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Adobe Releases Flash 11 and AIR 3
iamrmani writes "Software maker Adobe Systems has launched Flash Player 11 and Adobe AIR 3 even as the industry is shifting to HTML 5 on the Web that lessens the reliance of developers on Flash."
The Register has a bit more to say about Adobe's repositioning of Flash for games as a competetive strategy.
is surprised that Adobe would keep releasing products as people start relying on them less. How else are they going to compete.
I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Why is this story tagged under Apple?
You just mentioned apple as being the reason why flash won't be able to survive.
The launch comes at a time when the industry is shifting from Flash and embracing HTML 5 on the Web that lessens the reliance of developers on Flash. HTML5 is gaining momentum each day as tech giants such as Google, Microsoft, Apple, and Facebook are supporting it.
To what extent is this true and to what extent is it bullying? I mean, "oh damn the competition just wont go away! even though it can't possibly win!". That's what those sentences sound like to me.
a.) In a capitalistic society, believe it or not, competition is great! It's one of the few things that enforces sane prices and wages, and has the benefit of not being decreed by a government regulator.
b.) Even if a technology is inferior and/or 'old' doesn't mean it's going away. Fortran, anyone?
PS: I don't reply to ACs.
That's almost reasonable. If you have to do something different to target that significant market, and that something also works for the other 90% of devices, why keep Flash around?
From the article:
"Flash Player 11 and AIR 3 are scheduled for release in early October. Adobe didn't give the date, but you should expect release at Adobe's annual Max conference, between 1 and 5 October."
No comment.
Yes, HTML5 works wonderfully for video made of pixels. But for video made of vectors (e.g. almost everything on Weebl's Stuff or Newgrounds), Flash still way outperforms animated SVG in rendering speed, and it outperforms rasterization and compression with H.264 by a factor of about ten in bitrate.
It essentially allows you to write an application in flash, but not have it anchored in the web browser.
a lot of the javascript/css proponents i've spoken to were quite happy using actionscript 2 but found it difficult making the transition to as3.
this is probably because a lot of the convenience functions are missing, and not everyone can make sense of OOP.
i think the reason html5 isn't getting anywhere is because it involves a lot more work for the devs. also, flash has become part of what people expect from the web - and if a product doesn't support it then they will avoid it.
Flash won't die until HTML5 is:
* Complete
* Supported properly in all major browsers
* Has a high level, mature and robust RIA development API (i.e. at least Flex level which is, frankly, an easy enough goal. Certain JS frameworks are making good progress but are still far less productive (development, testing, maintenance, LOC, etc.) than Flex)
Given the history of the web, these conditions put the viability of HTML5 as a complete replacement for Flash at no sooner than 2021 -- probably even later than that.
This looks more like an Announcement than a Release. The bits won't be available for download until October. However, there was a new version of Flash Player 10 released today (10.3.183.10) that resolves a cross-site scripting issue.
which is exactly why one of the biggest improvements in AIR 3 is it's iOS support. My iOS app ( http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/lickety-split/id454354262 ) is written 100% in Flash (Actionscript) using the Open Source Flash SDK ( http://opensource.adobe.com/wiki/display/flexsdk/Flex+SDK ). That's infinitely more open than Objective-C, and it performs great. The only thing Adobe sucks at is P.R. for letting Apple brainwash people into thinking using Apple's approach is more open than an open source sdk. Yeah it's not perfect or standards committee developed (ironically, Flash/Actionscript is exactly JavaScript 4 . If it weren't for all the JS4 politics Flash would be JS by now), but that's only if you're letting it be compared to JS. It's capabilities and performance are way closer to Native than JS.
Of course the OP didn't bother to actually link to the real product announcement, instead just to some site slagging Flash. If any of you are under the impression that Flash is going away just because it wont be used for banner ads or video.. Just take a look at the type of 3D games that are currently being developed in Flash: http://blogs.adobe.com/flashplatform/ Tell me with a straight face that people will be doing games like that in html the near future. I just don't get the hate.. each technology has its place. Once intrusive banner ads are done in html 5 and crappy javascript code is slowing your browser down, will you start hating HTML and Javascript just as much?
*** DRINK MORE COFFEE ***
The average person doesn't care whether Adobes or Apples way is more open, they just care that it works well on their iDevice and doesn't instantly drain the battery.
That's infinitely more open than Objective-C
What makes you say that? The Objective-C compiler (clang) is open source (UIUC, BSD-style, license). Apple's runtime is also open source (APSL), and the GNUstep project has a more portable replacement (MIT licensed). In both cases, you're using proprietary libraries (in the Flash player or Cocoa Touch0.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
So it appears your core issue is that a web application comes in multiple files, as opposed to a .swf that has multiple resources packed into it. Let me introduce you to the data URI, which works in any browser passing Acid2.
I don't see that as an impossibility... though the immaturity of WebSockets, and limited support in Web frameworks under .Net and Java will hinder early adoption. One of Flash's biggest assets, imho, has been the ability to utilize socket communication. It's even been used as a socket adapter for older browsers for WebSocket use. Beyond that, most of what Flash offers (other than packaging) can be done in X/HTML5.
Michael J. Ryan - tracker1.info
... to finally get 64bit support? Although I have to say a few years ago, when I started running Ubuntu amd64, it would have been more useful. Nowadays there are a number of decent workarounds, Google Chrome being one of them, npviewer another.