Flash, the ubiquitous plug-in that as of now is the go-to for Internet video or audio among other uses, looks to be improved greatly in the new 10.1 beta. Adobe is pushing to bring Flash to every platform, both desktop and mobile (excluding the iPhone thanks to Apple), and is adding features to support that. With the new Flash beta, Adobe is also pushing out an AIR 2 beta that will also add a batch of new features.
For Flash, possibly the biggest improvement lies in the new multitouch support. The update will make it work well with mobile devices such as WebOS and Android, but for now, with the beta being limited to desktop OSes, it is only usable by those with Windows 7 touchscreen PCs. Also important is GPU acceleration for H.264 video so video won’t tax the processor as much as it does now. However, graphics acceleration is limited to the Windows release as of now, which is depressing for Mac and Linux users, especially those who use Linux or Hackintosh netbooks.
The updates for AIR will allow AIR apps to act more similar to regular applications. AIR apps will be able to access OS-specific APIs, such as being able to deliver Mac OS X’s Spotlight results. Apps will also be able to be distributed in OS-specific file types, rather than .air files which can be confusing to some users. AIR apps will also be capable of accessing USB drives, drag-and-drop of files in addition to a faster WebKit browser.
Read [Webmonkey]
This will be a huge improvement, indeed.