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Decoding Adobe's Big Device Push
nerdyH writes "Adobe yesterday chummed the waters around Flash and AIR as cross-platform app dev environments for mobile devices. It promised runtimes for several popular mobile OSes, including WinMo, Symbian, Palm webOS, and Android, with future RIM/Blackberry support hinted as well. Moreover, it reiterated its commitment to the Open Screen Project, an Adobe-led industry group that, if you deconstruct its name and look at its membership roster, appears tactically focused on enabling hardware acceleration of Flash/AIR on devices, as part of a larger strategy of making the runtimes ubiquitous as UI development frameworks for essentially every computer-like device with a user interface."
With HTML5's video, audio and canvas elements, there will be less and less need for Flash in the future on the web. It seems like Adobe is realizing this as well and has decided to move the focus of Flash from mere embedded objects on web pages to a way of easily creating full, rich and cross-platform applications for both PC's and phones.
This coiuld work out pretty well for them in the end. I must admit clicking a game together using Flash and publishing it to every major platform sounds more attractive than the more traditional ways of developing software, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who's thinking this.
Pretty good is actually pretty bad.
...they will learn something from squeezing Flash onto these embedded devices that can be used to help make the desktop edition less resource intensive.
Certain projects shouldn't fork. Sun wouldn't open up Java for the longest time, because they didn't want forks of Java, and they didn't want to repeat what they went through with Microsoft.
I propose a new license that operates on a few basic principles.
1 - You can redistribute and modify the source code.
2 - You may compile the original source code, and even compile modified versions for personal use.
3 - You may not redistribute modified binaries.
In this scenario, users can compile themselves, test, fix bugs, write patches, etc. They can submit patches upstream, but upstream still largely controls the project and prevents major forks. You would still attract community developers.
I think a license like this would work well for Flash.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
I could be wrong, but..
Unity3d.com is probably doing what Adobe plans to already, except they're using .NET. Cross-compiling code into real iPhone applications. I haven't dug too deeply into how Unity3d is doing it, but it seems pretty clear -- you can write your code in .NET with some pseudo-alternative languages like 'Boo' (python), and it makes you a nice iPhone binary that'll pass Apple's deployment criteria.
Considering Adobe has the time, money, and smarts to do it, don't be surprised when their 'Program Actionscript for the Iphone!' system is a very tightly defined API coupled with the iPhone framework that is cross-compiling..
Before I gave up on Perl, the assertion that Parrot would be some fancy answer to everyone's programming problems by allowing you to program in any language you wanted. I somewhat scoffed at the idea, but more recently as I've been working with ARM processors and doing a lot of cross-compiling work I can understand why it's an important idea that will soon be second nature to us.
If I could buy stock in Unity3D right now I would, because those guys nailed it. They just need to scale up and out of just the 3d game market.
...and Adobe claimed they would have flash on Android this Fall.
October is here. Now they say next year.
I am not hopeful that they can get flash on Android. Possibly they are waiting for better devices so they don't have to shoehorn it into the G1, which could use more RAM, but it is what it is.
In fact, I predict, no Flash for the G1 ever. And many of the other platforms as well. Adoby wants to FUD the developers and keep HTML5 on the shelf as long as possible, since stuff like Canvas will pretty much eat their lunch and dinner if they don't watch out.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Actually, I'm not so sure that making a good IDE for something that supports nearly the same as flash does for html5 and js WOULD be that big a problem. I used to develop in flash a great deal 3 years ago, but I have been doing web programming since then. (mostly php, mysql, but I am really good with javascript as well)
I don't see why, with all the capability we ALREADY have with javascript and html5, couldn't make an IDE for making similar content in a application that is browser/web based and is nearly 100% html5 and javascript (python/php/ruby would be needed some I'm thinking). If one were to develop a good api for frame-based animation using javascript and html5, why then couldn't html5 and javascript form a good ide interface and "compiling"(scripting language needed here) the necessary javascript/html5 to make your content run?
Would a javascript API be as nice as flashes? no, probably not...as actionscript is actually a decent OOP language in many respects (yes javascript can be OOP, but it's just not the same/equivalent). Do I think the results could be as nice? With some good backing and committed development, possibly. Do I see any reason an IDE as rich as flash's couldn't be developed using html5, js, and maybe some other scripting language like python/php/ruby? No, not really. So, really, if I'm right (most likely I'm not), the only thing holding JS and html5 back is lack of will/means to compete head to head with adobe.
Call me out if I'm wrong...but I think it could be done. (and if anyone wants to hire my help, contact me...heh)