Penny Arcade Forums› Games and Technology› Moe's Stupid Technology Tavern
The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums here.
The Guiding Principles and New Rules document is now in effect.

Flash is dead! Long live Flash!

DisruptedCapitalistDisruptedCapitalist I swear!Registered User regular
edited November 2011 in Moe's Stupid Technology Tavern
Adobe announced yesterday that they won’t be making any more versions of Flash Player for mobile devices.

Seems like Steve Jobs attempt to destroy Flash have succeeded as far as Mobile devices are concerned. Adobe Evangelist and all around awesome guy Ben Forta made this crazy video last year:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pf2HD-ldD8M

This year he's saying that "Flash's job has always been to pick up where the browser left off, with the understanding that the line between them was a grey and moving one."

So far this announcement seems to be upsetting a lot of Flash/Flex developers. The primary concern, of course, is that after investing a lot of time on promoting Flash to their clients and now to adopt the HTML5/JQuery/PhoneGap quickly or lose the trust of their clients. Personally, I'm a ColdFusion developer and I've been shying away from Flash in the past year anyway, so it doesn't affect me to much (except I'm wondering if CF is next on the chopping block.)

How is this announcement affecting you? Are you a Flash or Flex developer? Are you a disciple at the altar of Jobs and are currently rejoicing at the fall of your once-great rival?

"Simple, real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time." -Mustrum Ridcully in Terry Pratchett's Hogfather p. 142 (HarperPrism 1996)
DisruptedCapitalist on

Posts

  • Alistair HuttonAlistair Hutton Dr EdinburghRegistered User regular
    DisruptedCapitalist wrote:
    How is this announcement affecting you? Are you a Flash or Flex developer? Are you a disciple at the altar of Jobs and are currently rejoicing at the fall of your once-great rival?

    Far more damaging than the announcement is the way it has been insta-spun by the tech press as "Death of Flash". Flash Player is still far more capable for delivering enterpirse solutions on the desktop due to not being tied to the version of the browser the enterprise is using, company still using IE6? Doesn't matter, Flash it. Similarly Flash player is still going to be big on consumer desktops because that's how peopel, watch you tube and play free games, on mobile devices that's not how people do it, they use an app - and Flash/Flex is still going to be there to produce games for mobiles due to Adobe's focus on AIR. So as a result flash/Flex is going to be sticking around for a good while yet.

    Basically once we actually see some fully compliant HTML 5/CSS 3 browser's then we might see the death of the flash-plugin but that is still years away and I don't think we're going to see the death of the Flash Player for years unless Adobe drop the ball.

    I have a thoughtful and infrequently updated blog about games http://whatithinkaboutwhenithinkaboutgames.wordpress.com/

    I made a game, it has penguins in it. It's pay what you like on Gumroad.

    Currently Ebaying Nothing at all but I might do in the future.
  • DisruptedCapitalistDisruptedCapitalist I swear! Registered User regular
    Yep, that's exactly what I've been telling my clients. Plus, of course, there are still the awesome Flash gaming/HD solutions which just can't be implemented in HTML5 yet. Still, I've had to field a lot a calls from worried clients today even though their websites hardly use Flash. Adobe did a lousy job with that announcement, honestly it would have been better just to do it quietly so they don't spark a panic.

    But it's certainly not the first time Adobe really botched their marketing.

    "Simple, real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time." -Mustrum Ridcully in Terry Pratchett's Hogfather p. 142 (HarperPrism 1996)
  • SynthesisSynthesis Honda Today! Registered User regular
    I had to do a similar double-take when I heard about this the day earlier, "...oh, just flash for mobile."

    It could have been handled a bit better.

  • DisruptedCapitalistDisruptedCapitalist I swear! Registered User regular
    Admittedly, I just posted this cuz I wanted to post that video of Ben Forta. He's such a freak! (In a good way, of course.)

    "Simple, real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time." -Mustrum Ridcully in Terry Pratchett's Hogfather p. 142 (HarperPrism 1996)
  • syndalissyndalis Getting Classy On the WallRegistered User, Loves Apple Products, Transition Team regular
    I think everyone now, after the dust has settled, can agree that flash mobile was never a good idea. Too much overhead, the batteries and processors on these devices were not up to the task, and it was not an efficient plugin by any stretch of the imagination to begin with.

    As a framework/language, flash has a future on mobile devices. It will never be as resource-friendly as native code, but it makes cross platform development a lot easier and for simple games and apps, why wouldn't you consider using AIR?

    SW-4158-3990-6116
    Let's play Mario Kart or something...
  • minor incidentminor incident expert in a dying field ---Registered User, Transition Team regular
    syndalis wrote:
    I think everyone now, after the dust has settled, can agree that flash mobile was never a good idea. Too much overhead, the batteries and processors on these devices were not up to the task, and it was not an efficient plugin by any stretch of the imagination to begin with.

    Yes.

    Hell, it's a poorly optimized beast on the desktop. It routinely turns my sleek, silent MacBook Pro into a furnace/leaf blower with a 13 minute battery. I'd never want something like that on my phone.

    Ah, it stinks, it sucks, it's anthropologically unjust
  • StarfuckStarfuck Registered User, ClubPA regular
    And today Adobe has announced they are "open-sourcing" the Flex SDK, basically, abandoning it after the next major release and handing it over to the community, namely the Spoon Project.

    jackfaces
    "If you're going to play tiddly winks, play it with man hole covers."
    - John McCallum
  • Alistair HuttonAlistair Hutton Dr EdinburghRegistered User regular
    edited November 2011
    Starfuck wrote:
    And today Adobe has announced they are "open-sourcing" the Flex SDK, basically, abandoning it after the next major release and handing it over to the community, namely the Spoon Project.

    What? The Flex SDK has been Open Source for at least a year.

    EDIT: Aaah, wow, they are handing the project leadership over. Didn't see that coming.

    Alistair Hutton on
    I have a thoughtful and infrequently updated blog about games http://whatithinkaboutwhenithinkaboutgames.wordpress.com/

    I made a game, it has penguins in it. It's pay what you like on Gumroad.

    Currently Ebaying Nothing at all but I might do in the future.
  • StarfuckStarfuck Registered User, ClubPA regular
    Commits could only be done within Adobe. The source has been available, but it is now being handed off.
    http://blogs.adobe.com/flex/2011/11/your-questions-about-flex.html

    This part here has the Flex community jumping ship.
    In the long-term, we believe HTML5 will be the best technology for enterprise application development.

    It's currently unofficial, but it will probably be handed over to the Spoon Project.
    http://www.spoon.as/

    jackfaces
    "If you're going to play tiddly winks, play it with man hole covers."
    - John McCallum
  • theSquidtheSquid Sydney, AustraliaRegistered User regular
    The only reason its being announced as the death of Flash is because the media has a hard on for anything Steve Jobs said and one of the things he was massively against was Flash technology.

  • Alistair HuttonAlistair Hutton Dr EdinburghRegistered User regular
    theSquid wrote:
    The only reason its being announced as the death of Flash is because the media has a hard on for anything Steve Jobs said and one of the things he was massively against was people generating revenue on iOS devices that he didn't get a cut of.

    Fixed.

    I have a thoughtful and infrequently updated blog about games http://whatithinkaboutwhenithinkaboutgames.wordpress.com/

    I made a game, it has penguins in it. It's pay what you like on Gumroad.

    Currently Ebaying Nothing at all but I might do in the future.
  • CantidoCantido Registered User regular
    The poor cartoon industry!

    This better not affect Metalocalypse!

    3DS Friendcode 5413-1311-3767
  • SynthesisSynthesis Honda Today! Registered User regular
    edited November 2011
    Think of Archer!

    That's right--Jobs wanted to kill Archer.

    Synthesis on
  • jungleroomxjungleroomx It's never too many graves, it's always not enough shovels Registered User regular
    edited November 2011
    theSquid wrote:
    The only reason its being announced as the death of Flash is because the media has a hard on for anything Steve Jobs said and one of the things he was massively against was Flash technology.

    Well, it's not just Jobs. With the (obvious) exception of the desktop version of Windows 8, both Windows Phone 8 and Windows Tablet 8 will be Flash-less, opting for the supposed plug-in free environment that HTML5 will produce. Considering Windows 8 tablets are supposed to be a combination of laptop productivity with smartphone interface, they could shift the tablet market from simple glorified smartphones into peoples main devices.

    jungleroomx on
  • admanbadmanb unionize your workplace Seattle, WARegistered User regular
    Fuck Flash. Slow, buggy, badly-built poison.

    twitter, github
  • DisruptedCapitalistDisruptedCapitalist I swear! Registered User regular
    edited November 2011
    admanb wrote:
    Fuck Flash. Slow, buggy, badly-built poison.

    Tell us how you really feel. :P

    DisruptedCapitalist on
    "Simple, real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time." -Mustrum Ridcully in Terry Pratchett's Hogfather p. 142 (HarperPrism 1996)
  • Alistair HuttonAlistair Hutton Dr EdinburghRegistered User regular
    admanb wrote:
    Slow

    Get back to us when Javascript RIAs run as fast as Flash Apps without sucking up 3 times as much CPU.

    I have a thoughtful and infrequently updated blog about games http://whatithinkaboutwhenithinkaboutgames.wordpress.com/

    I made a game, it has penguins in it. It's pay what you like on Gumroad.

    Currently Ebaying Nothing at all but I might do in the future.
  • Alistair HuttonAlistair Hutton Dr EdinburghRegistered User regular
    admanb wrote:
    Fuck Flash. Slow, buggy, badly-built poison.

    Wait a second, are you sure you didn't mean the Quicktime plugin for Windows?

    I have a thoughtful and infrequently updated blog about games http://whatithinkaboutwhenithinkaboutgames.wordpress.com/

    I made a game, it has penguins in it. It's pay what you like on Gumroad.

    Currently Ebaying Nothing at all but I might do in the future.
  • useless4useless4 Registered User regular
    Ars Techinca just wrote an article that used the words "Post Flash Era" in the headline without hesitation.
    They do go to caveat it to say the witch isn't dead yet but I feel kind'a like the ewoks at the end of Jedi. We're dancing around fires and celebrating where I come from.

  • SynthesisSynthesis Honda Today! Registered User regular
    Alistair Hutton wrote:
    admanb wrote:
    Fuck Flash. Slow, buggy, badly-built poison.

    Wait a second, are you sure you didn't mean the Quicktime plugin for Windows?

    Nonsense. That would imply that Quicktime actually does something. Which is bullshit.

  • DisruptedCapitalistDisruptedCapitalist I swear! Registered User regular
    I'd mark Synthesis' comment for awesome, but the rest of the PA community probably wouldn't care.

    I lol'ed though.

    "Simple, real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time." -Mustrum Ridcully in Terry Pratchett's Hogfather p. 142 (HarperPrism 1996)
  • CantidoCantido Registered User regular
    edited November 2011
    Synthesis wrote:
    Think of Archer!

    That's right--Jobs wanted to kill Archer.

    I'm not just saying that: Metalocalypse pulls off things I can't even fathom. And that's not even the best example. Then there's Wakfu.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PS_omHavNbw
    Holy fucking shit.
    Also, for a children's show this thing's got mad titties.

    I tried to learn Flash in a class once. What a fucking nightmare.

    Cantido on
    3DS Friendcode 5413-1311-3767
  • SynthesisSynthesis Honda Today! Registered User regular
    Apparently, everything does sound better in French.

Sign In or Register to comment.
Penny Arcade Forums› Games and Technology› Moe's Stupid Technology Tavern