Steve Jobs was right: Adobe to kill mobile flash

[leapinlew]

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/11/adobe-kills-mobile-flash/

In an abrupt about-face in its mobile software strategy, Adobe will soon cease developing its Flash Player plug-in for mobile browsers, according to an e-mail sent to Adobe partners on Tuesday evening.

And with that e-mail flash, Adobe has signaled that it knows, as Steve Jobs predicted, the end of the Flash era on the web is coming soon.

The e-mail, obtained and first reported on by ZDNet, says that Adobe will no longer continue to “adapt Flash Player for mobile devices to new browser, OS version or device configurations,” instead focusing on alternative application packaging programs and the HTML5 protocol.

“Our future work with Flash on mobile devices will be focused on enabling Flash developers to package native apps with Adobe AIR for all the major app stores,” the quoted e-mail says.

In the past, Adobe has released software tools for mobile developers that create a single platform programmers can use to make applications that work across three major mobile platforms: Android, iOS and the BlackBerry OS. While it’s seemingly easier than learning all of the native languages for each operating system, some developers have claimed a loss in app performance when coding in a non-native language that then gets translated into other languages.

The move indicates a massive backpedaling on Adobe’s part, a company who championed its Flash platform in the face of years of naysaying about its use on mobile devices. Despite Flash’s near ubiquity across desktop PCs, many in the greater computing industry, including, famously, Apple Computer, have denounced the platform as fundamentally unstable on mobile browsers, and an intense battery drain. In effect, Flash’s drawbacks outweigh the benefits on mobile devices.

Flash became a dominant desktop platform by allowing developers to code interactive games, create animated advertisements and deliver video to any browser that had the plugin installed, without having to take into account the particulars of any given browser. However, with the development of Javascript, CSS, and HTML5, which has native support for video, many web developers are turning away from Flash, which can be a resource hog even on the most advanced browsers.

Apple made its biggest waves in the case against Flash in April of last year, when Steve Jobs penned a 1,500-word screed against the controversial platform, describing it as a technology of the past. Jobs and Apple disliked the platform so intensely, it has since been barred from use on all iOS devices.

Despite attempts to breathe life into Flash on other mobile devices — namely, Android and BlackBerry OS — Adobe has failed to deliver a consistently stable version of the platform on a smartphone or tablet. In WIRED’s testing of the BlackBerry PlayBook in April, Flash use caused the browser to crash on a consistent basis. And when Flash was supposed to come to tablets with Motorola’s Xoom, Adobe was only able to provide an highly unstable Beta version of Flash to ship with the flagship Android device.

“Adobe has lost so much credibility with the community that I’m hoping they are bought by someone else that can bring some stability and eventually some credibility back to the Flash Platform,” wrote software developer Dan Florio in a blog post on Wednesday morning.

The drastic reversal in Adobe’s mobile plans comes in the wake of the company cutting 750 jobs on Tuesday, a move prompted by what Adobe labeled “corporate restructuring.”

[HaRuMaN]

He may have been right, but he's still dead.

[Mikezilla]

I thought Apple stuff didnt have Adobe because Steve Jobs is a dick and got pissed at them for some reason.

Anyone read that biography yet? I skimmed over a few chapters the other day while waiting for the GF and MAN. Steve Jobs was an even bigger dick than his rivals made him out to be.

Good one Haruman! 

[leapinlew]

He may have been right, but he's still dead.

Yeah, but you're the one stuck living in a world without Steve Jobs. You tell me, who's got it worse?


 

[HaRuMaN]

He may have been right, but he's still dead.

Yeah, but you're the one stuck living in a world without Steve Jobs. You tell me, who's got it worse?


 

I have no Apple products whatsoever... so it's not me.   

[Mikezilla]

He may have been right, but he's still dead.

Yeah, but you're the one stuck living in a world without Steve Jobs. You tell me, who's got it worse?


 

 

[leapinlew]

He may have been right, but he's still dead.

Yeah, but you're the one stuck living in a world without Steve Jobs. You tell me, who's got it worse?


 

I have no Apple products whatsoever... so it's not me.   

Are you sure?
Who do you think invented that mouse? hmm... ok, wait
Who do you think invented that cell phone? wait, don't count that...
uh, who do you think invented that GUI? grrrr

I own a few Apple products, but I'm not apple fan boy. I just like using the best tool for the job. For years that was an iPhone and it's still an iPad. It sucks that he wasn't a super nice\cool guy but the fact is that Apple made the best products in many categories for a long time before there was a alternative. I still really dislike iTunes, but I'm glad most of my relatives are using it since I don't have to support them and their phones/music players.  

[HaRuMaN]

but the fact is that Apple made the best products in many categories for a long time before there was a alternative

Such as?

[leapinlew]

but the fact is that Apple made the best products in many categories for a long time before there was a alternative

Such as?

Apple II
iphone
ipad
ipod

Best in class for quite a while

[HaRuMaN]

---smurfing--- fanbois.  Keep drinking that koolaid.   

[leapinlew]

---smurfing--- fanbois.  Keep drinking that koolaid.  

Whatever dude. Since you don't own a single product, I don't think your qualified to have much of an opinion.

Tell me, what computer did you want to have instead of an Apple II? Or were you too busy not being born yet?
And which music player did you have which allowed you to download music to it?
And which tablet are you using?

Haters gonna hate.

Dooshbag.

[Malenko]

I had an apple ][, Mavis Beacon taught me to type on it. It ---smurfing--- blew goats.

Tablet, using a dell Streak 7 with Honeycomb 3 on it


portable music player? I had some sandisk MP3 player that didnt require iTunes.

I do have an iphone though and I dont completely hate it, shame the battery sucks floppy donkey dick

[HaRuMaN]

Commodore 64
RCA mp3 no itunes or DRM (@1/4 the cost of an iPod)
Droid phone (@1/3 the cost, no itunes)

Have no need for tablets as I have PC's and phone

[leapinlew]

And thats my point. I'm not saying they make the best products for all of eternity. They make the best in their class while the competition catches up. If you wanted the best computer in the late 70's, you got an Apple II. If you wanted a viable alternative you had to wait a few years. Same with the phone. If you wanted a good smart phone, you waited a couple years for an apple alternative to come out (unless you just LOVED your Winmo or blackberry). I can go on and on, but I think I'm wasting my time.

I currently use a G2/iPad/iPod/PC. 

Go back to hate'n.

[ahofle]

Are you sure?
Who do you think invented that mouse? hmm... ok, wait
uh, who do you think invented that GUI? grrrr

Palo Alto Research Center Incorporated (PARC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PARC_%28company%29

[leapinlew]

Are you sure?
Who do you think invented that mouse? hmm... ok, wait
uh, who do you think invented that GUI? grrrr

Palo Alto Research Center Incorporated (PARC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PARC_%28company%29

Yeah, I know... I was try to say it like this:

Who do you think invented the mouse?! Hmm... wait, whoops! Not Apple, but then who do you think invented the GUI? Oh, crap, thats right, they stole that too. Well then, who do you think invented cell phones?

I could've wrote it better, but I thought it was obvious that it was meant in jest. I mean, you don't think I think Apple invented cell phones do you?  

[ahofle]

Sorry I missed your jest.  I have just seen tons of misinformation like that in the news lately though. "Steve Jobs, founder of the mouse and graphical user interface died today..."  I think it's a good guess that most people do think they invented the mouse/GUI.

[Vigo]

He was the one to steal the GUI and mouse, and as they say: "History is written by the conquerors"

[abispac]

I'm pretty sure apple its one of the best company's out there Right now, and pretty sure it had to be thanks to Mr Job's...However, one of the best music players i had was a Sony brand,then i had the mini disk which was great, then an mp3 compact disk player made by Cobby, then a regular cheap mp3 player that required no itunes.I use to rip mu Cd's for that which was nice, no drm or other crap issues.About cell phones, i always use cheap 5 dlls phones, as i always seem to have bad luck with fancy phones, i always end up braking or loosing the phone, plus all i need in a phone is ,calls and text...no more, but i do have to admit that the iphone is one of the best phones out there ever.But android phones are looking nice and i believer they are following the iphone steps and are getting near to the same success.As tablets, i don't have one, (i wish i had one) as the are to expensive for me.But the other day i tried one of my friends ipad 2, and i have to admit, i didn't like them.Why? because they are like an phone but 3 or 4 times bigger.Ill rather have a decent laptop.One down side of the apple products for me is, tat most popular software its windows based, sure there are lots of compatible software but theres always a hustle to look for it. But after all this nonce ---That which is odiferous and causeth plants to grow--- i just wrote i have to say:
"Life has lots of choices, being stuck as fan boy for brand for me its just stupid, you have to try lots of stuff, some you might like and some you wont but we have to admit that competition its what makes some company's make great products." so stop saying apple its the king of the world and that everything Else sucks, Cu's that's totally a lie.

[vcoleiro1]

Are you sure?
Who do you think invented that mouse? hmm... ok, wait
uh, who do you think invented that GUI? grrrr

Palo Alto Research Center Incorporated (PARC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PARC_%28company%29

Actually the mouse was invented well before PARC see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mouse_(computing)

The precursors to the GUI were also not developed by PARC but you could say PARC did invent it as we know it today.

[Malenko]

Actually the mouse was invented well before PARC see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mouse_(computing)

Actually, we all know Nintendo invented the mouse, Just ask Howard Casto.

[yotsuya]

Actually the mouse was invented well before PARC see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mouse_(computing)

Actually, we all know Nintendo invented the mouse, Just ask Howard Casto.

Mario Paint was awesome.

[AtomSmasher]

but the fact is that Apple made the best products in many categories for a long time before there was a alternative

Tell me, what computer did you want to have instead of an Apple II? Or were you too busy not being born yet?
And which music player did you have which allowed you to download music to it?
And which tablet are you using?

Haters gonna hate.

Dooshbag.

I had a TI-99/4A computer.
A Diamond Rio mp3 player long before the IPod existed.
A PC tablet that ran Windows XP years before the IPad existed.

I'll admit the Apple ][, IPod, and even the IPhone were fantastic when they first came out, but the IPad is only popular because Apple now has great marketing making their products status symbols.

[abispac]

but the fact is that Apple made the best products in many categories for a long time before there was a alternative

Tell me, what computer did you want to have instead of an Apple II? Or were you too busy not being born yet?
And which music player did you have which allowed you to download music to it?
And which tablet are you using?

Haters gonna hate.

Dooshbag.

I had a TI-99/4A computer.
A Diamond Rio mp3 player long before the IPod existed.
A PC tablet that ran Windows XP years before the IPad existed.

I'll admit the Apple ][, IPod, and even the IPhone were fantastic when they first came out, but the IPad is only popular because Apple now has great marketing making their products status symbols.

I LIKE THE HIPSTER PNG

[Howard_Casto]

Actually the mouse was invented well before PARC see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mouse_(computing)

Actually, we all know Nintendo invented the mouse, Just ask Howard Casto.

I get that you ATTEMPTED a joke there, too bad there was no humor in it. 



I'm so glad to see flash go.  Adobe had the internet in a choke hold.  Flash is a wonderful platform, but adobe refused to make it open-source even though it was so curcial to a modern website.  It was a dick move on their part.  It would be like making HTML closed-source.  This closed source code meant that your browser would only display 50% of the internet properly unless adobe got around to porting a flash plugin for your particular browser.  This became a nightmare once smart phones and web-enabled appliances came out.  In a world where everything from your portable, to your e-reader to your game console to your tv all have internet access we need to kill flash as quickly as possible.


Regarding apple, they did actually make good products back in the 80's, the "new" apple simply chruns out over-priced crap that the hipster elite eat up because it's been made "pretty". 

That is a GOOD thing though.  I was a super early adopter of mp3 players.  Before the ipod they were all crap.  Post ipod they got a lot better.  That being said the ipod isn't the pan-ultimate mp3 player (I actually prefer the zune believe it or not) but they managed to get the public in a frenzy about music players that made other companies invest actual time and money in theirs, which improved the products they made.

The i-phone is a piece of crap.  They literally took a new ipod and tacked on a cell phone feature.  I mean it's great unless you actually use it to MAKE PHONE CALLS in which case you have no signal and about 10 minutes of battery life.

The i-pad is a much better product... they have removed the pre-tense that it is anything other than an expensive toy.  That being said you can get an actual tablet computer... not a smart phone on steroids, for the prices they are asking.

Steve Jobs isn't a uber elite tech guru deified by his recent death. 

He is a used car salesman.  He used his extreme talent of getting you excited about crap you don't need to make apple a success and nothing more.

People that think he had anything to do with apple's recent products are living in a dream world.

It would be like saying Reggie had anything to do with the development of the Wii.  He sold it to us, and that's about it. (Or insert your favorite console's marketing exec here...  quite frankly microsoft and sony go through them like used tissues so I can't keep track.)

That being said, if you like apple products great!  You should buy them and enjoy them!  But don't think that they are the best in their class by any margin, they are simply the best marketed in their class, which actually means a lot.  I mean heck look at what it did for windows and the pc.  (BURN!!!)

[Malenko]

I get that you ATTEMPTED a joke there, too bad there was no humor in it. 

I laughed and that's all that matters. If I would have said nintendo invented the mouse and posted that pic, someone else would have mentioned you anyway.


I take great solace knowing Steve Jobs died thinking flash was still around

[ark_ader]

That's OK I prefer Silverlight HTML5.

[Dartful Dodger]

Flash is one of the main programs I work on so I'm really interested in this.

Flash's swf players won't be updated for mobile devices, instead it's going to concentrate on publishing out apps for mobile devices.

It's not killing mobile Flash is going to concentrate on publishing out apps for mobile.

Macromedia realized that Apple was making pcs for designers to work on, so they didn't bother making swfs run smoothly on Mac browsers.

Adobe now owns Flash and they realized that programmers are making dual websites, one for PCs and one for mobile devices. The one for mobile are just text sites. Updating the player to work on mobile is as useless as making the player run smoothly on Macs.

[RayB]

HTML5 right now is where Flash was about 10 years ago. Adobe could have just waited for the hardware to catch up, just like it did on PC. (10 years ago, you could barely scrape more than 12 frames per second out of a small 600x400 pixel Flash window).

http://www.craftymind.com/guimark3/

[fallacy]

I hate streaming video in flash player. Either it is running my CPU at %100 causing everything to freeze, or it’s playing my video choppy(not talking about buffering) or the plug-in fails and I have to refresh the screen.  I wish they could go to something with less amount of suck.

[Dartful Dodger]

HTML5 right now is where Flash was about 10 years ago. Adobe could have just waited for the hardware to catch up, just like it did on PC. (10 years ago, you could barely scrape more than 12 frames per second out of a small 600x400 pixel Flash window).

http://www.craftymind.com/guimark3/

10 years ago Apple computers didn’t have the hardware to play swfs correctly. Today they still don’t. The difference between 10 years ago and today is Apple’s (mobile) devices are actually being used to surf the internet.

It's not just the hardware. Even if all phones could play an swf at 99 frames a second, the screen is still too small for an swf built for a PC. Plus the time it takes to download an swf.