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Adobe Not Worried About the Future of Flash
An anonymous reader writes "Adobe company man John Dowdell isn't worried about the future of Flash. He writes in his company blog, 'There's really no "HTML vs Flash" war. There are sure people inciting to create such a war, and individual developers may have strong practical reasons to choose one technology over another, but at corporate levels that drive strategy, all delivery channels are important Adobe territory, whether SWF or HTML or video or documents or paper or ebook or e-mag or film or packaging or whatever. Adobe profits by making it easier for creatives to reach their audiences. We're on the verge of a disruptive change that, I think, will dwarf that of the World Wide Web fifteen years ago. It was great back then when any wealthy person with a workstation in a wired environment could easily reach any creative's webpage. With these cheaper devices we'll be reaching far more people, and with pocket devices we'll be reaching them throughout the day instead of just when "logged-on." The WWW was merely a pale precursor of the excitement we're going to see, I think.' It's interesting to note that he talks about the World Wide Web in the past tense. I find it instructive as to Adobe's perspective. Personally, I'm not worried about the future of Flash either. I don't think it has one."
Personally, I'm not worried about the future of Flash either. I don't think it has one.
Except that it's pain in the ass to create Flash-like games with HTML5. You have to use all kinds of hacks to accomplish that, while designers and Flash game creators are familiar and love Flash authoring tools.
Flash isn't just about video, even if it's the most talked part of it here on slashdot.
True, because one more or less works and one doesn't.
Flash is out of luck with Steve Jobs.
"We're on the verge of a disruptive change that, I think, will dwarf that of the World Wide Web "
[Presumably referring to mobile devices]
Well, maybe. But what is the role of Flash and other Adobe stuff in this presumed new mobile revolution?
I'm confused.
Unless, of course, he's talking complete crap...
Heavy and either reliant on a browser or stuck in a walled garden, Flash really doesn't have any fully realizable use.
Let's say it is provided as a plug-in on an embedded device. That means that a browser is already necessary, it being embedded, it's probably going to be based on Webkit, and thus it will have extraordinary support for HTML5 and all those goodies. With Youtube being the benchmark Flash site, its migration to HTML5-based content will take away Adobe's claim to rights in this area.
On the other hand, as a UI solution, it provides an interesting mix of high-end functionality and high memory usage. While it may be quite capable to provide a great UI, the cost on the hardware side, plus the high cost of Flash Lite licenses makes it really difficult to justify.
Flash as it is today is done. And the open licensing "program" they've got running is first an foremost their last attempt to try to retain customers. What's more, the OpenScreen project isn't as "open" as they make it out to be, with incredibly strange restrictions that no OEM with anything to lose would be willing to sign on to.
Seriously, do they think that any piece of crap content delivery system (to use their buzzwords against them) will supplant webpages? I just find it unbelievably arrogant for them to think that people will abandon a mature, (somewhat) stable system to use whatever crazy stuff they're cooking up.
Yet Another Tech Blog
(but so much more, including game and movie reviews)
http://yanteb.peasantoid.org
It'll take a while, because IE 9 doesn't support XP, but it'll happen. Flash dies once XP dies.
Microsoft would like to fully control the interfaces, but when they fail at that they'd at least like to stop any other company from controlling the interfaces. Microsoft will settle for open standards as required to kill things like flash.
We can thank Adobe for IE 9 getting SVG and HTML 5 video support.
then release Flash for the G1 already.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Once someone ports Badgers to HTML5 Canvas, then it'll be safe to put Flash to sleep.
Who cares if your browser games are in flash or HTML5? Or if video is flash or HTML5?
I only how fast the video loads, and how responsive the games are. And from my testing of YouTube's HTML5, HTML5 loads faster and smoother than flash.
It's the typical think of broadcast media. It's the think of bombings:
It was great back then when any wealthy person with a workstation in a wired environment could easily reach any creative's webpage. With these cheaper devices we'll be reaching far more people, and with pocket devices we'll be reaching them throughout the day instead of just when "logged-on." The WWW was merely a pale precursor of the excitement we're going to see
I don't care about your droppings reaching me, whatever you think that means. For me, the Internet is a means of communicating with my peers. Go away.
Perhaps I'm out of touch with technews but...
youtube.com. beatport.com newgrounds.com etc. There are still very valid markets for flash out there.
Says it all...
Smivs on the intertubes!
When you have to explain that you're not scared about a trend that could hurt your product, it means you ARE scared of the trend. :-)
Like there is to block flash.
I do not want any video type stream to load when i am going to a web page until I have made the decision to watch it.
That is not an anti flash statement because I do make the choice to watch a lot of flash. But it is at my discretion and not the web page designers.
If it wasn't for flash block, I would spend all day waiting for news sites to load instead of actually reading the news. I hardly ever watch the flash on those types of sites, and they are probably the worse offenders of loading up the crap flash. Now other sites, which by the nature of the site presents its content via flash. yes, I do watch it. But, only after I have clicked the specific flash object I want.
Anonymous comments are as pathetic as the anonymous "sources" that contaminate gutless journalism from the New York Time
When you really look at it, there's no reason that Adobe shouldn't embrace HTML 5. Fundamentally, maintaining a cross-platform plug-in is not a profit center for them, it's a cost. They don't make money on the plug-ins, they make money on the Creative Suite product which allows designers to create animations, games, and the like easily. All this work of maintaining their own actionscript standards and standard library just serves to make their pay products more useful.
Imagine for a moment that at some time in the near future, Adobe has a new option on the menu "Export to HTML5". Would this make their product less useful? Of course not. Widespread adoption of HTML 5 means that their product can now be used to create content for even more devices, including several, like the iPhone, from which they have previously been locked out. And it wouldn't even be surprising if over time they transitioned entirely to HTML 5, giving up the work involved in maintaining Flash. They probably won't do this in the short run, but in the long run, it's entirely plausible.
I'm sure some people will point out that the move to HTML 5 opens them up to more competitors, and it does. But they've already got competitors even with the Flash ecosystem. There are a variety of ways to make swfs, including swftools, FlashDevelop, and the free Actionscript compiler which Adobe itself released as part of the Flex SDK. There are even a few other pay products out there. So, essentially, they already are in a market where there are a bunch of other tools which are cheaper but either can't produce complex content or require a bunch of coding to produce similar content. If they switch over to HTML5, they will likely be in the same boat, just in a bigger lake. Sure they'll be competing with DreamWeaver or whoever, but they'll have a clear and immediate advantage when it comes to "Flash-like" stuff such as animations and games.
So in summary, if they manage the transition properly, moving towards HTML5 means less costs and a bigger market. That sounds to me like a pretty clear win.
Right. But what will I do to get my Windows system infected, if I remove Flash? Are there other software products that can help in the absence of Flash?
Here's how it will go down: "Flash CS4 - Now with HTML5!"
They will fall back on their design environment to create HTML 5 compliant applications and continue to sell to the more design-oriented customer. So of course they aren't worried. They'll just use HTML 5 output and sell to their already established base.
What is this guy smoking?
and with pocket devices we'll be reaching them throughout the day instead of just when "logged-on
Oh, you will, huh? And they aren't the least bit worried about establishing themselves in an entire market and hardware paradigm in which they have no influence or foothold in whatsoever? (And no, using Actionscript as a compiler language to build native iPhone apps doesn't count.)
Better known as 318230.
The web is still in its infancy so the technologies involved with it - especially those for publishing on it - are still developing and constantly changing. Roughly every three to four years, many "technologies" which were previously thought to be "standard" begin to shows signs of age and start to fall from grace. Flash has had a long run, considering how rapidly things are constantly changing but, like pretty much everything involved with the internet at this stage, it is now fading from grace. Other alternatives are beginning to rise which have specifically targeted Flash's weaknesses. And, in a handful of years, they'll be replaced as something new steps up.
The internet is still young and evolving and it will be some time (decades) before it really settles down and true standards establish themselves.
I find his comment about Adobe wanting to be involved in getting creative ideas out there - be it on the internet or paper or whatever - to be a promising sign. It _appears_ Adobe is well-aware that things are going to change and their only chance is to roll with the punches and evolve when needed. Time, of course, will tell if they put their money where their mouths are...
I remember when I first saw the WWW in action back in Spring of '94. It was a Meyers-Briggs test you took with radio-buttons, perhaps the UR-ancestor of quizilla in a'borning. My immediate reaction was, "Cool. It's like gopher with inline graphics and mouse navigation. Damn shame it's so slow."
What we do on the web today bears little resemblance to Web 1.0, and the HTML5/ubiquitous-fast-wilreless/cheap-netbooks&spart-phones future will wander even farther. While I think his turn of phrase was marketing spin, the ripple affects of a number of enabling trends and technologies of the past decade continue to coalesce in new ways; both forseen and unforseen.
YYEEEEEAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!
Now other sites, which by the nature of the site presents its content via flash. yes, I do watch it. But, only after I have clicked the specific flash object I want.
By which to say you mean porn sites?
I doubt .fla will ever die. Adobe can change the output file to html5+js when it is mature enough. It's the authoring software that they make the most money on and not the players.
Whenever I'm handed mod-points, the FAQ is quick to point out that I should not mod posts based on my opinion, in fact, I should be as impartial as possible. Considering the submitter's opinion is blatant to see, I'll just go and brazenly smash my point of view into his open-source skull. His, and everyone else's who think that Flash has everything to do with you-tube, and nothing to do with artistic license:
The submitter is a cretin. An arrogant fool. He or she probably thinks that HTML5 is the be-all and end-all of browser programming, and has wet dreams about Javascript one day pulling off something more complicated than a fade in/fade out effect. Flash exists because there is a gap between making disgusting prefabbed square forms, and fluid, interesting and deeply creative content; Something that tells your customers and competitors "hey, we have style!". Yes, it is possible to commit atrocities with Flash, but don't blame Adobe for that, the next time you see someone using AS1/2, tell them to use Flex instead.
Flash makes the web interesting, it's what powers the little widgets you find on the sides of blogs, it's what makes the Most Interesting Man in the World interesting, it's what lets me tell the designers "yes! I can render our company's portfolio in 3D". It lets people do stupid little games and animations that make things interesting. So, until one of your open source tree humping hippy tossers makes something as extensible, easy to use and creativity empowering as Flash, well, I'm sorry but Flash is going to be here to stay. Because let's face it, not everyone browses the web through Steve Job's little slab of crap.
Perhaps someone at Adobe was told they have a golden opportunity to be a major player in the future of multimedia distribution. That someone probably doesn't want to see a decentralized or open multimedia distribution framework, and they would make sure Adobe has the opportunity to bring it to fruition themselves and be very profitable while they do it.
This long list of people who have a financial and power interest in the outcome of this little world; what they fail to see is that their customers and the artists are both used to getting things for free and the technology is only a placeholder for the culture. As soon as the technology is not capable of supporting it, they will find something else that will. Adobe is going to find that they didn't sell a multimedia format, they sold a SDK (Flash Pro, iirc) that offered the cheapest way for artists to work. When I say "sold" I mean provided to the market in one way or another.
I'm sure what will happen is Adobe will try to leverage their existing technologies to create a rights management framework on top or alongside the multimedia framework, something that will pay artists and charge customers. Most artists will find that not enough people are going to pay to play or not enough to pay for their investment. Adobe will be able to enforce use of their SDK using this rights management framework and will find soon afterward that artists can't pay either. With little customers left and a large number of artists looking for something to play with, I think you'll find that there will be plenty of people willing to create an artist friendly SDK on top of HTML5 that doesn't offer Adobe's DRM "services". Adobe will not be able to pay for the development of the monstrosity Flash will become when trying to mix security, super-DRM, other non-customer requested features, cross-platform support and a friendly UI.
Adobe doesn't give a rat's ass if everyone switches to HTML5 overnight. They will eventually have native HTML5 support within their Flash authoring tools, allowing content creators to export a Flash SWF, an HTML5 microsite, an AIR app etc. Flash player licensing revenue is insignificant compared to Creative Suite software revenues--as long as Adobe owns the authoring tools they'll continue to do well.
I couldn't care less what new gizmos and glitz the web has ... what I care about is that if I create apps, just like documents and databases, I want to still be able to access and use them 20 or 40 years from now without recoding and reformatting them. The gold rush is over. What I want now is bulletproof base of archival-quality standards, not ones that reinvent themselves every product cycle.
PERTAMAX!!!
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Flash will probably be flash's replacement. As a programmer I used curse every time I opened the flash app to program in that lousy IDE. Now I curse far less with Flex. But much of the cool stuff seems to be missing or hard to get in Flex. Thus the way forward is simple. Improve Flex and I, as a programmer, will be content. And for all the HTML5 screamers out there; keep in mind that I still have to check to see if my stuff works in IE6. I hate IE6 and my stuff works like crap in it but I am not about to toss a chunk of my users/revenue into the toilet. So it will be a very long time before I can even consider using any HTML5 coolness. And by then it will be HTML6. The bit that works best in IE6... flash.
Will not miss Flash, eventually all of its capabilities will be replaced with open standard / open implementation efforts. Really waiting for that time.
Some of my projects with BellTV were about removing Flash components from the site, everything that was done in Flash was changed to Javascript + DOM manipulation + some images.
Once Youtube is in HTML5, I will never have to use Flash again ever in my life.
You can't handle the truth.
I'm fairly certain that refering to 'reaching creatives' qualifies you for immediate douchehood.
Personally, I'm not worried about the future of Flash either. I don't think it has one.
Great, Dad and I will dump those shares today. (Way to rally the investors!)
First, look at how long it took before CSS 2 became supported widely enough on browsers so that web developers could actually make use of it. That's probably about how long it'll take before HTML 5 becomes widely supported enough to be able to challenge Flash.
Next, consider how many flash objects have been built already, and recognize that they're most likely not going away.
While you're at it, consider how many sites are built out of HTML 4 or XHTML 1.x, and consider that many if not most of these are not going away either, but may still need to deliver a flash-like experience.
So, maybe in 20-25 years?
Keep in mind, too, that as long as the W3C continues to advance the standards at the glacial pace that they have been, that it will leave the door open for proprietary solutions that do more to supplant the open standards. W3C runs a serious risk of becoming irrelevant if they are not able to provide progress on the open standards that we rely upon for the open WWW. If Flash or, gob forbid, Silverlight eats their lunch, it'll only be because they failed to get there in a reasonable amount of time, and developers got sick of waiting around to build the next generation web.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
...you insensitive clod!
It sounds a lot like scientology propoganda. Didn't LRon claim that actors, writers, and artists are 'special' because they create worlds? This Adobe employee sounds like a scientologist trying to help creative (i.e. 'special') people become 'clears.'
Not seeing what the conflict is. HTML5 is nothing compared to Flash Builder for web apps and Flash is not what you want to use for web pages. Despite stupid people trying.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
If posting H.264 files on the Web can get you in trouble, you're also going to be in trouble for posting H.264 files via a Flash video player.
The whole argument against H.264 is pointless because Flash or HTML5, you're going to be using H.264 anyway. And before anyone says "Theora" (or Windows Media or something similarly pointless), you can't install plug-ins on most cellphones and portable devices. And even if you could, you'd be bypassing the built-in hardware to play H.264 and depleting the battery life by doing video decoding via the main CPU.
So, aside from video, Flash is only used for games. And regular websites aren't games, if you're doing your navigation menu in Flash you're doing it wrong (indexability, accessibility, multiple platform access, etc).
Getting rid of flash completely will finally allow 64 bit web browsers to take off. It's only the need for flash that has held back most users from going fully 64 bit. Sure, Adobe have an alpha 64 bit linux version of the flash plugin availabe for quite a while now, they just never seemed to port it to any other platform.
Company employee defends company product! The internets staggered! Anarchy in the streets!
Youtube is flash.
get your mind out of the gutter.
I also watch bowling ball reviews for purchase's. Damn, again it's flash.
Again. Get your mind out of the gutter.
Wait, I like some of the trivia games that I find online. Mindless games are a good thing some times. Oh, I'm sorry. I am on slashdot. Your above that.
Again, get your mind out of the gutter.
asshole, oops. You consider that porn.
Anonymous comments are as pathetic as the anonymous "sources" that contaminate gutless journalism from the New York Time
IE6?
Free Martian Whores!
It surprises me that in all of the discussions about how HTML5 is going to murder Flash, the one thing that everyone overlooks is the exact reason why Flash continues to be popular - Cross-browser consistency.
I mean, right now, you cannot expect any of the five browsers to display CSS2 consistently, and that spec has been around since 1998. Why is it that everyone expects HTML5 to be perfect out of the box on every platform?
The world moves for love. It kneels before it in awe.
Flash is like the dishonest brother, that has managed a fortune, and have sexy girls, cheating and stealing money. While HTML is the honest brother, that is hardworking, and respect all rules.
One want the dishonest brother to fail hard. What is around, gets around, and Flash sure, deserve a painfull death.
The technology is a pure WTF. A binary object stream in my text based internet protocols? But Adobe has managed to make people angry, by producing half-assed versions of the plugin. Maybe here the thing to blame is the very idea of a plugin. Will you want a monocultive of a single binary on all computers with who knows what bugs in all computers? What could have fixed that? maybe different clients, but that is something that would have created worse and different problems. So the plugin thing is un-fixable. Is just a idea that was not good. Only 2 plugins managed to get universal support, flash and java, and only flash is universally usefull, and for a unintended purpose: streaming video. Now.. seems is doing a good work at it, at the expense of poor perfomance on different machines than the ones Adobe seems to test his plugin.
-Woof woof woof!
Don't worry, there's a Windows wizard for that. Click I Agree to update to the latest, greatest animated cursors!
farmville is free
But does it run offline? Not everybody wants to put down $720 a year for 3G Internet access on a laptop just to game on the bus/train/carpool ride to and from work. Instead, they game on a DS, whose games don't need Internet access.
I don't know, when all kinds of geeks are crying "Flash is dead", and an Adobe rep comes out and says "We've faced worse, we aren't worried" I don't think you can automatically assume they are worried.
Basically, it tells you nothing, because you can't just sit there and be silent - that will be more of a condemnation than anything. If you're scared shitless, you say "We aren't worried", and if you're not worried you also say "We aren't worried".
Basically you can't read much of anything into it, and I have to point out that Adobe is extremely good at making their products the de facto standard. Probably the biggest knock against HTML5 is it is not going to be nearly as consistent as Flash across browser versions, the next biggest would be the fact that Flash will always be in a better position to adjust to the market - H264 video is a perfect example, Flash has had it for two years now, IE has it for HTML5 but Firefox apparently won't have it for HTML5 (it's a licensing issue). So if you want to be sure everyone can see your H264 encoded video, you use Flash, not HTML5 at all.
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
Good for video, and can't think of any other use for it.
I find it instructive as to Adobe's perspective.
That would be a bad idea.
John Dowdell is a "user relations" guy at Adobe. He answers to users on support forums, writes a blog on Adobe topics and reads customer feedback at Adobe.
He doesn't speak for Adobe's strategy, nor is his opinion to be considered that of Adobe. In fact it says so on his blog: "Views are my own".
Plus, Adobe's been saying for the past few years "there's no HTML vs Flash" war namely since they don't want to position Flash as an HTML alternative (which is stupid in 2010) but as necessary extension to HTML.
You see? It's subtle. HTML won't replace Flash, but you still need Flash together with HTML in your browser and your mobile device (by the way: Flash 10.1 coming to a cellphones pretty soon). It's just another step in a survival strategy that will keep Flash from becoming irrelevant.
All their latest features focus on the unique strengths of a proprietary binary plugin that a public standard like HTML can't deliver quickly, or at all, which is: fully consistent performance across platforms, quick innovation, highly specialized features (such as pixel shaders, is this coming in HTML5? No. I thought so). We need that ingredient too, next to HTML5, to form a healthy ecosystem on the web, as much as some people hate to admit it.
But John Dowdell still doesn't speak for Adobe's strategy, so accept his blog for what it is.
flash is the saviour of the universe consequently it should never go away.
if today is a good day to die, it must be pretty bad
I am a web developer here in New Zealand. Here is why I do not need Flash:
- To purchase Flash is about $1000 dollars for something I may only use a few times a year.
- For movies either ondemand or live dreamweaver generates code for the Player SWF and you get your movie elsewhere.
- By elsewhere, encoded via free tools.
- I dont do games, only some animation when needed. By when needed we did a site for a pre-scool and it had a cartoon theme.
- We do bot do "Digging Man Under Construction" animations.
With due respect to the Adobe Company Man but HTML 5 will make Flash irrelevant. If anyone has looked at canvas demos a few months ago, I suggest they look again. Things have leap-frogged already to the "how-is-this-possible" stage. Flashs one hope is as wysiwig to make HTML 5 output. That will be a needed tool.
In post Patriot Act America, the library books scan you.
how should Flash on the iPhone handle an API call that asks where the mouse cursor is, so that (for example) video player controls can be shown when the mouse hovers over the bottom of the flash area?
The same way HTML5 handles the corresponding API call (onmouseover attribute of most elements). Supporting Flash and supporting hover are orthogonal.
What else is Adobe gonna say? Of course they're worried. You've got a market maker in the iPad as dumb as it is inevitable, so you've got iPad developers going gaga, coding to an unfinished HTML5 spec . If the next big thing is the iPad, then the net big thing in development is to dump Flash, ready or not.
Pathetic.
--- When I grow up, I want to be a legislator of scientific laws.
Find out where the user's finger is on the touchscreen. Finger = Mouse.
Next problem: distinguishing a touch that means hover from a touch that means click, so that the browser knows whether to call the handler for onmouseover or onclick. Any ideas?
It is sensible not to worry about something you cannot control. Comparing Flash to HTML5 is like comparing Windows to POSIX. You don't make money on standards; the money is in the products that may use them.
it's a long, long distance from seriously competing with Flash [...] five years
What a difference the internet has made on our sense of progress. Thank you Al Gore!
:-/
Maybe Adobe isn't worried about HTML 5 because their business model doesn't rely on rent-seeking behavior. They make good tools, too. It's not easy to do animations based on JavaScript plus the canvas tag, and that presents Adobe with an opportunity to build a library and a graphical tool for that. If they build such a thing on open standards, I won't be able to complain. Well, except about the price.
Step into a huge movement. Don't Tread In Me.
classes, inheritence, abstraction, encapsulation, polymorphism, and decoupling.
It's possible the parent was (correctly) trying to say that a lot of the ActionScript features the GP mentioned actually weren't necessary to make JavaScript an OO language -- all of these things were (and are) quite possible in JS before ActionScript introduced various keyword-based mechanisms.
Yes, but this compilation is JIT as you point out. JIT is not the same thing as a compiled language.
While that's certainly a distinction, I don't think it takes much away from the larger point is that JavaScript as a language is pretty much running "fast enough" for most of the things Flash does, and in some cases competitively w/regards to speed.
Anyone who has worked in a particularly large codebase (1000+kloc) would not agree.
I am a counterexample. So is Steve Yegge, who seems about as familiar with large codebases and a certain popular statically typed language as anybody, and has made a great observation about how statically typed languages (particularly the common manifestly typed variety) might actually drive code size as much as help you work with it.
Tweet, tweet.
So many negative comments from what seems to be brainwashed corporate drones.
I completely agree with you. *I* control what I read and watch, and not only on the web. Any technology that makes this more difficult will not be used by me. Luckily, a blocker like exists for flash should not be too hard to build.
To keep into your metaphor, Adobe is a gun seller and doesn't mind to whom it will be selling guns next, as long as it keeps selling guns. Who ever is the war's winner, they earn cash anyway.
I.e.: Their money comes from selling tools to produce content and they don't care much if the next iteration of tools still produce flash content for their plug-ins, flash content for Gnash-like clones or HTML5 content for new-gen browsers, as long its *their tool* which is bought to produce the content. And they're pretty sure that it'll happen because they have quasi-monopoly in the art department.
But yeah the current summary suspiciously sounds like the marketing department trying to down play the implications of the next internet revolution.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Flash pre-dates touchscreen devices [but] HTML5 does not, and most HTML5 content is going to be developed with touch-screen device capabilities in mind.
I don't follow. The onmouseover attribute was in HTML 4, which became a W3C Recommendation a decade ago.
Oh, gee, YA /. Flash discussion, yet again heaploads of non-sense and misconceptions ... Ok, here we go:
Hoi Slashdot.
Veteran Flash Developer here, this is rumor / BS control - here are the facts:
At oh-sixhundred an EEV ... oh, sorry, wrong script ...
1) Flash is by far the most ubiqious end user plattform in existance. Period. It has been for a good decade. Since deployment of Java as end user app delivery method still sucks as much as it did already in 1999 and ActionScript 2 and AS3 have improved the Flash stack in leaps and bounds and are practically indistinguishable for Java in power and versatility, everybody in web technology who has more than two braincells is still betting his money and his pocket cash on Flash as a rich client plattform. All others have failed, and they have failed miserably. Everyone knows why, nobody is learning from it. And thus Flash remains.
And since JavaFX still is the typical Type-A botchjob Sun like do pull when they try to push Java into the appspace it was initially meant for, Flash can stay as crappy as it is and it still has nothing to fear. I wonder if Oracle can change this. They said they'll continue with JavaFX, but that can just so mean they'll continue to screw around like Sun did for 12 years in a row.
2) The web is - if anything - even more diversified than 5 years ago. Mobile doesn't help it. The first Flash Player for Android will have Flash at a solid #1 position again, for another 5 years at least. Not that I really love that, but we have to face the truth ... It will probably even give Android another solid boost vs. iPhone, which, strangely, would actually be a good thing.
3) The FOSS community is pushing Ajax Frameworks with a bizar amount of manhours and developer force, yet for Fonts, Animation and Sound there is no alternative. And if I look at the fuss I have to put up with to get a decent Ajax RIA running across browsers I can tell you this: For anything than the most well planned asynchronous built-to-fit purpose in a single webform, Ajax quickly becomes unbearably cumbersome.
And for tried and true decoupled business apps Tibco Gi is Ajax as about as good as it gets, but needs an experienced devteam to make use of - and then still are there only a few browsers supported. Ergo: Fallback to Flash (or Flex in this case).
4) RIA webapps are square pegs in a round hole. The web is document driven. Yet again and again people are going to try and carve the next nifty thing out of it, no matter what bizar hacks it takes. That's the way we are and it won't change. Not as long as my customers pay me good money to build Flash Applications. The last one took us two years and a team of 25, 7 of which were doing Flash/AS full time on the project. Just to give you an impression of the critical mass advantage Flash has over anything else. MS Silverlight included.
As long as everything else on the web is 10 years behind in enabling something like this, Flash will remain Number One. And no, Chrome with some OpenQL experiments or Ajax/HTML won't cut it. Trust me on this one.
5) Flash is not a security issue. Not compared to anything else on the web. ActiveX is, Flash is not. In fact, Flash has gained inroads in white-collar space based on its extremely conservative approach to security issues. Calling Flash a vector for exploits is just plain silly. Stop doing that, that's bad karma. Flash has other flaws that are plenty enough to rant about.
6) Flash has had serious flaws and shortcomings for 10 years now. Build a FOSS RIA kit that does away with them and Flash is dead in an instant, and the web is ours. Until then quit the non-sense. Ads aren't what drives Flash. Opinion leaders are. And those with the cash. And as long as the best webdesigners on the planet earn no more th
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Flash will be around as long as those "Web Designer" types insist on doing everything on the web page in freaking flash. Now flash has it's place, but it is not something you should use to design your entire web page layout around.
A lot of people (mac fans) who think Flash has no future think its only used for video. The reality is its used in a lot of television animation (a lot of tv cartoons from here and Japan use Flash), video game authoring (not just web games either - a lot of stand-alone game ui's are compiled in flash - like Starcraft 2). I know someone who does nothing but flash animations for NBC television (a good chunk of all the 2d, and psuedo 2d animations/charts you see on the news are flash!).
Clearly - people who say it doesn't have a future don't know what they are talking about - all that work isn't just going disapear. Of course it wouldn't be the first time Adobe just sat there and let some other company eat their breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Plain and simple - As draconian as Microsoft, Apple & Disney.
1) You are completely wrong about Java, and Java is on far more platforms then Flash.
2) Who says other wise? nice strawman.
3) This point is so wrong, I don't even know where to begin.
4) No, the web is not document driven. Are you posting from 1999?
5) Flash is a security issue. To dismiss it because other things also have a security issue is logically fallacious.
6) Nice to know you don't test. Flash can not do what can be done in AJAX. I will give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that even though you post implies you think AJAX is 1 tool you don't.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
This company is so laid back about "the future of their products" I think they must have industrial strength bongs stationed next to the air handlers.
Everything will be cool man.
Like who really gives a shit !!!
If you want to promote your product that lacks a feature people are asking, well begging, for, then call that feature inferior. Typical marketing strategy.
Look, if you're a company that's spending lots of marketing cash and blog speak to bad mouth a technology, that's a waste your money unless you have a specific agenda. Palm didn't put down the Newton--it knew it was inferior and just let it run its course, which it did.
Apple isn't trying to prove Flash is bad, it is creating a perception that flash is bad since customers are demanding it and Apple technology wasn't designed for it. Period. Ya'll CS gurus 'know' flash is technically bad, but look at Windows XP, it's just as 'bad' and runs 90% of the computers out there (i.e. it does the job). It the tech works, yes we maybe screwed for a few year from perfection, but hey, that's what tech is all about.
Pff, go got a acoustic coupler to hold to your ear, and a whistle, grandpa! ^^
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
The Flash vs HTML5 argument is one of the most amusing arguments I've seen for a while in the tech industry.. Steve jobs has a huge invested interest in making sure that Flash does not and will not ever exist or work properly on any apple products for the simple reason that by having Flash working properly on apple products there is a risk to his all important appstore revenue... I have to agree that Flash is buggy and Adobe is resting on its laurels when it should be really working hard to optimise and improve the security and managability of flash.. but of course adobe being adobe they have their heads stuck in the sand which is the same as so many other tech companies in the past which have failed..
The reality is that anyone who wants to write an application should be able to have a choice in what language they want to write it in.. having a diverse choice of languages gives people flexibility because no single language can provide everything for everyone.. if it wasn't the case then we could all still be coding in C or whatever came before that...
Being vocal about flash's short comings is important to hopefully raise awareness of where Adobe needs to improve to keep the market.. I have serious doubts that they will listen fast enough to keep their number one market position as it stands today.. especially with renewed competition from Microsoft and more 'open' standards like HTML5 and the associated languages/tools/inputs.
Steve Jobs needs to shut the hell up.. The more I hear him rant the more I think the guy's a waste of space... (yes i understand there are many mac fanbois who can't stand to hear their "god like" leader be slandered but that's life.. the reality is that apple users are all just lemmings in the apple profit wheel)
NoScript stops HTML5 video from playing.
NoScript blocks HYML5 video.
noscript can already block and elements
NoScipt has this. You can forbid HTML5 audio and video tags.
What nobody here seems to understand, is that this guy is saying that Adobe doesn't stand or fall on the future of Flash. Flash is so common and useful because Adobe made great tools for designers and developers, regardless of the problems with Flash. It's still going to take a while for other technologies to catch up in that area. When those tools are developed, for whatever technologies are adopted - I bet Adobe will be making some of the best tools, and that a whole lot of designers and developers will choose the Adobe tools.
What do you folks think about 3DVIA [www.3dvia.com]? It is good with 3D but is it even a contender for flash?