Adobe Ends Development of Flash On Mobile Browsers 485
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."
OMG (Score:3, Funny)
Shhh... Listen... (Score:5, Funny)
Your post say more about you than it does Jobs (Score:2)
You sound like a very small and insignificant person to have a chip that big on your shoulder.
"Great people talk about ideas. Average people talk about things. Small people talk about other people."
Eleanor Roosevelt
Real issue....locked doors (Score:5, Insightful)
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 (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re: (Score:3)
That's oversimplification. Remember that the case was opened in 1991, before a single line of code had been written for Internet Explorer (or Netscape, or Winsock, or ....) IE was central, but so was the abuse of OEM's, in a world where 95%+ of all new computers shipped with Windows. Microsoft abused those OEMs, forcing them to bundle certain software.
Apple is much different:
1. Smaller share of market. (Slashdot loves to trumpet about Android's higher market share) Microsoft was found to be an abusive monop
Re: (Score:3)
Apple made a closed system that allowed all profits to funnel through it.
Oh, and here I thought we were talking about HTML5, WebKit, and open web standards. Fuckin' Apple, ruining it for everyone.
Re: (Score:3)
This comment is full of so much shit that you turned my screen brown.
Let's take it apart piece by piece. Your first point is about native apps being the only ones in the playground. I'm not so sure what you meanby that - you an install anything you wish on Windows and OS X. Phones are a different matter, but most folks are fine with that. Those who aren't can find another solution.
Apple made a "closed" system but anybody can play in there. Does the Justice Dept have it in for Disneyland simply because
Re: (Score:3)
Pretty good, like most regulated markets. Customers trust Apple and so are willing to spend more. The iOS app market is 7x the size of the Android, Blackberry and Nokia smart phone app markets combined. Regulated capitalism is more profitable than anarchy for developers and better for consumers.
_____
That was the scenario under Java Mobile. The carriers controlled software. Under Blackberr
Re: (Score:3)
Good riddance to Flash. But you know, since we're on this topic, to all the "Steve Jobs was right" fanboys: you do not understand logic. Sorry, but you don't. (Note: the following rant is not directed at parent, who makes a parallel argument to the one Steve Jobs made, and is surely correct.)
I think that letter from Steve, Thoughts on Flash [apple.com], is a great way to test whether people understand logical arguments and are competent in keeping separate ideas straight in their heads. Those who see the letter as a de
Re: (Score:3)
But more to the point, the logical connection is not that hard to fathom, and has even been stated as such on more than one occasion. The essence of Flash for most developers is an easy way to create something that works equally on all platforms. The flaw with that, of course, is that it leads quickly to a lowest-common-denominator situation where advanced features aren't widely taken advantage of. On top of that, access to those features is gated by Adobe, essentially putting a third party between Apple an
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
err, logic?
Steve Jobs' point was that they didn't support flash on the iPhone because it it was a giant stinker. He supported his reasoning with evidence.
Steve's not saying YOU can't have it on your phone, and if you want a phone with flash on it, go buy someone else's.
If you want plugins for your mobile browser, dont' use an iPhone. If you do, get an Android, or some other device that supports the feature you want.
You're chastising apple for not including a feature they didn't want to have in their produ
Re: (Score:3)
No, his logic was that it would suck the battery and resources out of the iPads and provide a bad touch experience - both of which would have reflected poorly on the product and on Apple had the customers installed it.
The public is not really tech savvy and would have installed it on their IOS devices and blamed Apple for the resulting security, usability, and performance degradations. Developers wouldn't have had a reason to use HTML5 and Adobe wouldn't have caved and thrown in with HTML5. Seems pretty l
Re: (Score:3)
Everyone but Adobe.
The Whole Web (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The Whole Web (Score:5, Informative)
Re:The Whole Web (Score:5, Interesting)
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: (Score:3)
Move flash to the SD card. Flash on my N1 only takes up 72KB.
Re: (Score:2)
Move flash to the SD card. Flash on my N1 only takes up 72KB.
For some reason I don't have that option.
Re:The Whole Web (Score:5, Informative)
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 [myhtcdesire.com]. 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.
Re: (Score:2)
It's supposed to be my device, HTC.
Cyanogenmod now!
Re: (Score:3)
If you want it to be your device, root your phone using Revolutionary [revolutionary.io]. Install Titanium Backup. Use it to move updates to system apps into the ROM so you get more space for user apps.
Or go the whole hog and put CyanogenMod 7 on there. With S2E you can use a partition on your SD card as an extension of the /system filesystem and never run out of space for apps again. Other advantages of CM7 on Desire are increased battery life and control over how apps communicate ("Phone goggles"). The main disadvantage is
Re: (Score:2)
On the Android market it's listed at 11.0.1.153, which is actually higher than the version I see ready to download when I go to Adobe's site on my desktop. So I guess it's not behind at all.
Rather Petty, Adobe... (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, I'm sure that was the plan.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You're giving Adobe far too much credit. I don't think their current management team is bright enough to have thought of that.
Re: (Score:3)
Actually, I would bet that they, like Microsoft, have tons of competent programmers, but no competent management.
You'd be amazed at how much damage management can do.
Re:Rather Petty, Adobe... (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re: (Score:3)
Adobe's products will not run on case sensitive file systems.
I thought surely this must be hyperbole, but no [adobe.com].
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
I hate to break it to you but despite what you claim the flash video player is using gpu acceleration for scaling and colorspace conversion at minimum. On the other hand, the html5 player is most likely doing everthing in software hence the heavier cpu usage and less smooth playback.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Sure as long as we ignore the fact that that "standardized replacement" was born largely from webkit proprietary extensions developed by Apple (canvas being a huge one)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Android vendors can't even be bothered pushing the latest version of the OS to their customers, you think they're going to spend time making sure a dead technology works ?
Yes, because their customers want it. Plus they don't actually have to do anything to support it, that is all down to Google, and historically they have been excellent when it comes to maintaining browser APIs.
The whole "You can just compile Android from source. Oh nvm, we're not going to give you the latest sources" thing.
We shall see when ICS source is available. I was thinking more along the lines of "at least they try to provide source and don't lock out anything and everything they don't approve of, and it costs nothing to write and publish apps for and is compatible with all open source licenses", but okay I'll gi
At last! (Score:5, Insightful)
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: (Score:2)
Mobile being the future of the Web
OK, who let the Gartner fanboi in...
Re: (Score:3)
It's funny, but he is right. Desktop and laptop sales are already in decline. It's gonna be all virtualization on dense servers and thin clients, just like Sun thought (but about a decade late to save them).
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
You wouldn't. You'd write a word processor that resides native on the device and makes use of the local processing power, and tie its filestore to a service like dropbox, where the relatively small text document can be autosaved, and then available from any device with access to that dropbox store.
So, uhm, how is that different to what we have now? Except for the fact that you're building remote file system drivers into the individual applications rather than the OS, which is moronic. We can already mount remote filesystems and save files to them, what you're suggesting is nothing new.
I'm getting more and more tired of the push to "cloud computing" which perpetually seems to mean running things in your web browser. The original idea of "cloud computing" was that your PC is a thin client and the ap
Multiple source files (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, it does [wikipedia.org]! Hurray! - Dr. Zoidberg
Animations in SVG or canvas (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
http://raphaeljs.com/ [raphaeljs.com]
http://mashi.tv/ [mashi.tv]
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Actually, A lot of corporations use flash for things like elearning and some of them are generations behind (like fp8 if you're lucky).
HTML5? I still have to support IE8, sometimes even IE7 in my webapps.
Try telling a fortune 500 company they should upgrade all their browsers to the latest IE. I have and its a pretty short conversation. They know the cost will be in the millions and they are more than happy to continue on using ancient technology.
Re: (Score:2)
Multiple source files means multiple times the space usage.
Re: (Score:2)
True but in the same space you could just use Theora (that every browser supports) in higher definition thus countering its shortcomings.
There is already agreement (Score:5, Insightful)
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 (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
what are you on about? .flv you can download it, regardless as to whether it's flash or HTML 5. 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.
So long as you can get the absolute reference to the
Flash is dominant in the video space because it got there first. The .flv format is reasonably good compression wise, and it plays MP4s as well, so most of the web video is currently encoded in one of those
Re:At last! (Score:5, Insightful)
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/ [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: (Score:2)
It's easier to block ads servers.
Re: (Score:2)
Really?! (Score:5, Insightful)
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...
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
I laughed.
Re:Really?! (Score:4, Insightful)
So you're worried more about certain people who would have to find new jobs rather than something that could potentially improve the Internet significantly for everyone? Would you rather we have a proprietary plugin like Flash as a defacto standard forever just to help them save their precious jobs? I'm not making light of people "losing" their jobs, I'm happy about it. And not because it is something good, but because it enables something good to happen.
Re: (Score:3)
750 people are losing their jobs. It says so in the article. Hell, it says so in the Summary. Albeit obtusely.
Re: (Score:2)
FTFA "In order to better align resources around Digital Media and Digital Marketing, Adobe is restructuring its business. This will result in the elimination of approximately 750 full-time positions primarily in North America and Europe."
It doesn't say all the people are getting laid off. Some of them will be moved into Open Positions in other areas, Other Positions were Open and will not be filled. Some may be retiring or quitting anyways, and not will be filled in. If Adobe HR is worth their weight they
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not celebrating (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
You are doing it wrong (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Why is this modded funny?
Re: (Score:2)
So... you bought TWO devices you don't like? (Score:5, Insightful)
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!
Re: (Score:2)
Compare that to my iPod touch and the iPad where I just get a big lego piece.
Really? I am going to have to start surfing more flash sites on my wife's ipad and beef up my lego collection.
It's a shame when a buggy proprietary de-facto (Score:2)
standard is ruthlessly cut down in its prime by an evil corporation pushing open standards.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Don't forget Apple's showcase of what HTML5 could do that sniffed browser user agents and refused to run on anything except Safari - because Apple would hate for anyone, especially the press, to get the impression that this new standard HTML5 could run on anything else.
Is this really good news? (Score:2)
This description from Wikipedia makes it sound like they're just moving Flash into a bigger container.
Adobe Integrated Runtime, also known as Adobe AIR, is a cross-platform runtime environment developed by Adobe Systems for building Rich Internet Applications (RIA) using Adobe Flash, Adobe Flex, HTML, and Ajax, that can be run as desktop applications or on mobile devices.
Re: (Score:2)
This description from Wikipedia makes it sound like they're just moving Flash into a bigger container.
It's not like they are moving it into AIR. It has always been a major part of AIR.
uh (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Why does everyone think that HTML5 is the answer when even desktop browsers can't get it uniformly implemented? Mobile browsers are still mostly shit from a compliance and capability perspective compared to the desktop browsers that still can't get it right.
Most browsers installed on mobile devices are based on Webkit, and there is not much reason to change the code from the code for a Webkit-based desktop browser like Safari.
Laid off (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
He's in the Bay Area? He'll probably only have 20 new job offers by the end of the week. Must be rough...
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
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."
Cry me a River. Everyone gets laid off in the IT Industry once or twice, or better yet, ride a few Start up collapses.
Re:Laid off (Score:5, Insightful)
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 (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
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."
So what should you do? Keep old and irrelevant products alive so that everyone can eat?
We're doing that in France, and look where it got us. We're gonna have to change, but people got used to being paid doing nothing, so that's going to end pretty badly.
The end of a product is always sad for those that were deeply invested in it. But that's life.
One closed platform down! (Score:2, Insightful)
I feel sorry for the creators of all the flash content, but OTOH, they should have thought better when they chose that platform in the first place.
The next closed platform to tackle, iOS?
Re: (Score:2)
It's already dieing. Down to the #2 mobile platform, and falling fast.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
But Android users don't buy apps....
http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/21/861-5-percent-growth-android-puny/ [techcrunch.com]
They don't surf the web
http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20128243-264/android-browser-bumps-opera-for-no-2-spot/?tag=mncol;txt [cnet.com]
And even 2/3rd's of Google's mobile traffic comes from iOS devices....
http://www.mobilemarketingwatch.com/two-thirds-of-googles-mobile-search-traffic-comes-from-ios-devices-18718/ [mobilemarketingwatch.com]
Flash to HTML5 movement is not new to Adobe (Score:5, Insightful)
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 (Score:5, Insightful)
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.)
Re: (Score:3)
Flash block (Score:4, Insightful)
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 (Score:5, Insightful)
True. Unfortunately, the problem was never that Flash was inherently evil--the problem was developers overusing it. [slashdot.org]
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.
Flash is a Problem on My MacBook Pro (Score:3)
Mobile is only one problem area. Flash has unexpectedly quits on wake from sleep on my MBPro.
How many years have these problems been going on?
Flash is one sad long series of epic fuck-ups. (Score:3)
This news saddens me. For more than a decade Flash has been *the* ubiquitous end-user rich-client cross-platform environment. Whereever Java initially wanted to go, Flash was already there.
However, the botch-jobs Macromedia and then Adobe delivered when it came to fixing basic issues and bugs in the Flash are beyond comprehension. Font-rendering and compiling has had the same serious bugs and troubles ever since 2001, right to the point were HTML5/CSS3 Font integration hasn't only caught up but superseded Flash-based Font integration. It peaked in what can only be called a flat-out scam by Adobe, when they introduced Flash 8 IDEs 'justify' option for textfields - which would lose it's justified layout as soon as you'd change the default text dynamically. The slowpoking with HW-accelerated 3D - it basically still is a beta, if at all - is beyond any measure. Unity3D has taken the helm in that department, and they aren't letting it up it appears. Flash simply lost out in that area aswell. At last the Flash Pipeline totally missed out the touch-based UI craze which it easily could have jumped ahead of to lead the way into a future of sleek touch-based UIs. Flash is made for this sort of thing, yet it hasn't even entered a beta phase regarding this. Like I said: Nothing but a series of large-type epic fuckups.
Even with modern HTML5/CSS3/Ajax/JavaScript being pretty much cross-platform without to many workaround hacks, it is still a bloated mess of a historically grown stack of intermangled technologies and paradigms that doesn't even come near the capabilities of a Flash/AS3 based enviroment. It's even basically half a decade behind of what pure Browser-based solutions could be simply due to the browserwars back in the early 200x'ses.
Flash could've had it all and even pushed back Java into the most obscure pure-business related stuff - but I guess after the one glimpse of light with the introduction of AS2 it was all downhill from then on.
Sad. Very sad. I hope they finally GPL the whole damn thing. Maybe the FOSS community can save the day with a usable AS3 - VectorGFX VM. But I'm not holding my breath.
It's a tradegy to see Flash go this way, but I guess it's time to move along, bite the bullet and stark messing around with bizar DOM-based rich-client programming. Great. Just great. Just the thought of that gives me the creeps.
Well done, Adobe. I hope your rich-client operations die of allready, you're obviously not competent enought to handle them, no matter how advanced the technology you have at hand is. Not only did Steve Jobs see how well Webkit HTML5 did, he also saw how uninspired your handling of Flash was. The iPad didn't kill Flash, at least not alone, Adobes incompetence had a measurable part in that aswell.
My 2 cents.
Flash and Silverlight... (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
If by hardly ever you mean never, that's true. I've yet to see Flash crash on my phone.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, not including support for a proprietary, third-party plug-in rife with performance issues and security vulnerabilities is definitely the same thing as pumping a new market with a free product funded by revenues from the monopoly product.
Actually, no, it's not. Not at all.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, not including support for a proprietary, third-party plug-in rife with performance issues and security vulnerabilities is definitely the same thing as pumping a new market with a free product funded by revenues from the monopoly product.
Actually, no, it's not. Not at all.
IMHO there's not that big a cognitive gap between using a position of power to bundle something to damage a competitor, or using that position of power to specifically disallow the competitor. The effect is the same.
Also, for all its faults Flash is/was widely supported with relatively few hiccups, and for my particular purposes the hardware acceleration for 3D graphics in Flash 11 was a very big deal for cross-platform & mobile 3D.
Now the only conclusion I can make is that the web will not be the p
Re:First Post (Score:4, Insightful)
Adobe is being stupid. I use flash on mobile every day, most of the day. Very stupid move Adobe.