What You May and May Not Be Told!

pistolero

There are things you will be told when you buy a new android tablet. You will be told about its state of the art technology, that it has the latest Android system on board, that its lightning fast –it has mind blowing graphics and display etc. There may however also be things you won’t be told, i.e., if there is a software update – even a day after you buy it and the devise does not support it- tough luck.
Perhaps you already know this stuff – I didn't –so maybe this will be of assistance to anyone considering buying one of these expensive gadgets. You may also end up been told” you just don’t understand” like I was- in spite of telling the nice guy in ELARA where I had bought many items and would consider myself a "good customer", that I understood just fine- I just found it unacceptable that a function, all be it a third party function, would or could cease to work at anytime due to an update- rendering one of the functions- (Flash Player) out of date and not fixable by me because my relatively recent purchase “does not support the latest version”.
What I didn't understand was why this was not made clear at time of purchase but even more importantly why an expensive piece of equipment could not be serviced/updated to restore the function I bought and required, particularly as my device was only eight months old. Hopefully this information will assist someone considering a purchase to make an informed decision.

daytob

Sorry to hear about this, but should this not be in consumer issues?

Iseedeadpixels

If it flash you can download the apk and install manually

Kenny Logins

There's not a lot they can do if a third party app is no longer supported, or how they could predict this. Can you install it manually? Why do you need it?

http://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player/kb/installing-flash-player-android-devices.html

Atomic Pineapple

So the problem is that you bought a tablet, it updated to the latest version and the latest version no longer supports an outdated technology and you think ELARA are in some way responsible?

biko

Sorry to hear you're having trouble but tbh it's just the way technology works.
If you specify in this or another thread what device etc you have maybe we can help you with a workaround or a fix.

advertsfox

Flash was removed by Google for good reason, it was slow / buggy / battery and resource killer. Sites have moved on to either have dedicated video apps or HTML5 support. This is in no way Elara or anyone else's fault, it was a necessary removal IMO. If you need flash and have no other option, the APK (installer) is available.

pistolero

Hi Biko-thank you for the offer of help, I appreciate it- where should I post the problem I have- BTW- I am not very PC language savvy, would need any advice to be in pretty plain English.
As an aside:I did not say this was anyone's fault, I said there was a problem I had which I believe I should not have. I was simply told by ELARA it was not their problem, hard luck, which I believe is not good customer support. Had I been told that there is a fix, that it is not a problem and where I should go to get a solution/advise -I would have been satisfied. I think maybe some of the respondents to my post might have a vested interest.

Mantis Toboggan

pistolero wrote: »

Hi Biko-thank you for the offer of help, I appreciate it- where should I post the problem I have- BTW- I am not very PC language savvy, would need any advice to be in pretty plain English.
As an aside:I did not say this was anyone's fault, I said there was a problem I had which I believe I should not have. I was simply told by ELARA it was not their problem, hard luck, which I believe is not good customer support. Had I been told that there is a fix, that it is not a problem and where I should go to get a solution/advise -I would have been satisfied. I think maybe some of the respondents to my post might have a vested interest.

I get what your saying but flash support is very much dead in the water. It's like buying a laptop now and complaining that there's no floppy drive.

How did you encounter the problem?

Kenny Logins

pistolero wrote: »

I think maybe some of the respondents to my post might have a vested interest.

:rolleyes:

biko

There is no vested interest. It's just that technology moves at a very fast pace.
So what is it that you're trying to do but cannot? Watch youtube vids or something else? What web browser are you using?

projectgtr

pistolero wrote: »

I think maybe some of the respondents to my post might have a vested interest.

Just to make things clear i own Adobe so i might have a vested interest

What brand/model tablet is it? you may be able to download the flash player from another source and install it yourself, its pretty straight forward. TBH i lost flash ages ago, since the internet is moving away from it i dont even notice on my daily use of my phone/tablet. What do you need it for? Also i will admit id be in elaras side on this, they may not have explained it or dealt with it in the right manner but 3rd party support is most definitely out of their control

pistolero

Hi, thanks for offers of advise: appreciated.
Someone asked why I need Flash -to be honest, I am not even certain that I do, all I know is that I got an error message while trying to watch RTE player- it told me I need the latest version of Flash which my device does not support! I have no solution to this, hence the call.

(Flash was removed by Google for good reason, it was slow / buggy / battery and resource killer. Sites have moved on to either have dedicated video apps or HTML5 support. This is in no way Elara or anyone else's fault, it was a necessary removal IMO. If you need flash and have no other option, the APK (installer) is available.!!!
- I know this was posted as an offer to help me- but it means absolutely nothing to me- I have no idea what an APK installer, IMO or HTML5 is.)

My device is an ASUS tablet, model ME302C - android version 4.2.2.- Firmware version 51.31. I use the RTE Player App to watch the player and if I am using the internet I connect through Chrome.
If there is a fix- I would appreciate any help or advice.
Thank You.

Kenny Logins

The app should work regardless, although RTE Player isn't a very reliable service I find.

thesandeman

Yeah, the player should work but can be temperamental. As for browsing use Boat Browser. It's more video friendly than Chrome.

None of your problems are the fault of Elara.

daytob

An apk installer allows you to install an apk * or app from google. Not one that is on the play store. you can even check what the older version is and put that on. so say I am looking for facebook apk before it was updated to crap, I open google, put in facebook ver 6.7apk and i should be able to find this. Then I either put it in dropbox or put it on my sd card and install it using the apk installer. * no point in me telling you which one as there are loads out there.

Imo means in my opinion.

Html5 is the new coding for the internet, it means very little to you only you need to know you can play it, flash wouldnt work with apple products for some reason * dkdc ** thats dont know, dont care, and all you need is a browser that will open it. Most of the browsers * that you look up stuff on the internet with on your tablet should work. If one doesnt work then try another one.
cm browswer
opera
firefox
chrome
there are loads to try.

You can also select in the play store not to update any apps, this will solve your problem. * settings click auto update apps to switch off.
hope this helps

pistolero

Hi,thanks for the detailed reply,appreciate the explanations. I am assuming if I use the internet browser rather than the app the videos should/might play or to download an app outside the playstore which could solve issue,will give it a shot. Cheers and thanks.

pistolero

Hi,thanks for the detailed reply,appreciate the explanations. I am assuming if I use the internet browser rather than the app the videos should/might play or to download an app outside the playstore which could solve issue,will give it a shot. Cheers and thanks.

sentient_6

Hey OP, i don't have flash installed on my android system(latest cyanogenmod on s4), player wouldn't work through chrome there, got the prompt for flash, but downloaded the app and its plays away fine, which would suggested its not a flash issue re the app that your seeing.

pistolero

Hi- Thanks for responding- What does "prompt for Flash" mean - is that the error message?

long_b

Also, it may or may not work with your kid's toys which have Android Play Store stickers (eg Furby, Skylanders Trap Team).

sentient_6

pistolero wrote: »

Hi- Thanks for responding- What does "prompt for Flash" mean - is that the error message?

pistolero

long_b wrote: »

Also, it may or may not work with your kid's toys which have Android Play Store stickers (eg Furby, Skylanders Trap Team).

Not sure if this was intended to be witty, funny or helpful-failed on all counts I'm afraid.

long_b

pistolero wrote: »

Not sure if this was intended to be witty, funny or helpful-failed on all counts I'm afraid.

Helpful. Fair play for volunteering to quality control posts though - good luck with that.

For Skylanders Trap Team the Android compatibility list is just

Kindle Fire HDX, the Samsung Galaxy Tab Pro, the Tab S, the Note 10.1 (2014) and the Note Pro 12

My point being that developers may or may not support your recently purchased Android tablet, even if it's from a major manufacturer (eg Samsung Galaxy Tab 4)

Iseedeadpixels

Im so confused now :pac:

D'Peoples Voice

pistolero wrote: »

I just found it unacceptable that a function, all be it a third party function, would or could cease to work at anytime due to an update- rendering one of the functions- (Flash Player) out of date and not fixable by me because my relatively recent purchase “does not support the latest version”.

Grab a cup of tea......
From my understanding Flash is a container of files (like Microsoft Silverlight and so on).
If you purchase Adobe Photoshop, you could take any picture, and use the proprietary Photoshop tool to animate different parts of the picture. You can do the same for video with adverts overlaying it etc. Photoshop does all the behind the scenes programming code for you, and then is exports it out as a FLV or SWF file format.
You don't need to be a computer programmer!!
This FLV file can then be played on any browser on any operating system. But to get it to work on any browser on any operating system, it needed shall we say its own container and to run all the programs within that container, it needed Adobe flash player, so it wasn't depending on the hardware etc to play the files. But this player could be very demanding on the computer processor.
Firefox and Opera tried to move the internet community away towards HTML back around 2002 if i recollect correctly, it certainly feels that long ago. The community laughed, computer games were becoming more popular, and having Flash write all the programming code for the animations was too easy. Why would you want to use HTML and spends hours programming yourself, and then having to make allowances for different browsers interpreting code differently. Never going to happen we thought.

But then came mobile devices, with processing power a lot smaller than PCs, flash was just killed the damn processor speed. It was never originally designed to run on such small processors.
To make matters worse, Flash being a container, meant you didn't know what the hell was in the container. Low and behold, there were reports of viruses/malware being hidden in the container.
For mobile, Apple said that unless Adobe could get it to work on the small processing power of a mobile, and guarantee its security, forget it. Soon after, Android followed. Apple have their own version of flash player plugin for Safari, as does Chrome with its pepper flash plugin for Chrome, both of which though work for the pc, not for mobile. To the best of my knowledge, this allows them to quarantine the flash files being played - but i'm open to correction on that.

So, what is happening for mobile, browsers have greatly improved in their HTML code, and many of them can interpret HTML5 programs. But we are not there yet in terms of having all the features of HTML5 incorporated into browsers. Last I heard, Chrome was leading the race from Firefox (which i find difficult to believe), then Safari, Opera and Internet Explorer.

In HTML5, two containers are used - browsers like Safari and Internet Explorer use the MP4 container, which typically has H264(soon H265 video) and AAC(possibly MP3)audio. These file formats are proprietary and require the "distributor" (person uploading the video to youtube/facebook etc) to pay money to the MPEGLA.
Other browsers such as Chrome, Opera and Firefox use the webm container which holds the Vp9(was vp8) video and Vorbis/ogg audio. Neither of which require a licence for the video distributor. If you go to youtube in Chrome, right click on the video, choose "Stats for Nerds" and it should tell you that you are playing Vp9.
Disclaimer: I'm purposely omitting Firefox and Daala right now as it just confuses the issue further.

Though some legacy videos are still in flash - but every video, regardless of format, that is uploaded on youtube is automatically converted to vp9, so that soon in time, you will not need a flash player if you are using Chrome, Opera or Firefox.

As for RTE still using Flash. I believe its due to copyright problems. Yes Netflix and Google earlier this year could get DRM working in HTML5 browsers, but RTE don't have the resources of Netflix. So, for them, rather than programming in HTML5 with DRM, I guess its easier for RTE to use Adobe and let it do the programing of the code for them. For many makers of computer games, the cost is simply prohibitive right now to try and program a game in HTML5, and given that all the browsers are still perfecting their code, they are staying with flash as long as they can.

So, in summary, the fault does not lie with Android, it is an issue with internet browsers and their plugins. Chrome are hoping to phase out all plugins later this year - even on the PC.

But I for one will miss Flash, a movie in Flash took up about half the space of a movie in MP4 or even Webm containers. Great for saving space on your mobile device.

The_B_Man

I dont use RTE Player much, but doesnt the RTE Player Android app stream directly, so theres no need for flash?
Is there a reason people would use the mobile site instead of the standalone app??

pistolero

Wow- that was some reply from Peoples Voice- way over my head I'm afraid but pretty certain will be a help to many. Thanks to everyone who tried to help me-I was never trying to QC anything, I just know if I ever come across an issue here that I feel I can help with I will, otherwise I will leave it alone. Cheers.