Adobe discontinuing Flash for mobile

[barnaby]

[quote]I hate Flash, but HTML5 is so full of bugs that... I hate it.
Now what?[/quote]

The article you linked to (and I believe has been linked to before here) is badly informed (e.g. Confuses mp3 with mp4) and so full of unnecessary profanity that it does not deserve acknowledgment.

What other bugs have you come across?

[quote]Please don\'t blame Flash for everything, because there\'s too much javascript out there, where you would only need text.[/quote]

As with any technology, it\'s how you use it that matters more. However, you don\'t have to pay hundreds of pounds to develop with JavaScript. JavaScript also integrates better with HTML, allowing it to manipulate real elements, not be a nasty block on its own. And JavaScript is more likely to fall back to static content, whereas I have only ever seen one website where a full static version was offered in addition to the flash content.

I can and will blame flash for everything it deserves to be blamed for But most of that blame is aimed towards the developers, designers and website owners who used and let it be used in that way.

Cheers,
Barnaby

[tufty]

[quote]Quote from barnaby on November 13, 2011, 09:09
And JavaScript is more likely to fall back to static content[/quote]
Unfortunately, that\'s rarely the case. There\'s a special place in hell reserved for web developers who make sites that are essentially static but don\'t function without javascript, and that special place is not gonna be empty.

[barnaby]

[quote]Unfortunately, that\'s rarely the case. There\'s a special place in hell reserved for web developers who make sites that are essentially static but don\'t function without javascript, and that special place is not gonna be empty.[/quote]

Yes, those are the worst — where accessible, static content is available but it doesn\'t show up without JavaScript. However, in my limited experience, turning JavaScript off as opposed to flash seems to result in more sites that still work to a reasonable degree.

I just wish people used progressive enhancement. Even flash would be tolerable then.

Cheers,
Barnaby

[raffy]

Flash as used in web page is the problem. If the browser (using the web page) is open source, but Flash isn\'t, you can\'t be confident that they could be made to work together well.

[tufty]

Open vs closed source isn\'t an issue. If we assume that the implementation of the Flash plugin is acceptably bug-free, it simply doesn\'t matter - browser providers code to the plugin interface and that\'s all that\'s needed.

What is a problem is how flash is being used.

It originally covered a \"hole\" in the abilities of browsers, particularly with regards to \"dynamic\" (in the user sense of the term) content. That hole is now largely plugged with the introduction of better and more standard scripting technologies, and flash itself is now a \"hole\" when you\'re dealing with the increasingly prevalent mobile browsers, particularly Apple\'s.

Unfortunately, flash has also been used to bridge the pisspoor implementations of various browsers *ahem* ie *ahem*, as a tool to provide identical rendering between browsers without having to bother with handling the various edge cases *ahem* ie *ahem* (which task takes up 90% of the time spent in web development). There\'s also a misplaced belief that using flash will somehow \"protect\" your media. All of which leads to a non-standards-compliant web which is inaccessible to those without a flash player and, particularly, the blind.

[carlosfm]

[quote]What other bugs have you come across?[/quote]

I\'ve tested many times youtube in HTML5 on my desktop PC, with Opera browser (always latest version) and the audio is full of clicks and pops, it\'s a joke, really.
Back to flash, then.
I\'ve found that article because I was having problems and it seems that I\'m not alone!

[carlosfm]

[quote]Quote from tufty on November 13, 2011, 08:32
[quote]Quote from carlosfm on November 13, 2011, 01:08
Just a side note, what does the FAQ page here has that makes it so \"heavy\"?[/quote]
I just profiled it.

Within 5 seconds, the \"meat\" of the page was fully loaded. The rest of the 23 seconds it took to render was taken up making over 1000 individual requests to gravatar.com.[/quote]

!!!!

[barnaby]

[quote]I\'ve tested many times youtube in HTML5 on my desktop PC, with Opera browser (always latest version) and the audio is full of clicks and pops, it\'s a joke, really.
Back to flash, then.
I\'ve found that article because I was having problems and it seems that I\'m not alone![/quote]

Bear in mind that <audio> is still one of the least mature parts of the spec. As such there are numerous implementation problems, from the ones you\'ve heard on opera to the irritating fact that apple and ms don\'t support ogg vorbis (although if ogg/vorbis is more likely to click and pop I can see why they\'re not rushing to adopt it).

Do not judge html5 and assoc. technologies by one, immature aspect of it — let alone a poor implementation of that aspect, as that is what I suspect you\'re experiencing.

Cheers,
Barnaby

[carlosfm]

Considering that if you want to watch a video, you also want to hear the audio, if the audio does not work (as it should) then it\'s all useless.
I could use HTML5 as a boat anchor, though.

[carlosfm]

[quote]Bear in mind that <audio> is still one of the least mature parts of the spec. As such there are numerous implementation problems, from the ones you\'ve heard on opera to the irritating fact that apple and ms don\'t support ogg vorbis (although if ogg/vorbis is more likely to click and pop I can see why they\'re not rushing to adopt it).[/quote]

I fail to understand why ogg/vorbis is more likely to click and pop.
I hear every kind of codec in my PC with several media players without any problems, including ogg vorbis.
It\'s only in the browser that the problem arises, when watching an HTML5/WebM video. Why is it not yet fixe, after several years?!!!
I\'m loosing hope, really.

[barnaby]

[quote]I fail to understand why ogg/vorbis is more likely to click and pop.
I hear every kind of codec in my PC with several media players without any problems, including ogg vorbis.
It\'s only in the browser that the problem arises, when watching an HTML5/WebM video. Why is it not yet fixe, after several years?!!!
I\'m loosing hope, really.[/quote]
You missed the \'if\'. And it sounds to me like this is an implementation problem to do with opera.

What you are experiencing is to do with Opera\'s implementation of the html5 audio tag. Or, more likely, the video tag, because you\'re not talking about the audio tag at all.

It is not a fault with html5. It is to do with either opera or the codec.

If you are indeed \'loosing\' hope, how about trying it out in a different browser? Or file a bug with opera? Complaining here is not going to do anything useful!

Cheers,
Barnaby

[carlosfm]

If you have really read that link, you would already know that all the browsers listed there have their problems, some better than others but all have issues. Opera is one of the best there, besides it\'s \"occasional\" (more like permanent) clicks and pops.

[carlosfm]

deleted

[AncientRelic]

I have to admit that Flash going away is a short term concern. I had hoped to use a R-Pi as a Facebook machine for my mom so she can do her FarmVille and such. I\'ve got a million other ideas so I\'m not sad so much as hating the fact I need to make a full PC for her for this

[axiomprime]

Personally I hate Flash and can\'t wait until it\'s banished from the internet.

[riffraff]

[quote]Quote from tufty on November 13, 2011, 13:54
What is a problem is how flash is being used ... Unfortunately, flash has also been used to bridge the pisspoor implementations of various browsers *ahem* ie *ahem*, as a tool to provide identical rendering between browsers without having to bother with handling the various edge cases ... [/quote]

And as a pisspoor crutch for those who don\'t want to master an environment\'s native rendering services. If I find another Android app (even non-media, mind you) that requires Flash installed I think I\'m gonna ... well, I\'m gonna something.

[tufty]

[quote]Quote from riffraff on December 5, 2011, 08:45
If I find another Android app (even non-media, mind you) that requires Flash installed I think I\'m gonna ... well, I\'m gonna something. [/quote]
That\'s not laziness, that\'s necessity. Gotta be able to render those flash ads. ads ads ads. Users love \'em! They wouldn\'t be using Android otherwise.

[anwe79]

The only thing nice about flash was the drawing tool (in the ide), that would smooth my utter inept atempts at waveing the mouse around in an artistic fashion. Very happy it\'s going away. Video is about the only thing it\'s useful for, and that seemed to be a bit of kluge anyway.

Btw does anyone know of some other drawing tool that works in a similar fashion? I\'ve tried to google lots of times, but can\'t seem to find the right keyword...

[gladoscc]

Seriously, the majority of people on this thread does not know what they are talking about.

As a flash/Actionscript developer:

1) Flash content will continue to work on mobile & tablets - you just need to use Adobe AIR. Adobe AIR is great. I don\'t have to learn a new language to make iOS / Android games. I just do everything as normal like a desktop, and click \'Publish for iOS\' or \'Publish for Andriod\'.

2) Flash / AIR will not die. Many desktop applications are now using Adobe AIR as the limit of Actionscript 3.0 is very high. You can make a IRC chat program. You can even make photoshop in flash (See: Pixlr) with layers, lots of tools, basically 95% of the functionality of photoshop.

Even Gamefly Client, a Steam-Like service is using adobe air!!

3) Actionscript 3 is very easy to program and very friendly to beginners, while featuring Object Oriented Programming, Filesystem Access for AIR, 3D acceleration. It is also open source.

4) Flash/AIR will power Console Quality Games and Engines like the Unreal Engine (Already ported). There is a compiler to compile C++ code into actionscript 3 with minimal performance loss while allowing content to be executed on 99% of devices AND mobile phones AND tablets!

5) HTML5 and Canvas will not catch up. Simple -- speed! Both in performance and developer effectiveness - why spend 5 hours doing something that I can do in 3 hours in Actionscript 3, which is a great language?

6) The language is very elegant and, personally, has the best syntax for programming languages.

[barnaby]

[quote]Btw does anyone know of some other drawing tool that works in a similar fashion? I\'ve tried to google lots of times, but can\'t seem to find the right keyword...[/quote]

Try \"vector drawing\". There are plenty of good apps out there

[quote]Flash content will continue to work on mobile & tablets - you just need to use Adobe AIR. Adobe AIR is great. I don\'t have to learn a new language to make iOS / Android games. I just do everything as normal like a desktop, and click \'Publish for iOS\' or \'Publish for Andriod\'.[/quote]

If you do everything just like you do on a desktop, you\'re hardly going to be making apps that are optimised for mobile users. But I\'ll assume you didn\'t mean that. I would be interested to know if flash offers advanced debugging and profiling à la xCode? And for both operating systems, objective c and java are still going to be the best approaches for prospective developers because the development environments are free, well featured and well supported.

[quote]HTML5 and Canvas will not catch up. Simple -- speed! Both in performance and developer effectiveness - why spend 5 hours doing something that I can do in 3 hours in Actionscript 3, which is a great language?[/quote]

The tools will catch up – adobe are already proving this. And why spend 3 hours making something that few mobile users are going to be able to see, when you could spend a bit longer making something that will work on almost every mobile browser? Again, to a prospective developer — you can get into the canvas API for free. Which is going to be more attractive to, say, web development students?

HTML5 and things like the canvas API is where browser developers are putting their attention, so don\'t think it\'s not going to catch up.

However, you\'ve pointed out the same things that I did a while ago — flash developers will stay useful for a little while longer, despite flash on the mobile web (and therefore the whole web) dying. I maintain my suggestion that it\'s a good idea to start branching out now, though…

Cheers,
Barnaby

[gladoscc]

[quote]Quote from barnaby on December 10, 2011, 11:33

[quote]Flash content will continue to work on mobile & tablets - you just need to use Adobe AIR. Adobe AIR is great. I don\'t have to learn a new language to make iOS / Android games. I just do everything as normal like a desktop, and click \'Publish for iOS\' or \'Publish for Andriod\'.[/quote]

If you do everything just like you do on a desktop, you\'re hardly going to be making apps that are optimised for mobile users. But I\'ll assume you didn\'t mean that. I would be interested to know if flash offers advanced debugging and profiling à la xCode? And for both operating systems, objective c and java are still going to be the best approaches for prospective developers because the development environments are free, well featured and well supported.

[quote]HTML5 and Canvas will not catch up. Simple -- speed! Both in performance and developer effectiveness - why spend 5 hours doing something that I can do in 3 hours in Actionscript 3, which is a great language?[/quote]

The tools will catch up – adobe are already proving this. And why spend 3 hours making something that few mobile users are going to be able to see, when you could spend a bit longer making something that will work on almost every mobile browser? Again, to a prospective developer — you can get into the canvas API for free. Which is going to be more attractive to, say, web development students?

HTML5 and things like the canvas API is where browser developers are putting their attention, so don\'t think it\'s not going to catch up.

However, you\'ve pointed out the same things that I did a while ago — flash developers will stay useful for a little while longer, despite flash on the mobile web (and therefore the whole web) dying. I maintain my suggestion that it\'s a good idea to start branching out now, though…

Cheers,
Barnaby
[/quote]

The majority of mobile users will be able to see flash content via Adobe Air. Flash, however, will prove more useful in the 3D gaming market with Molehill and 3D acceleration. Adobe is also introducing gaming-features such as mouse-lock for full screen first person shooters.

Flash will soon replace java as it is no longer just an animation - it\'s a runtime environment.

[jerrylamos]

Flash will soon replace java as it is no longer just an animation - it\'s a runtime environment.

When?? I've got flash Midori running on Puppy linux for RasPi, but Puppy has some screen problems so I prefer Debian - how do we get flash on RasPi?

Thanks, Jerry