Over on DownloadSquad.com, Sebastian Anthony has posted some very interesting news:
It seems the camel's back has finally snapped: Adobe's Flash department has curtailed all Flash and AIR development for the iPhone OS platform. Citing the recent change in Apple's developer license, Adobe no longer believes the iPad or iPhone to be a safe or worthwhile investment. The ability to target iPhone and iPad in Flash CS5 will still exist, but no further work will be made by Adobe to update or support that feature.
Read the rest of Sebastian's post here.
Although I can't lay claim to being a big time programmer, I've got quite a bit of web design and development under my belt, mostly coding and scripting (HTML. CSS, JavaScript, some PHP and Ruby on Rails, etc) so I can develop apps which run in a browser and which will run on some mobile devices.
And using Flash/ActionScript, I also developed a stand-alone framework for trivia games which worked on WinOS, MacOS although I created them specifically for windows mobile devices. I'd love to be able to port those games over to the iPhoneOS, but alas apparently not. Maybe I will be able to do that for Android because here's an interesting sidenote from that post: "Adobe has now shifted its efforts towards Android and the upcoming Android-based tablets. Both Flash Player 10.1 beta and Adobe AIR 2.0 beta for Android will soon be available."
They can keep Flash
They can keep Flash.It's old outdated,and full of security issues.
HTML5 is not far away form being the standard anyways.
Bren, some people like to
Bren, some people like to trash flash and say things like you just have, but that does NOT change the fact that almost all sites online which have video on them have video in a flash format plus also people with these sort of dismissive comments seem unaware that most online games are flash-based, or they just don't care, but people visiting such sites enjoy the offerings.
plus flash is not the security risk that some claim. corporate sites would not use something that would bring their company to their knees. i'm talking Fortune 500 & 1000 companies, etc including banks and news sites and organizations.
and while HTML5 may become a standard but that does not mean that it will be standard in terms of use, plus it doesn't really do games.
myself i could live without ugly flash banners, but that's not a flash problem, but a problem more to do with bad design and not flash. i've seen plenty of very ugly non-flash banners too (see my site: BannerReport.com for examples).
in other words, the problem is not flash, but how it is used. like anything else.
holes in your logic
Tari I know what you are trying to say but there are some holes in your logic:
1) A small portion of those flash games are okay. Most of them are rinky dink wastes of time, like 99.99% of facebook games, and some are downright sinister. I know a few games which basically give you free stuff but if you want to really get ahead in the game, you have to buy stuff in order to vault ahead and stay competitive. They are these mafia wars style games with no real strategy except "play constantly, and sometimes cheat." Losing flash games would be no great loss.
2) Fortune 1000 companies take security risks all the time, including banks. It's called risk/reward. If it costs less money to leave something unsecure and allow it to be stolen rather than secure it, and getting it stolen does not result in a great loss to the company, then the company will not spend the money. Microsoft is not in the business of securing your personal information, they are in the business of selling you something. Adobe is in the business with flash of creating a tool you can do goofy animations and games with, not with securing your information.
3) HTML5 will become the standard in video, because it's open and better than a flash based player in all ways. Small time animations and games are another matter but since people want to push content to iphones, ipods and ipads, they will go with HTML5, and soon they will realize they don't need two means of transmitting video, just one, and will eventually abandon that for the open standard.
4) Yes banners are a flash problem. Many times on laptops, when flash banners come up, the CPU suddenly starts revving and the battery starts getting used up. If power is at a premium, that's important for road warriors who are just trying to read a newspaper or do some research. Flash is an energy and CPU hog, it always has been.
I'm not saying Flash is going away or Apple is right to end flash use, I'm just providing a counter point to your argument so it can be refined.
basically, you've expanded on
basically, you've expanded on my points. just because some games made in flash suck and/or are bad doesn't mean that there is anything wrong with flash or actionscript itself. although it can be a hog especially if not optimized, but that's a problem with the creator.
and while some animations are 'goofy', there is a lot of good flash animation as well, including many popular and well-done web series. again, it's what people do with a tool, not the tool itself. of course HTML5 will become a standard for video, but that does not mean that all video will be HTML5 or that flash will go away for video or that it should. plus games will still be made in flash. hopefully better ones that some that are around now.
and what about Apple's own video formats (QuickTime) which they are pushing and have been for years? that will be around for a long time too. and Divx, not to mention it's open source equivalent, xvid.
my real point is not to scream that flash is great and has no problems in how it is used. i simply think that Apple is being short-sighted about banning it from their devices considering how pervasive it is online.