Flash 9 player released. Evidently Superman Returns, too.

Flash has released a beta version of their new player, version 9 to the masses … (which comes pretty quick after version 8, which is currently just below 70 percent penetration).

Regarding the news, I think Theodore E. Patrick, Flex Evangelist for Adobe Systems, summed up the news best:

I have watched the release of 7 versions of Flash Players but somehow Player 9 is a wildly different release. This release adds AS3 support, a JIT compiler, and a wildly improved AS3 API. FP9 is very advanced and yet remains smaller than 1.2MB.

Making things fast and small is not very easy. To think that Flash Player 9 includes a JIT compiler that emits X86 and PPC native machine code from AS3 bytecode is simply incredible. It is a true accomplishment for the Flash Player Engineering Team at Adobe and will revolutionize applications and the Internet.

I believe this release is a change in direction for Flash Player. It is a sneak attack as it arms the innocent graphical Flash Player with a real class based programming language capable amazing things. Combined with rich vector graphics and pixel perfect text, we will see a new class of application emerge.

Indeed.

Did you like this post? You may like these also:

1. Flash your cell phone
2. Flash fun, ONA finalists, user experience and findability
3. New slideshow app; Craigslist ads more paid jobs; Flash website design; A couple redesigns and new products; MySpace hits a mid-life crisis; AccuWeather bats it’s eyelashes at you