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Adobe ceases development on mobile browser Flash, refocuses efforts on HTML5

zdnet.com

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Re: Adobe ceases development on mobile browser Flash, refocuses efforts on HTML5

#41

Post by beej71 »

Riverbed wrote: post #12
wmf wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since Adobe's fat margins were from authoring tools, presumably that opportunity still exists. AFAIK none of the existing HTML5 authoring tools are close to Flash in power.

When you own both the authoring tools and the runtime, the world is your oyster. Sure, HTML5 authoring tools suck today, and it will be a huge boon if Adobe leads the way to the promised land. But the barriers to entry for others to then go the same way is so much lower than in Adobe's previous environment. Well, it will be very interesting ride over the next few years!

But the barriers to entry for others to then go the same way is so much lower than in Adobe's previous environment.

Can you not just target Flash Player? Seems like the barrier to entry is going to be the same as Adobe's in either case, except that with Flash, Adobe must also maintain Flash Player.

Re: Adobe ceases development on mobile browser Flash, refocuses efforts on HTML5

#42

Post by protomyth »

Given how bad Flash is on Linux and OS X, it was no real surprise that they couldn't get it right on mobile. The two platforms on the desktop that they put few resources into became the basis for the biggest mobile marketshare.

Adobe spent so much effort on punditry on their blogs about how everyone else was wrong and reviewers and Apple were so unfair. This is going to be a bigger PR problem then it should of been.

Re: Adobe ceases development on mobile browser Flash, refocuses efforts on HTML5

#43

Post by zzzzzzzzz »

cowpewter wrote: post #39
cft wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that Adobe acquired Macromedia was quite unfortunate for the web. Had Google acquired it, they would have probably opensourced the player code, and maybe contributed the AS3 rendering engine into WebKit as an alternative to javaScript, making Flash native for WebKit browsers. Maybe it's not too late for this step even now.

Adobe open-sourced their AS3 engine[1] to Mozilla, instead. That potential future of JS (based on ECMAScript 4) was rejected in favor of Harmony. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamarin_(JavaScript_engine)

Tamarin ain't bad, but for me the main advantage of Flash right now is the relatively fast, browser-independent and (unfortunately) closed-source rendering engine.

Re: Adobe ceases development on mobile browser Flash, refocuses efforts on HTML5

#44

Post by hrktb »

cowpewter wrote: post #16

This makes me a little sad. For all that people complain about Flash, and any problems the Flash Player runtime has, it's really a fun environment to code for. I like AS3, I like the Flash API, and I greatly enjoyed writing Flex back when that was most of my job. I don't have nearly as much fun writing HTML/JS as I did writing AS3. I liked the (optional) strict typing. I liked writing for a single target and knowing…

Why the sadness ? Flash for mobile browser was a PITA from the start. The lite version was limited not only in power but in the APIs, was too sandboxed, and there was no practical use I can think of. I don't see Flash on android for anything serious (serious as complex webapps).

Adobe AIR is a much more adapted and competent environnement, and it's getting more traction that ever. Seems a pretty sunny landscape for AS to me.

The AIR runtime is there for serious applications, and I would expect it to be much funnier than webapps.

Edit: About Flash on android, there's the free, open submission process for full featured apps on android. An app would obviously be a better match for complex applications than Flash on the browser.

Re: Adobe ceases development on mobile browser Flash, refocuses efforts on HTML5

#45

Post by 9999 »

thought_alarm wrote: post #8

Did Adobe ever put a serious effort into mobile Flash development? It seems they were more interested in blaming Apple for the lack of mobile Flash than actually doing the work required to make Flash a remotely viable option for mobile devices. I wonder, what was the catalyst that caused Adobe to admit what everyone else already knew? Perhaps they saw the 5 year anniversary of the iPhone on horizon and figured enough…

Yes, they put some effort into mobile Flash (specifically flash lite) development when they could justify the cost with the revenue they were receiving from handset manufacturers that licensed it. Then the iPhone came out without Flash. Then Steve Jobs slammed Flash (approximately half of which was true) and told Adobe to go back to making tools to help people make shit.

And Adobe actually listened to jobs. I feel like Flash was an end in itself for Macromedia. It was, in part, Macromedia's great tilt at the "write once, run anywhere" windmill, and Adobe just carried that on (and I would say it's the public that loses out now that that's over). In the end, it doesn't matter to Adobe that the Flash runtime isn't in the iOS browser. Or in any browser from here on out.

Adobe sells tools to make shit. Jobs gave them a way to sell a new tool (Edge) and reminded them what they're actually in the business of doing.

That being said, I greatly appreciate everything the devs that worked on the Player have accomplished over the last few years (particularly Jim Corbett, Lee Thomason, and Matt Kaufman). Thanks for tilting at the windmill.

Re: Adobe ceases development on mobile browser Flash, refocuses efforts on HTML5

#46

Post by YooLi »

9999 wrote: post #45
thought_alarm wrote: post #8

Did Adobe ever put a serious effort into mobile Flash development? It seems they were more interested in blaming Apple for the lack of mobile Flash than actually doing the work required to make Flash a remotely viable option for mobile devices. I wonder, what was the catalyst that caused Adobe to admit what everyone else already knew? Perhaps they saw the 5 year anniversary of the iPhone on horizon and figured enough…

Yes, they put some effort into mobile Flash (specifically flash lite) development when they could justify the cost with the revenue they were receiving from handset manufacturers that licensed it. Then the iPhone came out without Flash. Then Steve Jobs slammed Flash (approximately half of which was true) and told Adobe to go back to making tools to help people make shit. And Adobe actually listened to jobs. I feel li…

Out of curiosity, which half was true and which wasn't?

Re: Adobe ceases development on mobile browser Flash, refocuses efforts on HTML5

#47

Post by cowpewter »

hrktb wrote: post #44
cowpewter wrote: post #16

This makes me a little sad. For all that people complain about Flash, and any problems the Flash Player runtime has, it's really a fun environment to code for. I like AS3, I like the Flash API, and I greatly enjoyed writing Flex back when that was most of my job. I don't have nearly as much fun writing HTML/JS as I did writing AS3. I liked the (optional) strict typing. I liked writing for a single target and knowing…

Why the sadness ? Flash for mobile browser was a PITA from the start. The lite version was limited not only in power but in the APIs, was too sandboxed, and there was no practical use I can think of. I don't see Flash on android for anything serious (serious as complex webapps). Adobe AIR is a much more adapted and competent environnement, and it's getting more traction that ever. Seems a pretty sunny landscape for A…

I don't have any experience with AIR for mobile, but on the desktop it's a sad second-class citizen, only slightly more featured than wrapping your website in a site-specific browser like Prism, and no longer fully cross-platform since Adobe decided to stop releasing updates on Linux. I really wanted it to be awesome, but it's not.

I do agree though, that complex browser apps just don't work on mobile Flash. I had been hoping that maybe somehow Adobe would get it to work, but obviously they haven't. And now, officially, they won't keep trying.

Re: Adobe ceases development on mobile browser Flash, refocuses efforts on HTML5

#48

Post by arocks »

cowpewter wrote: post #16

This makes me a little sad. For all that people complain about Flash, and any problems the Flash Player runtime has, it's really a fun environment to code for. I like AS3, I like the Flash API, and I greatly enjoyed writing Flex back when that was most of my job. I don't have nearly as much fun writing HTML/JS as I did writing AS3. I liked the (optional) strict typing. I liked writing for a single target and knowing…

You might want to check out Jeash[1], an HTML5 library which mimics the Flash API written in Haxe[2], a typed language.

[1]: http://jeash.com/ [2]: http://haxe.org/

Re: Adobe ceases development on mobile browser Flash, refocuses efforts on HTML5

#49

Post by melling »

This is going to do a lot of harm to Flash on the web. Now we know for sure that any Flash web pages will never work on mobile devices. Mobile apps are great but I still think the majority of people will use their devices as web browsing devices.

Finally, it really destroys your trust in Adobe. Will they discontinue their mobile AIR tools if they have a few more bad quarters?

Re: Adobe ceases development on mobile browser Flash, refocuses efforts on HTML5

#50

Post by dylangs1030 »

Disappointing as it may be, it's realistic. I could never see mobile devices being capable of loading and running flash based games or web environments consistently or seamlessly. It just requires too much power the device doesn't have. Even the iPhone 4S and iPad 2 dual core technology aren't up to the task, and I believe that's the closest mobile ever came to supporting flash.

But even mini laptops can just barely handle flash websites with glitzy introductions and interface. A phone can't handle that, it's outdated and inefficient for smaller modules of power.

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