Despite recently saying that Flash was “critical” for mobile communication, Adobe has announced it will no longer continue to develop Flash for mobile devices.
For some, the writing has been on the wall since Steve Jobs banned Flash from the iPhone and iPad saying Apple “won’t support Flash because it is so buggy” and that it consumes too much power. Now, there is no doubt that Flash is a dying platform.
Convert Flash to HTML5 with new Google tool
Does your businesses Web site, like 85 per cent of popular Web sites, include Flash? What will you use when Flash is gone?
Why Flash was popular
Adobe’s Flash was, and still is, one of the most popular platforms on the Web. Its capability to contain images, audio and video made it well suited for many needs. More importantly, the tools to develop Flash were easy for designers to use. “Build it and they will come” applies here; developers wrote their Web sites, applications, widgets, and anything else they could in Flash, and people installed the plugins and readers required to consume it.
Why Flash is dying
The first strike against Flash was when Apple decided it wouldn’t include or support it on the iPhone. The argument was that it wasn’t properly optimized for mobile devices, and used too much valuable battery life. Apple also didn’t pre-install Flash on the Macbook Air, which increased its battery life by two hours. Strike two was when Microsoft announced that its Windows 8 Metro interface will be HTML5-based, and won’t support plugins like Flash. Strike three is the announcement by Adobe that though it will still support Flash for certain desktop applications, it will no longer support it for “new mobile device configurations”.
What will replace Flash?
If you hadn’t already started evaluating going “Flashless” on your business Web site, now is a good time to start. Thankfully, the successor to Flash is apparent. Though there are less popular and less capable options available, HTML5 has garnished the most attention and though still under development, is already being widely adopted.
Where Apple refused to support Flash, it has begun to embrace HTML5. Along with being able to handle most anything that Flash could and being non-proprietary, its capability to include application programming interfaces (API)s for complex Web applications makes it a great candidate for accessing cloud-based services from mobile devices.
Welcome Adobe Edge
Adobe didn’t make this decision overnight; we reported a few months ago about Adobe’s new product called Edge, which uses a similar interface to that of Flash, but “allows designers to bring animated content to Web sites, using Web standards like HTML5, JavaScript, and CSS3”. Despite HTML5 being an open standard, Adobe wants to control this type of development, and its Edge product, though still only a “preview” version, is the front-runner in this space. Being from the same vendor with a similar interface to that of Flash will certainly make it easier for developers to transition.
Flash won’t die tomorrow; it will still be around for years. Flash developers will still find work maintaining existing Flash-based sites. New development, however, is going to be HTML5-based, and anyone looking to update their Flash-based site would be wise to transition to HTML5. Not only will it make your site available to the growing number of mobile devices, but will prepare it for the upcoming HTML5 developments that could give your site capabilities not yet available on the Web.
Joseph Fieber is an experienced blogger who spent 25 years as an IT pro, and has a background in computer consulting and software training. Follow him on Facebook or Twitter, or contact him through his Web site, JosephFieber.com.
