What’s Next for Flash?
There seems to be a fair amount of hoopla around Apple’s decision not to support Flash on the iPad. So I asked my friend Mark Wrabel of Low Res Theater to share his perspective on some of the issues. Low Res Theater specializes in interactive healthcare communications.
How much do you rely on Flash for your work?
About half of the projects I’ve been building lately are Flash-based.
Does the fact that Flash will not be universally supported, at least for now, get in the way of your work?
No. The projects I’m working on are more custom builds for presentations and trade show booths, not so much over the Internet.
Is Flash overrated?
Not really. Flash is a fine product. In the right programmer’s hands it can do a lot of wonderful stuff.
Where/when does Flash excel?
Flash can be used by newbies and hardcore programmers alike. Naturally, with more programming knowledge, you can build a more robust product. And there is a niche industry for selling pre-built Flash content—much like stock images for designers.
Are there programming tools on the horizon that can do the same job—and perhaps better?
HTML5. The big issue with Flash has to do with browsers and the Web in general relying on one proprietary plug-in to run all these things. If something happened and Adobe killed Flash tomorrow, much of the Internet would break. You can see this when you surf on an iPhone. The HTML5 standard will replace Flash eventually, along with other things like Java and Silverlight. And HTML5 will have the features currently provided by the plug-ins.
What do you think are the ramifications for Apple? For Adobe?
HTML5 is a couple years behind in development, so I’m sure Steve Jobs is on the phone daily, yelling at people to speed it up. If Adobe is smart, they are already planning to integrate their tools into the HTML5 world in the near future and are seeing the demise of Flash in three to five years and either planning on morphing that into something else or phasing it out. A lot can happen in three years. Maybe something else will pop up that nobody saw coming and wipe out all of these things with something totally new.
Will this fuel the PC vs. Mac divide?
No. It’s not a Mac/PC issue. (Besides, Macs and PCs are getting closer all the time.) The plug-ins and HTML5 will work on both. What it is doing is pissing off developers who are losing money by things not being able to be seen on iPhone or iPad devices or by having to build a duplicate version in Apple-approved code.
If You’re Curious
How the iPad is already reshaping the Internet (without Flash)
Adobe drops effort to get Flash into Apple’s key products
Adobe vs. Apple war generates rage, Facebook group