Digithoughts

Yesterday Adobe made the (expected) announcement it was abandoning further development on its mobile browser Flash Player plugin.

As a Flash Developer, I feel the need to make sure that celebrations don’t ensue in behalf of the death of Flash. I get it, some people don’t want to depend on a plugin to have an online experience, but until recently, it was required. Flash has always been an innovator, breaking the barriers that have restricted web-standard browsing for so long. Great animations, awesome games, and video delivery are what Flash is great at doing. Web standard technologies such as HTML, JavaScript, and CSS are starting to add some of these features, and although they aren’t completely ubiquitous, they are gaining ground.

Adobe’s decision to abandon Flash on mobile browsers makes sense, not because the technology is outdated, but because they are refocusing their efforts. Providing support for the many chipset and manufacturer configurations that are found in the smartphone world is not cost effective, and they would rather spend those resources elsewhere.

The primary reason Adobe is dropping support for Flash in mobile browsers is because people don’t use their smartphone browsers for these in-depth rich experiences -- that’s what apps are for. This announcement will not change much in the world of mobile sites, because no one was developing Flash for mobile phone browsers anyway.

What people tend to not understand is that Flash is still “happening” on your phone. Flash still plays a huge and relevant role in mobile experiences, but delivers rich media to mobile via apps rather than websites.

Depending on the intricacies of your needs, Air (which, yes, uses Flash) is a much more efficient way to develop mobile apps. Write Flash code once and it is converted when it’s published. The most recent release, Air 3.0, has much improved native support, especially for Apple’s iOS, and you’re not losing anything in terms of functionality. All you’re losing is a fat bill for four different native builds.

Flash has done a lot for us and our clients, and instead of thinking of this latest news as a negative, I applaud Adobe for continuing to push the envelope. Although it could have been said in a different way, the fact remains that Flash isn’t really dead, it’s just evolving. That’s the story people should be writing.

David Pett Multimedia Developer

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