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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

#51

Post by w0utert »

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…

> I wonder, what was the catalyst that caused Adobe to admit what everyone else already knew?

I think it's pretty obvious. Adobe simply did the math and figured out that they are losing money on supporting the myriad of mobile devices that get thrown on the market promising 'the full web' with Flash. High development effort, low income, big competitive threat from upcoming HTML5 authoring tools.

Remember when Flash was still only available on Windows, Linux and OS X? Even then Adobe had a hard time properly supporting OS X and Linux, which have always been second-class citizens compared to the Flash Player for Windows. 6 months ago Flash Player for OS X didn't even have GPU accelerated video, and there wasn't even a 64-bit version for Linux. The only reason this has improved somewhat is because Adobe had to show the world that they were serious about supporting Flash, and to counter all the negative press Flash got as a result of iOS not supporting it, and OS X and Linux users complaining about it.

Now imagine the investment Adobe probably has to make to support 20 different ARM SoC's, and make the player even more efficient than it is on Windows PC's, knowing that neither iOS, nor WP7, nor Windows 8 Metro will ever support it. All just to sell a few more licenses for their Flash authoring tools, which is probably a dwindling business already.

Flash is dead because the world has moved on, and there is no money to be made from it anymore.

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

#52

Post by mofle »

jaredsohn wrote: post #30
barrkel wrote: post #17

One of the nicer things about Flash is that it's easy to block en masse, which cuts out on so many visually distracting animated things. One of my worries with HTML5 is that we won't have a good heuristic for preventing animation and video. As it is, YouTube occasionally serves me up their HTML5 video player, and it's a significantly worse experience than the Flash one, for the simple reason that it autoplays, wherea…

FlashBlock just uses CSS to hide certain and elements from the page; the same techniques work for and (My MuteTab Chrome extension ( http://www.mutetab.com ) does this) and I'm sure the same could be done for . If you want to completely prevent animation of the page, though, you'll need to disable JavaScript completely (as you can currently do in the NoScript extension), although this could be troublesome if the site…

But you can't block CSS animations though.

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

#54

Post by kalleboo »

redthrowaway wrote: post #14
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…

They probably gave it a good shot, but couldn't get it anywhere near lean enough. Flash turns laptops into battery-powered space heaters; on a mobile device it's just a non-starter. Flash is just a dying tech. Were someone to seamlessly roll its functionality into an easy to use package, I'm sure you'd see it die out for games as well, which is the only remaining use-case there isn't a ready replacement for.

Flash isn't dead yet since HTML5 hasn't really arrived. On mobile platforms where Flash is supported, it still outperforms HTML5. And the HTML5 toolset is still completely non-existant.

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

#55

Post by Angostura »

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…

I'm speaking from extreme ignorance here, so excuse my .. ignorance.

But isn't the Adobe game plan to keep the powerful development tools that you know and love, but have them spit out HTML5 rather than Flash?

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

#56

Post by bad_user »

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're complaining about the development environment, which is considered to be better than JS/HTML5 by many people.

However, the Flash runtime is the reason people complain about Flash. It is slow, it leaks memory, it crashes like crazy and has been a second-class citizen on every platform other than Windows since forever.

JS/HTML5 on the other hand is a mess in terms of development tools. But it is getting more and more reliable. And it's a real standard with multiple implementations that are extremely competitive. Apple was right for excluding Flash from their mobile browser, as for mobile phones HTML5 is currently much better, even though the technology powering it is newer than Flash.

Adobe's current plans are to build development tools for HTML5/JS too. They are even pushing for improvements in the standard, like CSS3 Regions.

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

#57

Post by michaelpinto »

The idea of Adobe focusing on using Flash to create native apps is a great idea -- and I'll think they'll do well with it. There's an army of folks who know ActionScript who don't want to learn Objective-C, and there are tons of apps which are created for ad agnecies where development speed matters.

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

#58

Post by TillE »

mofle wrote: post #52
jaredsohn wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FlashBlock just uses CSS to hide certain and elements from the page; the same techniques work for and (My MuteTab Chrome extension ( http://www.mutetab.com ) does this) and I'm sure the same could be done for . If you want to completely prevent animation of the page, though, you'll need to disable JavaScript completely (as you can currently do in the NoScript extension), although this could be troublesome if the site…

But you can't block CSS animations though.

You can if the relevant files are served from a distinct location, which would be the case for ads.

If it's more closely integrated, then you have to either stop using the site or use something like GreaseMonkey.

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

#59

Post by TillE »

beej71 wrote: post #41
Riverbed wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Flash is not open. It's also a moving target for everyone but Adobe.
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