Edible Apple

Engadget’s review of the Joo Joo tablet was anything but positive. In particular, the folks at Engadget took umbrage with the notion that Joo Joo’s support for Flash was enough to warrant calling it an iPad killer.

But what about Flash? This is supposed to be the big differentiator, right? The iPad killer! In an interesting move, Fusion Garage coupled the Atom processor with NVIDIA’s Ion graphics to aid in playing full screen Flash video (or for doing… something). Unfortunately, the software just isn’t there yet. Currently the device is running Flash 10.1 beta 1, and won’t have hardware-accelerated Flash video for a good while now (the timing is partly reliant on Adobe support, and is labelled as a “work in progress” by JooJoo). That means some regular-sized YouTube and Hulu works, as decoded by the CPU, but full screen Hulu is jittery, and a 720p YouTube clip is like watching a slideshow. In one of the biggest moves of irony, JooJoo has actually implemented a hack for YouTube where you can view a video in Flash or in “JooJoo” mode which is a straight playback of the MPEG video file every YouTube video harbors. What does this remind us of? HTML 5, albeit with a less elegant implementation.

Adobe, though, doesn’t wan’t Flash to be lumped in with a piece of crap like the Joo Joo, even going so far as to email Engadget to emphasize that Adobe has no working relationship with Joo Joo, as opposed to other hardware manufacturers, and that flash on the device should in no way be indicative of what Flash on mobile devices is capable of.

JooJoo has no direct relationship with Adobe and has not worked with us as other manufacturers have to ensure a great Flash experience. By attempting to use a public beta release designed only for desktop use, we’re not surprised by the lackluster performance and disappointing browsing experience.

Silicon and device platforms from companies who have worked with Adobe as part of the Open Screen Project are setting the bar for a great Flash experience on this exciting device category and we encourage you to check out devices from Dell, HP, Lenovo and other partners.