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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.
Oh, I'm sorry, I though this was an argument. I'm in abuse. Terribly sorry about that.
What can you do with Flash that you can't do with html5?
Tie yourself to a vendor
Is chumming the waters now a prerequisite before jumping the shark?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Presumably, if Adobe doesn't establish Flash as a cross-platform dev environment for mobiles, then Microsoft will manage to foist Silverlight as it's own bloated slow lane for mobile devices. And the same devs that give us IE-only web apps will start producing Silverlight-only stuff for mobiles.
Now maybe Miguel would disagree, but I think it's better to have a truly cross-platform bloated enviroment than to have a single-platform bloated environment (I assume Silverlight/Mono is at least close to Flash in bloat). Sure, I'd take streamlined before bloat, but cross-platform trumps streamlined.
By the way, aren't Android apps based on Java? Since when is that a paragon of efficiency? Or does Google use some kind of 'compiled to machine code' Java variant? Likewise WebOS apps - aren't they largely Javascript? Who said mobile device platforms weren't bloated already?
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
Except for the Adobe part.
And that Flash thing.
What can you do with Flash that you can't do with html5? Have your application run across many mobile devices, if Adobe has their way.
There is no technical reason that we can't have an open source, widely accepted standard for displaying animations and multimedia content over the web. We don't need a proprietary application such as Flash any more than we need one for displaying HTML.
However, Adobe has a lot of momentum and clout. Meanwhile, the browser developers can't even agree on a single standard for embedded video. The "Open" Screen Project is a big push to extend the life of a closed source, locked down technology. If most mobile devices support Flash, and html5 support is spotty, most developers will use Flash. If most developers use Flash, most mobile device makers won't be too concerned about fully implementing html5.
We have an opportunity right now to see html5 and other open standards take hold, but it is also an opportunity for Adobe to extend their grasp. I hope that real openness wins.
Forgive me if I don't trust a company that can't write a plug-in that will give me less than 80% CPU usage (480p) on my brand new Macbook Pro. The Linux and Windows version are also glacially slow, and resource hogs. Frankly I want less Flash, not more. If Adobe can't get their shit together on the 2nd largest OS platform, how the hell are they going to get it working well on a teeny mobile ARM core?
In before lasers
...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.
Flex. The Flash platform is split into 3 camps right now, Video, Entertainment, and application development. HTML5 really only threatens the video category, but HTML5 doesn't offer the solutions needed to accomplish the fun promotional websites like you see for video game or movie websites, nor does it offer the framework and debugging support needed for rich application development like Flex. Building high quality and reliable applications in DOM and javascript only can be a torturous proposition.
There is no technical reason that we can't have an open source, widely accepted standard for displaying animations and multimedia content over the web.
Good post, but the most important factor isn't even a "technical" issue.
Flash's real strength is on the content-creation side, and the fact that most Flash is generated by "designers" not "developers". All the HTML5 specs in the world won't displace Flash if they require a team of Javascript/SVG gurus to use. There needs to be designer software on the same level as Flash, and that's not a trivial problem.
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.