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What Killed Adobe Flash? (daringfireball.net)
An employee, who claims to have worked on the development of Flash, writes: Apparently, the world settled on the "One True Cause" for why Flash "died". Take for example this blogpost by John Gruber about FedEx... it ends with this consideration on Steve Jobs' "Thoughts on Flash": "If it had been an angry rant, it would have been easily dismissed without needing to be factually refuted -- "That's just Jobs being a prick again." The fact that it wasn't angry, and because it was all true, made it impossible to refute."
Impossible to refute. There's no doubt that this was the beginning of the end for Flash, right? Except that this is utterly wrong. I worked on Flash, and I worked on the thing that actually killed Flash. It is my strong belief, based on what I observed, that Steve Jobs' letter had little impact in the final decision -- it was really Adobe who decided to "kill" Flash. Yes, Flash was a bad rap for Adobe, and Steve's letter didn't help. But ultimately, what was probably decisive was the fact that developing Flash cost Adobe a ton of money. John Gruber, responding to the blogpost: To be clear, I don't think Jobs's letter killed Flash. But I don't think Adobe did either. Eventually Adobe accepted Flash's demise. What killed Flash was Apple's decision not to support it on iOS, combined with iOS's immense popularity and the lucrative demographics of iOS users. If Jobs had never published "Thoughts on Flash", Flash would still be dead. The letter explained the decision, but the decision that mattered was never to support it on iOS in the first place. It's possible that Flash would have died even if Apple had decided to allow it on iOS. Android tried that, and the results were abysmal. Web page scrolling stuttered, and video playback through Flash Player halved battery life compared to non-Flash playback.
Impossible to refute. There's no doubt that this was the beginning of the end for Flash, right? Except that this is utterly wrong. I worked on Flash, and I worked on the thing that actually killed Flash. It is my strong belief, based on what I observed, that Steve Jobs' letter had little impact in the final decision -- it was really Adobe who decided to "kill" Flash. Yes, Flash was a bad rap for Adobe, and Steve's letter didn't help. But ultimately, what was probably decisive was the fact that developing Flash cost Adobe a ton of money. John Gruber, responding to the blogpost: To be clear, I don't think Jobs's letter killed Flash. But I don't think Adobe did either. Eventually Adobe accepted Flash's demise. What killed Flash was Apple's decision not to support it on iOS, combined with iOS's immense popularity and the lucrative demographics of iOS users. If Jobs had never published "Thoughts on Flash", Flash would still be dead. The letter explained the decision, but the decision that mattered was never to support it on iOS in the first place. It's possible that Flash would have died even if Apple had decided to allow it on iOS. Android tried that, and the results were abysmal. Web page scrolling stuttered, and video playback through Flash Player halved battery life compared to non-Flash playback.
But mainly, the enormous security risk, bad reputation, and lack of native support in browsers.
It was a resource hog and had shitty security.
I never really minded flash in the earlier days, it enabled a lot of fun content. As time passed, it was the source of more and more security problems, and was used for more and more just plain annoyances like advertising. Had Adobe reworked it into a good, secure framework with some touch interface and power optimizations for mobile (I kept Flash around on Android for some time. It sucked the battery down hard while doing much of anything) it may have stayed relevant.
HTML5 didn't help either, since it did a lot of what it was for anyway.
It was Mrs. Peacock, in the Library, with the revolver.
What happened to Flash:
1. Animating junk on web pages was never very useful, so people more-or-less stopped doing it. Flash saved itself by becoming a way to deliver web video.
2. Decoding video with a general purpose CPU is very much inferior to decoding it with dedicated logic. Video standards were designed to enable dedicated logic decoders. CPU-based decoding used far, far too much energy so Flash couldn't compete or even come close.
Flash became mostly useless. Then it became only a way to get your system hacked and added to a botnet. Then it became nothing.
I don't think Jobs's letter killed Flash. But I don't think Adobe did either.
no, the internet rallied around Flash like a mafia hitsquad around a mole and slowly beat it to death. NodeJS, html5, and webm video all colluded to deliver the killing stroke to Flash. Adobe, in turn, largely did what they do best and ignored the programs compatibility issues in Linux, stability issues in mac and windows, and rampant security issues across the board. It should serve as a stern reminder of what could happen to Photoshop and AfterEffects if Adobe doesnt start paying more attention and start fixing real bugs.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Let's be real, the 'death of Flash' is only being talked about because the major web browsers are cutting support for it. An opinion posted by Jobs in 2010 related to a decision not to support Flash in iOS is supposedly the reason browser makers are cutting support for Flash in 2017? I'm not buying it. HTML5 video has everything to do with the death of Flash, as most usage of Flash was simply for audiovisual playback. Webgames and webapps used to use Flash, but how many people use those nowadays compared to mobile apps? Even on Android, which supports Flash? Youtube moving over to HTML5 video by default was the death knell of Flash. The constant drumbeat of 'more critical Flash vulnerabilities found and exploited in the wild, uninstall it already' didn't help, either. I wonder how Flash would've done if it were a) secure, and b) not a resource hog.
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
Flash doesn't need a post mortem, it just needs an obituary. Its death wasn't suspicious, and it didn't commit suicide. It was a cute, talented kid with promise, but as often happens, it became a shiftless, troublesome adult, partly as a result of the parenting mistakes of its narcissistic adoptive parent. Its lifestyle, shortcomings, and bad luck led it to an early death; it's time to close the casket, fill in the hole, place the gravestone, and move on.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
Apple killed Flash, or at least threw the first stone by disallowing it on their mobile devices. They did it because they saw the writing on the wall. Flash was a security nightmare, and really only existed as a stopgap because bandwidth used to be a far more of a premium and there were no web standards for streaming video, audio, and animation. This is mostly fixed with HTML5.
Believe me when I say this is uncharacteristic of me, but, "Thanks Steve Jobs!"
The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
Flash and Homestar Runner validated each others' existence. Once H*R had run its course, Flash no longer had a reason to exist.
iOS didn't kill Flash. Nor did Steve Jobs. Nor did Adobe. MACROMEDIA KILLED FLASH!... because they allowed it to become what it was never intended to be.
Way back in the mid 1990s, Macromedia acquired FutureSplash -- an ANIMATION product used by Disney, FOX (for the Simpsons), and others -- and renamed it Flash. I used Flash 2 for ANIMATION and it was a great tool.
Along comes Flash 3 and the introduction of MovieClips and transparency. Transparency was pretty straightforward, but MovieClips were not. MovieClips contained an animation (and timeline) that could then be placed in the main animation timeline. So, if you had an animation of a character dancing in a MovieClip, you could add that MovieClip to the main animation timeline and make the dancing character move up, down, sideways, whatever.
The introduction of MovieClips also brought some basic programming beyond the even more basic timeline actions that previously existed (solely for the purpose of starting, stopping, etc. an animation). You could now add your (stopped) dancing character MovieClip to the main timeline, and then add a button to the main timeline and add a "Tell Target" action to tell the MovieClip to start playing. This "Tell Target" programming was VERY basic, but it was sooooooooo confusing to most Flash animators because the FAR majority of them were truly animators, not programmers. In fact, MovieClip programming was so confusing to the animators' mindset that the "macromedia.flash" user group was constantly inundated with questions about "Tell Target." The concept of targeting "_level0" or the "_parent" or such made absolutely no sense to most animators. As a regular contributor to macromedia.flash, I eventually made a small website of "Tell Target" FAQs that was quite popular at the time.
What happened after that is what eventually killed Flash. Some people are great animators. Some people are great programmers. A very rare few are great at both. The ones that were great at both and using Flash started making some of the best Flash websites around. They were getting accolades left and right and being featured everywhere Flash was talked about. Gabocorp, 2Advanced, Der Bauer, etc. were thrust into the spotlight with their ability to combine great animation with great Flash programming to make jaw-dropping Flash websites.
With these kinds of websites garnering a lot of attention, the ever-increasing demand for more/better Flash programming started. Flash 4 add variables, input fields, the first real ActionScript, and other programming-based enhancements. Read through the list of versions after Flash 3 and most include more and more and more programming enhancements. Flash 5 introduced ActionScript 1.0 and Flash 7 had ActionScript 2.0 and on and on and on... until Flash died.
Security issues? Not a problem if Flash isn't a programming platform. Resource hog? Not (as much of) a problem if Flash ins't a programming platform. Unable to run on a mobile device? It's VECTOR GRAPHICS!!! Not a problem if Flash isn't a programming platform.
The interesting part is that in the wake of Flash's death, Animate survives... as an ANIMATION platform. Want to meet Flash developers who aren't looking for work right now? They're the ones who never stopped using it for Animation. Personally, I used Flash for a LOT of programming, but I also used it for a LOT of animation. With the shift of branding from Flash to Animate, I'm happy to see the return to the core purpose of Flash 1.0: ANIMATION!
If you look at the enhancements for Animate 2015 and 2017, you'll see a lot of items related to animation and graphics and not a lot related to programming. This is the way it should be... and probably the way it always should have been. Flash as a programming platform always should have been a separate product, like Flex, so it could live/die on its own merits, or lack thereof.
There are still a huge number of sites that just won't work without it. Yes you can fool most of them by tweaking your browser but that isn't the point.
Adobe needs to put an execution date on it ASAP.
That will be the only way if can truly be consigned to the trash can/wastebasket of history.
It needs to die a horrible death.
I'd rather be riding my '63 Triumph T120.