to improve on the big steps taken with 10.1 and 10.2. And while in Windows, Flash has given a good experience for quite a long time now. I have read reports that this release was also a big step for those in OS X and Linux. Something I gather a related improvement for all the work Adobe has done pushing for Mobile and for Google.  Now I just wonder how long it will take for Flash 10.3 to also appear for Blackberry’s The Playbook and for HP’s WebOS. A thought I bet many also had when they started reading about how much this release is for mobile, yet right now only for Android.

Linkage

Adobe Flash                                                                   <—Official Homepage

Adobe Flash for IE                                                    <— Quick Download Page

Adobe Flash for Other Browsers                 <— Quick Download Page

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