Adobe Retracts Claim Suggesting Lion May Lack Support for Flash Hardware Acceleration

flash player installerEarlier today, Adobe made waves with a statement in a tech note outlining issues with Adobe products running on OS X Lion by claiming that Lion may have dropped support for hardware acceleration of Flash Player content.

Adobe has now issued a correction retracting that statement and noting that OS X Lion does in fact offer the same level of hardware acceleration as found in Mac OS X Snow Leopard.

The final release of Mac OS X Lion (10.7) provides the same support for Flash hardware video acceleration as Mac OS X Snow Leopard (10.6). The previous "Known Issue" described in a tech note suggesting that video hardware acceleration was disabled in Lion was incorrect and based on tests with a pre-release version of Mac OS X Lion that related to only one particular Mac GPU configuration.

Adobe notes that it continues to "work closely" with Apple on bringing a high quality Flash experience to Mac users. Apple has, however, famously tried to distance itself from Flash, opting not to include any Flash support on its iOS devices and dropping pre-installed Flash Player from its Mac machines. Apple has instead advised Mac users to download Flash Player themselves if they wish to have it installed, thereby ensuring that they are immediately running the most recent version of the software.

Popular Stories

wwdc sans text feature

Apple Rumored to Announce New Product on February 19

Thursday February 5, 2026 12:22 pm PST by
Apple plans to announce the iPhone 17e on Thursday, February 19, according to Macwelt, the German equivalent of Macworld. The report, citing industry sources, is available in English on Macworld. Apple announced the iPhone 16e on Wednesday, February 19 last year, so the iPhone 17e would be unveiled exactly one year later if this rumor is accurate. It is quite uncommon for Apple to unveil...
Apple Logo Zoomed

Tim Cook Teases Plans for Apple's Upcoming 50th Anniversary

Thursday February 5, 2026 12:54 pm PST by
Apple turns 50 this year, and its CEO Tim Cook has promised to celebrate the milestone. The big day falls on April 1, 2026. "I've been unusually reflective lately about Apple because we have been working on what do we do to mark this moment," Cook told employees today, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. "When you really stop and pause and think about the last 50 years, it makes your heart ...
Finder Siri Feature

Why Apple's iOS 26.4 Siri Upgrade Will Be Bigger Than Originally Promised

Friday February 6, 2026 3:06 pm PST by
In the iOS 26.4 update that's coming this spring, Apple will introduce a new version of Siri that's going to overhaul how we interact with the personal assistant and what it's able to do. The iOS 26.4 version of Siri won't work like ChatGPT or Claude, but it will rely on large language models (LLMs) and has been updated from the ground up. Upgraded Architecture The next-generation...
maxresdefault

Apple Shows Off a Key Reason to Upgrade to the iPhone 17

Saturday February 7, 2026 9:26 am PST by
Apple today shared an ad that shows how the upgraded Center Stage front camera on the latest iPhones improves the process of taking a group selfie. "Watch how the new front facing camera on iPhone 17 Pro takes group selfies that automatically expand and rotate as more people come into frame," says Apple. While the ad is focused on the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max, the regular iPhone...
iOS 26

iOS 26.3 and iOS 26.4 Will Add These New Features to Your iPhone

Tuesday February 3, 2026 7:47 am PST by
While the iOS 26.3 Release Candidate is now available ahead of a public release, the first iOS 26.4 beta is likely still at least a week away. Following beta testing, iOS 26.4 will likely be released to the general public in March or April. Below, we have recapped known or rumored iOS 26.3 and iOS 26.4 features so far. iOS 26.3 iPhone to Android Transfer Tool iOS 26.3 makes it easier...

Top Rated Comments

addicted44 Avatar
190 months ago
WTF Adobe?

How in the world were they not sure whether hardware acceleration worked or not. it's like they downloaded Lion along with the rest of us.

P.S. Will be hilarious to see all this people bashing apple in the last thread respond here.
Score: 41 Votes (Like | Disagree)
wordoflife Avatar
190 months ago
Adobe has made themselves look like fools.
The betas for Lion have been out for a while.
Score: 40 Votes (Like | Disagree)
RobBookPro Avatar
190 months ago
So in other words, adobe spent more time writing the tech note then investigating the issue. Yep, sounds like adobe.
Score: 34 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Mac-Mariachi Avatar
190 months ago
no flash is The reason I won't buy an iPad

No flash IS the reason why I bought an iPad... well not exactly but I don´t miss it at all.
Score: 33 Votes (Like | Disagree)
John.B Avatar
190 months ago
Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen continues to blame everyone but Adobe themselves for Flash's craptacular performance. Even then, they don't retract what they claimed until people dug into Lion and Flash and proved Narayen was lying.
Score: 33 Votes (Like | Disagree)
dancogswell Avatar
190 months ago
Adobe, you're a ship without a rudder. Get your feces assembled.
Score: 28 Votes (Like | Disagree)