Pandora Drops Flash for HTML 5

http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/pandora_drops_flash_for_html_5/

by digiwizard • 15 years ago

59 19 15 years ago

ericmoritz• 15 years ago

I'm surprised that they're going full HTML 5 as opposed to just HTML 5 for the control layer while having a Flash core to play the audio.

lojack• 15 years ago

I believe they are still using Flash for older browsers that don't support HTML5 audio.

bphogan• 15 years ago

I'm interested in this as well. I'd love some technical details about how they're going to do the DRM stuff with just HTML5 audio. Does anyone have ideas?

evanwalsh• 15 years ago

I can guess they'd so something like a unique URL that expires quickly and checks the user agent/headers/other stuff. Like all of this kind of stuff, it won't be bulletproof, but it'll be good enough. I'm sure I'm missing some other option that's better, though.

kam• 15 years ago

There's no DRM with the current Flash iteration either. They use blowfish to obfuscate the audio URLs in the XML playlists, but the audio files themselves are standard unencrypted AAC/MP3 downloaded over HTTP.

Cbeck527• 15 years ago

This is what grooveshark does, and they seem to be quite successful.

kristiandupont• 15 years ago

At the cost of working on iOS.

mikeryan• 15 years ago

How come? Not being snarky, but I've been impressed with the current video tag support and how well it works. I'd assume the audio support works fairly well also.

smackfu2• 15 years ago

Poor cross-browser support: http://www.phoboslab.org/log/2011/03/the-state-of-html5-audi...

Video is simpler: you normally play one video at a time, for long time periods. Audio tends to be used to play short clips simultaneously, and if the browser drops some or delays them, it ruins the effect.

whatever_dude• 15 years ago

I don't think they're doing that. They mention they've replaced the frontend - which makes a lot of sense, considering they want to turn it into a social media website - but makes no notes of actually dropping Flash. Plus there's no iPad compatibility mention, so... I'm guessing they still use Flash for playback.

useflyer• 15 years ago

I've had some difficulty with HTML5 audio and can't wait to see Pandora's implementation!

DanielRibeiro• 15 years ago

Angry birds on Chrome Store had the same issue: http://functionsource.com/post/html5-audio-issues-why-some-f...

theatrus2• 15 years ago

Even better as Pandora was using Flash via OpenLaszlo (translation: making flash even slower via another layer of indirection). Now to convince my company that Flash+OpenLaszlo is not the future...

joejohnson• 15 years ago

Can anyone say how this looks on the iPad?

inportb• 15 years ago

Is there something wrong with the iOS app?

calloc2• 15 years ago

Yes, doesn't let me pick my Quickmix stations (at least on the iPad). On the iPhone app you can change your Quickmix stations.

smackfu2• 15 years ago

Has anyone verified that they completely dropped Flash? AKA that it runs on a computer without Flash installed?

Pandora Drops Flash for HTML 5

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