Adobe released Flash Player 10.1 for Mac OS X late Thursday with hardware-based video and rendering support and HTTP Dynamic Streaming support.
The update takes advantage of Mac OS X’s OpenGL feature for better full screen playback, along with Core Animation for improved rendering performance. According to Paul Betlem from Adobe’s Flash team, “For Macs running OS X 10.6 or greater, we leverage the hardware acceleration in Core Animation to dramatically improve the efficiency of displaying web pages which combine both SWF and HTML content.”
He added “The overall performance improvements of Flash Player for Mac users will result in faster video playback, more efficient CPU utilization, and greater battery life.”
Version 10.1 also added a Privacy Mode that honors Web browser privacy settings and doesn’t cache Web page content, peer-assisted multicast support, and two-finger tap, scroll, pinch, scale and rotate multi-touch support.
Hardware-based acceleration for H.264 content is promised in a future update for Flash Player 10.1, but Mac users willing to risk stability issues can check out a preview at the Adobe Labs Web site.
Flash Player 10.1 is available as a free download at the Adobe Web site.
[This article has been updated with additional information about Flash Player 10.1]