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Adobe Renaming 'Flash Professional' to ‘Animate’, Shifts Focus to HTML5
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Baryon said it best, but Flash was actually pretty amazing, considering what they were trying to do and support. By the time the iPad Incident rolled around, Adobe was getting closer and closer to the dreamspace of "Develop once, publish everywhere". They were even getting into the business of creating apps (for iOS and Android). This means you could create a game (or a connected application, whatever) and deploy it to Web, as a Mac or PC application, as a tablet application, as a phone application, etc. without having to write a lot of different code or going through multiple programming environments and learning multiple languages. How cool is that??? Was it working perfectly? No, obviously not, but it would have gotten better.
I would agree with what some others have suggested - it's okay to dump legacy support at some point, and that's not a lesson Adobe learned.
As a development tool, it was incredibly awesome - integrating visual and programming environments into a single source. I loved drawing in Flash SO MUCH MORE than Illustrator. Having an all-in-one environment was pretty great.
I think the biggest issues were:
Before Flash, the web was pretty static. Before MP4, Flash came closer to being the go-to for all streaming video than anyone else. It's an amazing tool.
I would agree with what some others have suggested - it's okay to dump legacy support at some point, and that's not a lesson Adobe learned.
As a development tool, it was incredibly awesome - integrating visual and programming environments into a single source. I loved drawing in Flash SO MUCH MORE than Illustrator. Having an all-in-one environment was pretty great.
I think the biggest issues were:
- Adobe Tried to do too much with Flash without axing legacy support
- There were too many people using it for annoying ads
- Security was an issue - a delicate balance between useability and security
Before Flash, the web was pretty static. Before MP4, Flash came closer to being the go-to for all streaming video than anyone else. It's an amazing tool.
Since 2003 when Macromedia released Flash MX 2004 and Flash MX 2004 Professional.
I think, but I'm not sure, they killed off the "basic" version when Adobe acquired Macromedia.
At some point we all used (consumed) Flash in our technology life. Whether you like it or not we are forced to used Flash. The ONLY reason why people hate it, because Adobe refused to improve the platform. Security is the very obvious one, second it's a resource hog. They had all the money for R&D yet they don't wanna invest into it. I don't know how Adobe handle things but they're arrogant in many ways. I guess that's what happens when you think you dominate the market. Don't worry they just renamed the Flash you'll still enjoy it for awhile.
Flash is still alive ? Flash is dying, a slow death ...
Apple's bashers won't apologize, I know very well, but I was here to read their posts about Apple's fool decision to not support Flash. Here we are.
I was really excited until I actually read the article. That being said, most Flash on the web is ads. YouTube is HTML 5 now, and that covers most of the video I ingest in an actual browser and not an app. Who really needs a bloaty piece of software full of security holes that they never use? It's gasping in misery—the humane thing to do is put it down. Do the right thing, Adobe.
I did not say that you could not create beautiful art with Flash. What I was implying is that the software has always been super buggy, and super bloated and a huge security hole. There are other tools that can be used to create beautiful art and many of them do not have all the issues that come with Flash.
There are still people repeating the same words since almost ten years: Flash is bad.
Have you tried it out? It has surpassed the HTML5 standard during the past years. The programmers did a great job.
HTML5 is a nightmare. And I am saying this as a former web developer and a long term consumer of web content. After almost 10 years in the making, HTML5 finally changed its status to "recommended" almost a year from now . But still, the technologies are not widespread, partially non-functional and depending on the system and hardware unusable. I quit being a web developer some time ago, it is not maintainable anymore.
HTML5 failed to deliver what had been promised by the industry (yes, BY the industry, the w3c had not promised anything). In fact, there arose many problems over the past years which had been solved by Flash ten years earlier. Flash was designed as an integrated system and could therefore manage caching and resources consistently amongs any browser and system. With the distributed nature of HTML5, technologies fell apart.
SVG is a joke. Always has been. No widespread usage at all. Vector graphics are practically non-existent in the modern web. Except for rounded buttons made with CSS.
Canvas is poor and unreliable. The few games or interactive sites that work with it barely make an image appear let alone text which even more is not rendered very good.
WebGL would be nice, but is still a dream and widespread use is not even in its infancy. After more than 5 years of sleep, we still have not woken up. There are still the same examples of WebGL out there since 5 years. WebGL is still disabled in many browsers. Nobody uses it.
Not many people in Web development care about SVG, Canvas or WebGL. There is HTML5 content because customers have been asking for it due to certain words which have been quoted and repeated to death. But such content is just the same old publishing stuff we already knew and already had the technologies for (and I do not necessarily mean Flash). Best example are annoying ads. They are still around, even with HTML5. Everything else has not changed.
Flash has evolved. Check it out. Memory consumption? No biggie. Speed? Lightyears ahead of svg. Download time? faster than anything HTML5 will ever be able to do. Security? Who cares?
Fun fact: I am using Flash on YouTube and HTML5 on Newgrounds now. The irony. I installed ClickToFlash after YouTube provided the HTML5 by default, so I could use the Flash-Player again. Test it out. The Flash-Player surpasses the HTML5-Player in terms of usability by far. It is reactive, it does not stutter, it does not reload, it hides mouse cursor and overlay automatically. The HTML5-Player on Newgrounds even surpasses the Flash-Player on YouTube.
Adobe told us that banning flash would ban the free Web. And so it happened... for those who uninstalled Flash. People using iOS pay thousands of dollars to gaming companies producing games less innovative and with lower quality than people could get their hands on for free 15 years ago. But indie developers don't see a dime. The Web is closed.
I still play free games and have endless hours of fun. I have Flash installed.
I think, Adobe Animate has a fair use: CC lovers who want HTML5 are given a tool to do the best you can expect from HTML5 technologies: Some animations. If you want more, you still need Flash.
Have you tried it out? It has surpassed the HTML5 standard during the past years. The programmers did a great job.
HTML5 is a nightmare. And I am saying this as a former web developer and a long term consumer of web content. After almost 10 years in the making, HTML5 finally changed its status to "recommended" almost a year from now . But still, the technologies are not widespread, partially non-functional and depending on the system and hardware unusable. I quit being a web developer some time ago, it is not maintainable anymore.
HTML5 failed to deliver what had been promised by the industry (yes, BY the industry, the w3c had not promised anything). In fact, there arose many problems over the past years which had been solved by Flash ten years earlier. Flash was designed as an integrated system and could therefore manage caching and resources consistently amongs any browser and system. With the distributed nature of HTML5, technologies fell apart.
SVG is a joke. Always has been. No widespread usage at all. Vector graphics are practically non-existent in the modern web. Except for rounded buttons made with CSS.
Canvas is poor and unreliable. The few games or interactive sites that work with it barely make an image appear let alone text which even more is not rendered very good.
WebGL would be nice, but is still a dream and widespread use is not even in its infancy. After more than 5 years of sleep, we still have not woken up. There are still the same examples of WebGL out there since 5 years. WebGL is still disabled in many browsers. Nobody uses it.
Not many people in Web development care about SVG, Canvas or WebGL. There is HTML5 content because customers have been asking for it due to certain words which have been quoted and repeated to death. But such content is just the same old publishing stuff we already knew and already had the technologies for (and I do not necessarily mean Flash). Best example are annoying ads. They are still around, even with HTML5. Everything else has not changed.
Flash has evolved. Check it out. Memory consumption? No biggie. Speed? Lightyears ahead of svg. Download time? faster than anything HTML5 will ever be able to do. Security? Who cares?
Fun fact: I am using Flash on YouTube and HTML5 on Newgrounds now. The irony. I installed ClickToFlash after YouTube provided the HTML5 by default, so I could use the Flash-Player again. Test it out. The Flash-Player surpasses the HTML5-Player in terms of usability by far. It is reactive, it does not stutter, it does not reload, it hides mouse cursor and overlay automatically. The HTML5-Player on Newgrounds even surpasses the Flash-Player on YouTube.
Adobe told us that banning flash would ban the free Web. And so it happened... for those who uninstalled Flash. People using iOS pay thousands of dollars to gaming companies producing games less innovative and with lower quality than people could get their hands on for free 15 years ago. But indie developers don't see a dime. The Web is closed.
I still play free games and have endless hours of fun. I have Flash installed.
I think, Adobe Animate has a fair use: CC lovers who want HTML5 are given a tool to do the best you can expect from HTML5 technologies: Some animations. If you want more, you still need Flash.
That was the golden era of Flash. I loved MX 2004. It was easy to use and, as an educator, easy to teach. The interface was intuitive and the exported projects worked beautifully. Then Adobe screwed it up. It became a confusing, complicated mess. Exported files were glitchy, and some versions didn't even function at all. That's when I began praying for someone else to create a new multimedia authoring tool that could do what Flash was supposed to do, but in a more intuitive way. I found it surprising that there were so few other usable authoring tools on the market. Thankfully, Hype was released a few years ago and that's been a huge help for teaching interactivity. It too isn't perfect, but I'm glad there are finally some alternatives.
It is the same with Java. Everyone seems to hate Java, when in fact they likely mean the browser plugin.
I remember that as well. I was torn between learning HTML and CSS (and dealing with the idiotic Internet Explorer 5 and 6 and all the other incompatibilities between the browsers) and learning Flash with its buttery-smooth animations and crisp, alpha-channeled images. It was really ahead of its time, until the W3C caught up.
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I used to make whole websites in flash and do crazy stuff when most sites only had images, text, tables, and links. I loved flash for it's arty endless possibilities. While great it didn't search well, crashed and was very hard to change anything once you got into animation unless you wanted to code all movements. It was great in it's time but it's now that we have to move on.
It's not $600 for each. It's $600 for what used to be called the "Master Collection" in addition to a few others (ie Lightroom). $600 for Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Premiere, After Effects, Acrobat, Lightroom, etc... The Master Collection used to be around $1200 or so and a $800 upgrade. So if you upgraded often, the $600/yr is actually cheaper.
NukeX is a $2300 rental per quarter , and all you get is a compositor (granted, its better at compositing then AE, but its still just a compositor). They have an "amazing" deal right now where I can rent it for a whole year for only $1700. Still, one product. Much more then $600. (and no, I'm not about to pay that when Fusion 8 is on the way for free / $1k but thats another topic).
Media Composer is regularly $50/month if you subscribe for a year (on sale now for $29/month with a year commit). Thats still $360 a year for just one piece of software.
There's plenty of other applications you can get to do what CC does. If the CC versions of the apps better suite your needs (as they do mine) then its worth it. If not, you can get others (FCPX, Motion, Pixelmator, etc..).
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I was going to go with "Ha! I will spit on your grave!", but I suppose R.I.P. is more diplomatic.
Of course, it will be years before throwback media sites finally move away from Flash, but Adobe telling them that it's time is a step in the right direction.
Maybe, but I'm skeptical that's actually the case, and the last couple of quarters doesn't point to you being correct. If you've basically run out of things that are going to get anyone other than "I buy every version no matter what" professionals to upgrade regularly--which Adobe certainly has--it makes a lot more financial sense to trap people in an endless contract than to try and develop enough features to force upgrades.
Think of it this way--at this point, Adobe could stop developing Photoshop, Illustrator, and Indesign entirely--not a single new feature or bug fix--and their revenue stream wouldn't decline for years. Eventually maybe a competitor would get people to start switching, but pros locked into Adobe products will have to keep paying whether there's any development or not.
I'm not saying I like this business model, but I'm skeptical it's hurting Adobe's bottom line.
Actually not necessarily. They are, apparently at least, telling websites to stop using the damned thing entirely. They're just keeping the production end of it around for actual animators, which makes sense because that's the only thing Flash was actually useful for.
Renaming the software to what it's actually useful for--animation--rather than the bloated, security-superfund-site mess of a media player it's become makes some sense. I'm sure if I were an animator using the software to make animation (exported to video for playback via HTML5, most likely) would make sense.
Steps in the right direction! I mean, Flash has pretty much exited my life entirely, but it's good to see Adobe recognizing the internet is changing.
Yup, recently spotted in a car wash in Encino, as well as a movie theatre in Los Alamos.Steve lives!
Yep. Remember the Fandroids and their “but you can’t access the ‘real’ Internet on an iPhone” regurgitations? Pathetic back then, hilarious now.
swingerofbirch
macrumors 68040
Adobe is an amazing company that makes amazing software. Apple and Adobe together helped to create desktop publishing. Apple licensed PostScript from Adobe for the first LaserWriter. All of the big tech companies that have survived since the 70s and 80s do amazing work, especially one that has survived on the strength of its software. To cast a wide brush against Adobe based on Flash's shortcomings in its late years is to miss the big picture of what they've done for print, photography, video, and the web.
Oh, my friend, you have no idea. Let's first establish this: Adobe WAS an amazing company.
But somewhere along the line they really lost their way. If you've ever dealt with them as an enterprise customer, you'll see it full force. They're just awful. As a single user, sole customer, you might not notice it as readily, but let me ask you to explain what Adobe has done in the last 5 years that justifies any kind of admiration of them. Their software has languished and become amazingly buggy and if you want to run any of it, you have to install all kinds of intrusive and unnecessary background apps that frequently cause problems (just had to kill some Adobe background apps a week ago when my Mac ground to a halt because one of them decided to start using up most of my CPU power.)
The Adobe of 2015 is not by any stretch the company of the late 90s and early 2000s. They're just treading water nowadays and milking their core products for whatever they can get out of them. It's sad.
