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

Post by watty » Wed, Nov 09, 2011, 2:31 PM UTC

w0utert wrote: post #65

melling wrote: post #49

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?

> Finally, it really destroys your trust in Adobe. Will they discontinue their mobile AIR tools if they have a few more bad quarters? That's an interesting and relevant question, but it also nicely shows why the whole idea of requiring proprietary plugins to view web content was a bad idea (tm) in the first place. Hate to say it, but Jobs was right about two things when he defended the lack of Flash support on iOS: i…

Post by watty » Wed, Nov 09, 2011, 2:33 PM UTC

dylangs1030 wrote: post #50

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…

Post by ugh » Wed, Nov 09, 2011, 2:51 PM UTC

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.

Post by jonhendry » Wed, Nov 09, 2011, 2:54 PM UTC

watty wrote: post #90

soonisnow wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For sure the fact that Apple/Steve passed (violently so) on Flash made it mobile DOA, but is it possible the actual frame/second rendering on Flash 10.1 was actually better-performing than HTML5? These tests are from 2010 but suggest so.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUWo19BcC7s (April) and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFFax1oYyBE (September). Not so sure Steve was proved right so much as it was self-fulfilling p…

Flash definitely outperforms HTML5 on mobile and desktop: http://www.craftymind.com/guimark3/

Post by gcp » Wed, Nov 09, 2011, 3:02 PM UTC

sjwright wrote: post #85

gcp wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the sane reaction people like you and me might have, but it does, quite unfortunately, not match reality at all. Google is heavily advertising Android over iDevices as having Flash support. Users know this and expect Flash to work. It works, sortof, on the default browser. It didn't work for the longest time on Opera and Firefox Mobile. Opera now supports it somewhat reasonably (presumable due to a truly hercu…

Google heavily advertises flash support because it's a point of difference. And while it's true that there are flash-only websites out there, most of them are barely or completely unusable on mobile -- because they require a hovering-and-clicking input device or enough processing power to saturate a desktop CPU or is laid out to suit a large display. The number of websites that require flash AND would work fine on a…