Flash Player Product Manager Thibault Imbert reports on his blog that Flash Player 10.1.82.76, containing H.264 GPU Decoding, has been pushed as the official current version of the Flash Player.
This feature has been about two years in coming and helps bring Mac users up to par with PC users of Flash. While there's been no official word from Apple on this, this advancement might represent a much-needed thaw in the relationship between Adobe and Apple, as Steve Jobs cited poor Flash Player performance as one of the reasons he won't allow it on the iPod, iPhone and iPad device line, but had also previously denied Adobe access to the MacBook and iMac GPU.
This change was made possible by a new C programming interface that Apple made available in OS X 10.6.3 and that Adobe had been asking for for a while. John Gruber / Daring Fireball has a good synopsis on the new Apple API and the background situation.
The change should be available on the official flash player site soon. If you're a mac user with 10.6.3 or above, get it now and hear your fans no more.
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