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Adobe Discontinues Development of Flash Player on Mobile Devices
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1) Flash does not just do video playback.
2) Flash does not do video playback inefficiently assuming your operating system and hardware support hardware acceleration. Not many Macs support this and it's only supported in Mac OS X 10.6.3 or later.
HTML5 video is far from being able to match Flash in every regard. In many cases it will offer worse performance, purely because the browser is unable to use the GPU to accelerate the video decoding and scaling.
Try ClickToPlugin. It not only blocks Flash content but you can set it up to display video on certain sites (including YouTube) as an HTML5 video or open it up in QuickTime. It works great for me.
An organization I volunteer with uses a third-party company to collect registration information for participants (name, address, credit card number, etc.) The third-party handles all the database work and credit card transactions and deposits money into our bank account. We access the database through a back-end interface that runs entirely in a giant full-screen Flash plug-in in your browser.
I'm not a huge fan of it, but it exists and is useful.
Agreed it is not standard, it is still in the ratification stages. That said, it is far enough along that people are adopting it. Not too dissimilar to how HTML4 was adopted.
That said, I don't see the fact of all browsers not adopting portions of HTML5 as being anything special. That issue is actually quite similar to what occurred early (and even recently) with aspects of HTML4.
Schools should never teach specific technologies and even less versions of them. Schools should be teaching you higher level concepts that apply to all technologies and should be teaching you how to learn to efficiently assimilate new technologies as they become available.
In other words, go to school to learn programming, not to learn Java/C/ActionScipt. Learn to read API documentations.
Hmmm, well I agree that learning and understanding things from a conceptual level is great - I know development/design/architecture from a very abstracted perspective, so I can apply it rapidly to different languages/frameworks.
That being said, I still believe you need some _applied_ skills, to give the concepts context and to understand some fundamentals of coding techniques, actually using an API, seeing your implementation up and running and debugging it. If you're in a CS program, you should be doing some C++ and/or Java, just to get your feet wet.
Just my $0.02
It's all about timing
Not too many tears will be shed over the demise of Flash, and rightly so. Today the mobile browsing experience is just fine (and better off) without Flash. But lets not forget that not too long ago many sites wouldn't render properly without it. As an interim measure Flash fulfilled a useful function. In fact, Flash was one of the reasons I chose an Android device two years ago. Today I'm using an iPhone 4S and not missing Flash one bit. Time changes everything.
Not too many tears will be shed over the demise of Flash, and rightly so. Today the mobile browsing experience is just fine (and better off) without Flash. But lets not forget that not too long ago many sites wouldn't render properly without it. As an interim measure Flash fulfilled a useful function. In fact, Flash was one of the reasons I chose an Android device two years ago. Today I'm using an iPhone 4S and not missing Flash one bit. Time changes everything.
You should be doing some C++/Java/C whatever to implement the high level concepts you.re doing, you shouldn't be learning C++/Java/C whatever. I don't know where you got from my post that you shouldn't be applying and doing practical lab exercises.
The best schools don't actually force languages/technologies on students. They give you the high level training and then the lab and exercise implementations are left to the students to do in any language/API they want.
It doesn't matter that your school is teaching you 3D graphics with OpenGL 4.1, 3.2 or even 1.1 or Direct3D or any other 3D API. You're mostly going to be learning about Matrix manipulations, how vertexes and 3D space work in general, what is all the effects you can achieve with images applied to objects (texture, mip, bump mapping, lighting, etc...).
You should not care that your teacher never told you about the NV_texgen_emboss extension.
So maybe the problem is that being a moron when programming in Flash is far easier than being a moron when programming in, say, Objective C.
Incidentally, that also happens with other languages, like Java. See what a fame it has now in the desktop.
Incidentally, Java is also not welcome on the iPhone.
See a pattern?
Yes, as demonstrated time and again in other platforms, and as finally accepted by Adobe themselves.
So you want to keep alive Flash just to be able to block ads? Wow, what an example of useful technology.
So let's say I introduce you to the magic of DNS block lists (google that). Could we put Flash to sleep now?
That's a well worded defense of Flash.
However, Adobe doesn't seem to agree. The Flash haters did not cancel Flash on mobile devices. Adobe did. Flash has always been a resource pig and despite Adobe's contradictions, they could never get it to run well on mobile devices of any kind (iOS, Android, webOS, Windows Mobile, whatever).
Whatever benefits beyond video playback that Flash offers, mobile device users aren't going to see them.
Because Adobe gave up.
Your wording was a little ambiguous/confusing, but that clears it up, we agree, great!
FWIW, I've been developing (dev/des/architecture) for ~20+ years (also published, a couple of tech patents, 3rd company) so I wasn't talking totally out of my anus
Nothing I just said has anything to do with mobile platforms. It also doesn't change the fact that HTML5 is not the answer to everything.
If HTML5 video doesn't have good support for subtitles, Adobe abandoning a product doesn't change that does it?
As others have pointed out, mobile web usage is tiny compared to desktop usage, so Flash is still incredibly relevant.
Great news from Adobe, now the desktop version please.
If you guys use Safari and want it Flash free but only need Flash if a website it needs you can use below situation:
1. Go to this destination on your Mac HD /Library/Internet Plug-Ins
2. Delete the following files: Flash Player.plugin ,flashplayer.xpt and NP-PPC-Dir-Shockwave
3. Log out and Log in and Flash is removed from Safari and Firefox
4. Download this extension for Safari, it let you enable YouTube and Vimeo videos in H264 also embed videos.
5. Download Google Chrome
6. Download the '' Open in Chrome'' extension for Safari.
7. Enjoy a Flash free Safari!
If a website needs Flash and you're in Safari you can click on the '' Open in Chrome'' button and it will open that website in Chrome.
So you have a Flash free Safari but in emergencies you can open Chrome very fast from Safari and watch the Flash website in Chrome.
I use this situation for about 6 months and Safari is faster and it never crashed since then.
Sorry for my bad English you can also read this instructions from Daring Fireball
If you guys use Safari and want it Flash free but only need Flash if a website it needs you can use below situation:
1. Go to this destination on your Mac HD /Library/Internet Plug-Ins
2. Delete the following files: Flash Player.plugin ,flashplayer.xpt and NP-PPC-Dir-Shockwave
3. Log out and Log in and Flash is removed from Safari and Firefox
4. Download this extension for Safari, it let you enable YouTube and Vimeo videos in H264 also embed videos.
5. Download Google Chrome
6. Download the '' Open in Chrome'' extension for Safari.
7. Enjoy a Flash free Safari!
If a website needs Flash and you're in Safari you can click on the '' Open in Chrome'' button and it will open that website in Chrome.
So you have a Flash free Safari but in emergencies you can open Chrome very fast from Safari and watch the Flash website in Chrome.
I use this situation for about 6 months and Safari is faster and it never crashed since then.
Sorry for my bad English you can also read this instructions from Daring Fireball
I'm not surprised
As someone who switched over to Android for about 15 months before realizing the folly of my ways and switching back to to the iPhone, I'm not surprised Adobe made this move. I've been very pleasantly surprised since switching back to iOS a few weeks ago how many websites that used to render with several "?"'s scattered throughout the page now render in their entirety. That's quite a change from the way it was browsing the web on my iPhone right before I switched to Android 15 months ago.
I guess Steve Jobs got the last laugh in the end, ultimately. . .and less than six weeks after his death. As he was with so many other things, he was a visionary who was looking toward the future when he made those comments about Flash in the not too distant past.
I think this move will ultimately prove to be a good one for both iOS and Android because while HTML 5 video may not be a ubiquitous standard right now, this decision paves the way for HTML 5 (or something even better in the future) to become the new standard that is supported by all major mobile device makers.
As someone who switched over to Android for about 15 months before realizing the folly of my ways and switching back to to the iPhone, I'm not surprised Adobe made this move. I've been very pleasantly surprised since switching back to iOS a few weeks ago how many websites that used to render with several "?"'s scattered throughout the page now render in their entirety. That's quite a change from the way it was browsing the web on my iPhone right before I switched to Android 15 months ago.
I guess Steve Jobs got the last laugh in the end, ultimately. . .and less than six weeks after his death. As he was with so many other things, he was a visionary who was looking toward the future when he made those comments about Flash in the not too distant past.
I think this move will ultimately prove to be a good one for both iOS and Android because while HTML 5 video may not be a ubiquitous standard right now, this decision paves the way for HTML 5 (or something even better in the future) to become the new standard that is supported by all major mobile device makers.
No thanks to Adobe, who at one point was apparently running interference within the standards approval process.
Macs have supported hardware acceleration prior to Snow Leopard, including H.264 support. So have iOS devices. The difference is that Adobe wasn't trusted with access to hardware acceleration for Flash video due to prior indiscretions with buggy/slow/insecure code on the OSX platform. Mac users understand this. And really, why give Flash low-level access to the hardware when it could be done more efficiently another way? I'm sure it wasn't your intention, but you're argument actually supports why we should all be moving away from Flash video.
This is nonsense.
Apple did not provide a suitable hardware acceleration API until Mac OS X 10.6.3.
There were other ways to do hardware acceleration in Mac OS, but none of them were suitable for Flash to use.
It is not up to Apple to provide each developer with access to a specific API, they either have one that everyone can use or they don't have one at all. Mac OS X is not a closed platform like iOS. If there's an API, anyone can use it and release their software without Apple approving it.
In this case they didn't have one until 10.6.3.
This article explains some of the background:
http://blog.kaourantin.net/?p=89
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It depends on what you want to do with Flash. Being a project manager for an interactive agency that primarily creates web games, I can tell you Flash isn't going anywhere anytime soon in this department. We have plenty of javascript development experience but the cost of making an HTML5 game is so much higher than Flash in almost all cases that clients just aren't going for it. With the tools Adobe is working on to make cross platform apps, knowing actionscript will still be a very relevant and marketable skill. We are ALWAYS looking for excellent Flash developers, and I don't see that changing in the near future.
That said, I fully support the grand majority of content on the web going to non-Flash alternatives (Video, slideshows, etc.). Desktop web games and highly interactive demos belong in Flash though. Just take a look at Nickelodeon or Disney's websites and try to tell kids that Flash sucks and they shouldn't use it. Good luck to anyone trying to recreate the majority of these games in HTML5.
To be honest most mobile applications are still just web page front ends. I recall ages ago mentioning you will get the internet on a mobile device. It will just be through an application.
Otherwise, I never had a problem with Flash until I started using a Mac and Youtube. Look at that 2005. I reboot into Windows on the same Mac and those Flash problems go away.
And 2005 was the year of HD, without any hardware accelerated support until years later and then on limited nVidia models. At least the support has broadened to ATI based chips. Anyone with an 8 Series or HD 2000 series is going to need to look for Windows or Linux though.
You and I both. It's just comical (too me) how people are saying Apple 'fans' are 'hating', but we never cared for or noticed NOT having flash to began with. We're not 'hating' we're just laughing at people who once laughed at us.
Oh and No, it (Adobe) will not support newer iterations after 11.1. Yeah it'll fix bugs and whatever but 11.1 will be the last mobile update.