Adobe Ends Development of Flash On Mobile Browsers

larry bagina writes "Jason Perlow of ZDNet is reporting that Adobe will stop developing Flash for mobile browsers and focus on AIR and HTML5 tools. I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if 750 voices screamed out in terror and were laid off. But that noise was overshadowed by everybody else celebrating."

Comments

Shhh... Listen...

[Petersko]

My god... it's Steve Jobs laughing.

The Whole Web

[gwking]

But.. but... now how will I get the "whole web" experience?!

Re:The Whole Web

[bberens]

Easy, you'll use the most recent version of the flash player on your Android device for the next 5 years or so while people migrate.

Re:The Whole Web

[xaxa]

Easy, you'll use the most recent version of the flash player on your Android device for the next 5 years or so while people migrate.

I won't. The "built in" Flash on my HTC Desire keeps trying to update itself to the latest version via the Android Market, which uses the last few MB of space I have for apps. The only way I've found to prevent this happening is to "Clear Data" for the Market app -- deselecting the "Update automatically" box for Flash doesn't make any difference.

This annoys me greatly. It's supposed to be my device, HTC. (I would remove Flash completely if I could. I don't ever seem to visit websites that need Flash on my phone.)

Re:The Whole Web

[amRadioHed]

Adobe never enabled it for Flash for some reason which I can't understand, but you can force it (and many other large apps) to SD by using an ADB command. Not all apps work from SD, but Flash works perfectly.

Leaving this option set can cause problems since you can't or don't want some apps moved to SD, so I just enable it temporarily when I have an app to move, then disable it again after by setting the option back to "0". Once the app is forced to SD it will stay there when it's updated in the future.

Rather Petty, Adobe...

[Petersko]

Can't believe they would actually hold out until it was certain Steve Jobs couldn't say, "I told you so!"

Re:Rather Petty, Adobe...

[BitZtream]

You would be wrong. They may have SOME competent programmers, but they are a tiny minority at best.

Adobe's products will not run on case sensitive file systems.

NO amount of mismanagement can cause that. You can not end up in that situation with out actively doing things that are undeniably considered bad practice by anyone with half of a clue.

At last!

[Yvan256]

Mobile being the future of the Web, it should also means the end of Flash on the desktop in a few years. Nobody's going to waste money doing Flash for the desktop and HTML5 for the mobiles, especially when the desktops can already do HTML5 too.

Applications done in Flash but compiled to Adobe Air is okay, just don't trash the Web with the stupid plug-ins.

Next step: agreeing on a CODEC for the HTML5 videos*. That's gonna be a fun topic!

* doesn't the tag allow for two source files? If it doesn't, it should!

Re:At last!

[grumbel]

So long as you can get the absolute reference to the .flv you can download it,

That's why a lot of flash is streamed these days, so you don't have a flv that you can just grab out of your Temp folder. If you know a way to easily and quickly download content directly from say http://www.thedailyshow.com/, let me know, last time I looked, there wasn't any working one on Linux.

Add on to that the fact you can use FRAPS or most other Screen Recorders to capture the video should the stream be encrypted and it doesn't matter either way.

That's complicated and cumbersome, as it it forces you to not use your computer in the mean time or it will run the video. It also forces you to download in real-time, which is the very thing you normally would want to avoid with a download.

Flash is dominant in the video space because it got there first.

Flash wasn't the first, ActiveX and Quicktime where much earlier. Flash won because it was the best and could do things that no other thing could do at the time. Even today HTML5 is still far away from being a fully working Flash replacement. Remember, Flash isn't just video, it's also a pretty damn good game development platform and animation toolkit.

I fear that the only thing that will change with Flash gone is that webpages will switch to ever more obscure Javascript hacks to protect their content from manipulation. A Flash object can easily and comfortably be blocked with Flashbock, some Javascript hackery is far harder to handle.

Re:At last!

[hairyfeet]

Y'all wanna know why desktops and laptops are in decline? I hate to break the news to ya but it ain't because everyone is using an iPad, it is because as we system builders that are still doing well in this economy can tell you for several years the PC has been "good enough" and there simply is no killer app that makes users need to switch!

I have several customers who do their daily computing on what guys here would laugh at, late model P4s with a Gb of RAM and a couple hundred Gb HDD, but why should they switch? Webmail, FB, farmville, these things just don't slam even a 3.2Ghz P4 with HT, much less all those dual cores that have been sold since 06. hell my boys are both on hand me down Pentium Ds and when I offered to build them something bigger they were both "Uhhh...why? Our stuff works fine." all they do is surf and play MMOs and with both boxes having Radeon HD4850s everything just works fine.

The problem is too many in the industry as well as my fellow system builders got used to the "MHz Wars" where everyone tossed every 3 years and which gave them constant churn and that just isn't the case anymore. Hell i always built myself a new PC every year and a half but my AMD quad is going on 3 years now and will probably last me another 5 or more, why should I switch? My games play just fine, I have 8Gb of RAM and 3Tb of space, and I can always slap in a replacement for my HD4850 or upgrade my CPU to a 6 core later on down the road if I need more power. But as it is all my games play at my screens native 1600x900 smooth, video transcoding is nice, everything "just works" and now that I finally replaced my old laptop for a dual core netbook I honestly can't see myself needing another PC for several years.

So PCs aren't going anywhere, it is simply everybody has one. With cell phones folks chunk when the 2 year contract is up so that is creating churn and the tablets simply haven't be around long enough for everybody who wants one to have already bought one. I'm actually seeing quite good sales on the new AMD Brazos netbooks, I think the problem in that market is in the race to the bottom too many OEMs chose Atom without ION and that equals painful, but the Brazos has a nice Radeon built in and does full 1080P and plays WoW so everyone likes those. hell in my own family we have something like 7 desktop and 4 laptops, what would we do with more?

The ones that survive are gonna be smart and doing value add like me. I show folks how they can organize and stream everything with an HTPC, how to make that late model P4 or early dual into a great PC media center for the kids, how to set up sharing networks so you can drag and drop between every machine in the house, how to have it all "just work" wirelessly. PCs aren't going anywhere, if anything everyone has so many of them now nobody knows what to do with them. the smart guys will be showing them how to get the most out of what they have.

Really?!

[Anonymous Coward]

I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if 750 voices screamed out in terror and were laid off. But that noise was overshadowed by everybody else celebrating.

Seriously?? _THAT_ submission made it to the front page with _THAT_ tidbit?? There wasn't another submission that didn't make light of people losing their jobs?

Come on, Slashdot - I know you're trying to generate page views and whatnot to increase revenues but can we please stop being complete asses about it. Eventually you'll start driving people away which will DECREASE page views...

Seriously...

I'm not celebrating

[nedwidek]

It is really nice that on my Asus Transformer, every website I've used just works. Compare that to my iPod touch and the iPad where I just get a big lego piece.

Until all websites stop using Flash, this sucks.

Laid off

[rabenja]

My friend sent me an email yesterday: "I'm about to go into a meeting where Adobe is laying off my whole team." He had worked on Flash for many years since Macromedia owned the project. After the meeting he said, "Just got out of meeting, I have a job until April 20, paid thru May 15, decent severance, but job will end."

Re:Laid off

[amicusNYCL]

He had worked on Flash for many years since Macromedia owned the project.

Is he one of the people I can blame for the bugs from back then that still exist today? I kind of feel like a dick for saying it, but maybe if his team were better at their jobs then they would still have them.

Re:Laid off

[amicusNYCL]

Do you write perfect bug-free code?

Is that what I claimed?

Do I have errors in my currently supported applications that were originally reported 8 years ago? No, I don't. You know what else I don't have? The resources of a $13 billion market cap, or 750 ex-programmers.

You are doing it wrong

[Hentes]

You are not supposed to use a browser on an Apple device. You have to download an app for every webpage you want to visit.

Flash to HTML5 movement is not new to Adobe

[Superken7]

Everybody knew eventually this was going to happen. Adobe started transitioning to HTML5 years ago. Clearly they aren't there yet, but this is proof that progress is being made. (finally! the end of flash is not near, but it's certainly coming!)

It's almost 2012, I think Adobe is doing this at the right time now that most browsers are starting to be fairly HTML5-complete (as complete as HTML5 itself is, which is not _that_ much).

I know many now think "Steve Jobs was right!". Well, I don't think it took a genius to know that this was coming, Adobe has been preparing for it ever since HTML5 started going big (thanks to Apple and Google, among many others). I would not say this is Adobe "finally giving in" to Steve, because Adobe has never really opposed HTML5 AFAIK. Flash has always been complementary to stuff the web was not ready for; even if we hate flash that's why it existed. Now its 2012, not 2007, and most people are ready to go HTML5 and definitely drop flash (wide browser support, more mature spec, somewhat consistent across browsers, etc.. at least compared to 2007).

Re:Flash to HTML5 movement is not new to Adobe

[mr.dreadful]

"I don't think it took a genius to know that this was coming, "

No, but it took huge balls at the time to say "we're not supporting this anymore. " Apple did the same thing with the 3.5" floppy disk and adopting the USB port on iMacs back in the day and got roundly mocked for it, until the PC makers started following suit a few years later. Whatever Jobs was, he was certainly a visionary. Apple was never afraid of break convention when they felt it was the right thing to do. What other companies can we say that about (seriously, what other PC manufacturers have down this? I'm genuinely curious.)

Flash block

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh great, now there is no easy way to block all the bloat of surfing the internet. These were truly the glory days when ad block + flash block created a nice browsing experience. We will soon be subject to every ones personal animation framework; coded in fancy html5 with loads of hacks to get it to work on each browser, no easy way to block it and helpfully running at 99% cpu util.

Re:Flash block

[sootman]

True. Unfortunately, the problem was never that Flash was inherently evil--the problem was developers overusing it.

I very much liked having all the bad kids in the "Flash" room and being able to close the door on that room with a Flash blocker. Now we're going to see a ton of badly-made sites with HTML5, and I don't think we'll ever see a "craptastic HTML5 blocker". :-( I'm already having a hard time with sites who think it's cool to cram a 100mb H.264 movie into a page.

So... you bought TWO devices you don't like?

[SmallFurryCreature]

So, it is no secret Apple devices don't do flash and yet you bought two... way to go on voting with your dollars.

Buying TWO devices whose user experience you claim sucks. Please tell me you are not allowed to vote. Ever!

There is already agreement

[SuperKendall]

Next step: agreeing on a CODEC for the HTML5 videos

To support iOS devices you need to support h.264.

Thus supporting any other formats mean extra, needless work.

Pretty much any site on the web today tat supports video has already transcoded to h.264.

Hello, de-facto standard.

Re:There is already agreement

[CharlyFoxtrot]

Hello, de-facto standard.

You know what's a good way of confirming this ? Go on your favorite torrent site and try to find some video encoded in WebM or Theora. You can't, it's all x264 and xvid and the x264 stuff is both higher quality and becoming ever more popular. It perfectly mirrors what happened with mp3, no way h.264 is going away. So why spend precious developer time in an ultra competitive industry building support for another codec that you'll just have to support on top of the de-facto standard for which you'll be paying and developing anyway ? That fight is over, geeks are just in denial.

Real issue....locked doors

[PortHaven]

I think the real issue is far more hideous. With the likes of Apple (and now Microsoft) saying "No plugins". It was becoming clear only native apps were going to be allowed in the playground.

While many rejoice. See a closed proprietary system is in the death thralls. I caution you not to rejoice. But to contemplate what's really going on.

Apple made a closed system that allowed all profits to funnel through it. And not a peep out of the Dept. of Justice on such anti-competitive practices.

So Microsoft said, "Hey, let's do the same with Windows 8."

Adobe just merely read the writing on the wall. Such anti-competitive behaviors are going to be allowed. A user who purchases a computer will be told by the manufacturer what software they run on their own property.

Adobe doesn't make money on Flash. It costs them a small fortune. They make it on the tools they sell. And well, they're just going to do more with their tools outputting native and HTML5.

In the end....it's the consumers who lose. Less choice. Few alternatives. And it's a pay-to-play(ground).

All apps must be approved by Apple. All developers must share a 1/3 of their profits with Apple. Is it ANY wonder Apple exceeded even Exxon-Mobil?

There's an app for that. But you can't install it unless we approve and get a lion's share. How does this world look for developers?

$1

Apple takes 30 cents.
Gov. take 30 cents.
Developer is left with 40 cents to cover overhead and all.

Re:Real issue....locked doors

[BitZtream]

And not a peep out of the Dept. of Justice on such anti-competitive practices.

Because they aren't doing anything anti-competitive. THEY get to determine how their products are sold. They can choose to only allow things to be bought for their products in their store.

Anti-competitive practices would be coming into wal-mart and saying 'if you want to sell iPhones, you can't sell any other kind of phone' ... or course walmart would tell them to fuck off, but a smaller local chain may have to capitulate in order to not lose sales of the iPhone ... and THAT is anti-competitive, and THAT is what Microsoft got in trouble for.

Contrary to what you may think, Apple does have complete and total control over how ITS PRODUCTS are sold and handled. It can not tell anyone else how to handle other peoples products in their store. Apple say 'AT&T is the only company getting an iphone!' and thats okay. They can not say 'AT&T can ONLY sell the iPhone, no other phones if they want ours'

Neither you or anyone else gets to tell Apple how to sell or what to do with their product just because you don't like it. I don't like that you're such a self entitled spoiled brat, but that doesn't give me the right to force you to not be such a douche does it?

In the end....it's the consumers who lose. Less choice.

Thats the GPL vs Anti-GPL argument. You're arguing that losing flash means losing choice. Which is like me saying that GPL takes away choice because I can no longer NOT distribute the code.

And in both cases, it can be interpreted the other way. The user is being protected from being locked into a single vendors implementation.

All apps must be approved by Apple. All developers must share a 1/3 of their profits with Apple. Is it ANY wonder Apple exceeded even Exxon-Mobil?

And according to every financial report they've ever put out, the iTunes music store and the App store do just a little better than breaking even. This is publicly verifiable fact. They aren't sitting on 40 billion in cash because of their death grip on Apple developers, and no matter how many times you try to imply that, it still won't be the case.

The reason they've exceeded even Exxon-Mobile is because they are selling products people WANT. Exxon sells a product people need, people only buy as much of it as they have to and will buy it from the lowest priced person they can find. Exxon still makes a fortune because they can take advantage of the fact that its basically a requirement for many Americans to buy gas to commute at this point in time. Apple on the other hand makes a fortune selling products at almost 100% markup that are simply trendy gadgets ... but trendy gadgets which people are willing to pay way more for because they are that well done.

Unfortunately, your too busy blaming Apple for being evil to notice why they are doing as well as they are.

How does this world look for developers?

I can tell you from experience that it looks incredibly profitable and the 'Apple Tax' you're referring to doesn't' really add up to anything more the cost of the service unless you're a big developer with an existing infrastructure for other reasons. This only hurts the big guys (and only a little), it does nothing but good for the little guys, which you'd know if you had any experience what so ever selling software to random people on the Internet. A proper sales infrastructure is a pain in the ass for a small shop to maintain, so you're going to be paying someone else to do it unless you're an idiot or have far more time than money or brains. Now go compare pricing for that service and get back to me when you find the competition that you'd be so eager to use instead of Apple.

You're complaining about something that you clearly do not understand and have never been involved with.