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Entries for month: November 2011

And In a Flash it's Over!

General Topics · By Christopher Long No Comments »

As predicted Adobe will no longer support Flash on mobile devices. According to an article on ZDNet, sources close to Adobe stated, 

"Our future work with Flash on mobile devices will be focused on enabling Flash developers to package native apps with Adobe AIR for all the major app stores. We will no longer adapt Flash Player for mobile devices to new browser, OS version or device configurations. Some of our source code licensees may opt to continue working on and releasing their own implementations. We will continue to support the current Android and PlayBook configurations with critical bug fixes and security updates."

So what does this mean for mobile users strapped with a new 2 year contract on a device running something other than iOS (like me with my new Motorola Atrix 2)? Nothing really, because with HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript allowing native video support, they will still be able to receive dynamic content. One of the major problems with Flash has been adapting it to work seamlessly with a mobile system. What came out was an unstable mess that ate up every morsel of battery life it could get it's hands on. Consumers eagerly awaited the Motorola Zoom as it was supposed to be released as the premier Adobe Flash mobile device. Adobe couldn't get the kinks worked out so instead of a fully functioning Flash capable mobile device the Zoom was released with a Beta version of Flash that was unstable at best, according to testing done by Wired Magazine.

Looking at the articles across ZDNet, Wired, Gizmodo, and CNN it appears that the Flash based apps being written will not be in jeopardy with this change, it's playing web based flash applications such as Global Warfare on Facebook that will crash. There are also predictions that with Adobe dropping the ball on the mobile devices that their future in web based development is looking grim. As a meager Flash developer this makes me apprehensive when it comes to the future of some of my current works, however as with anything in the realm of technology you either adapt or die. My suggestion would be to study the changes and start introducing yourself to HTML5.

Since leaving the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium http://www.w3.org) in 2004, due to the WC3's focus on XML over HTML, the new group WHATWG (Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group) have been pushing the evolution of HTML and has published the HTML Living Standard which can be found at http://www.whatwg.org/ under the HTML.

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