The future of flash?

Curious if your instructors have the same predictions. My web instructor feels very strongly that flash in on its death bed and may last another 3 years max. Just curious what you feel about flash's future?
 
I think Flash will always have a place but what the place is remains to be seen. Apple, HTML5, CSS3 and the rise and rise of JQuery are all hammering nails into the coffin of Flash. Would I expect to see sites built entirely from Flash in the next five years? Probably not. Will flash continue to find a niche? I believe so.

It is well worth checking out what HTML5 is capable of...

5 Must See HTML5 Sites
 
Totally agree that its dead, even adobe are beginning to realise.

Personally I dont see any use for it whatsoever, especially with mobile getting bigger and bigger
 
Nah, I don't see flash going anywhere anytime soon.. But i do think we will see less and less of it. With the breakthroughs in modern coding, we can do a lot of work we depending on flash for, from elegant moving menu and pages, to browser based games

Although, when i think about it, these days i almost always steer clients away from any flash based content these days, where maybe 5 years ago, i would push for it.. I guess times are changing
 
I tend to avoid Flash sites completely nowadays. As soon as I see that little bar loading up I'm off. I want my information and I want it NOW!
 
The problem with flash is is poor integration with HTML, however I don't think that we will see a complete disappearance of flash, there are still lots of animators that use flash, game designers, and app designers.
 
If the current trend for touch screen devices continues over the next few years, I can see flash being all but dead in the water.
 
Just out of interest what is the situation anyway, why don't apple want their devices to be able to play flash files?

Why would people pay money for apps / games when they can get them through the device's browser for free? Apple basically prevented rich content being accessed through the browser to help the success of the Ap store. There were other things such as the Flash player not being ready for mobile such as when the iPhone first came out, but it became much more obvious about Apples anti flash policy when the iPad came out.
Stability and security I think were the main reasons.
That is Apple's side of the story. This is Adobe's side of the story: future of Flash | Adobe

End of the day HTML5 is brining in new standards which mean flash isnt needed for things flash was once used for, such as image galleries and animated web pages etc. At the same time flash is transforming and evolving into something even better using 3D capabilities that are miles ahead of html5. Check out the new flash player 11 demos: YouTube - ‪AlternativaPlatform's Adobe Flash "Molehill" MAX Racer demo‬‏
When this type of technology is on Android users will get games of this calibre for free, where apple user will have to pay like £10 for it though the app store... Apple want to control its content and its a fact companies will try to smear their rivals by negative PR.
 
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I'm sure there was some issue about early attempts at flash for smartphone being massively memory intensive and causing them to over heat?..

My understanding of the technical issues is that to run flash apps on an iPhone would require running iOS then running flash player then running the app which reduces performance, increases heat and ultimately knackers battery life (something that the iPhone suffers with already).

I think the long and short of it is that Apple dont want to give away any portion of control over their apps and iOS. If flash was allowed, apple would lose control over the content of iphone apps, potentially opening them up to malicious apps. Before anyone says this is rubbish, just remeber that because of apples strangle hold on their iOS it's currently the only smartphone os not to be hit by in app virus attacks and malicious apps.

If Apple's rejection of flash was a personal vendetta they would have removed flash support from OS X on the grounds that HTML5 is better.
 
I'm sure there was some issue about early attempts at flash for smartphone being massively memory intensive and causing them to over heat?..
I'm not sure if this is true, remember its only like going on a web page with poor javascript coding which could cause performance issues.


My understanding of the technical issues is that to run flash apps on an iPhone would require running iOS then running flash player then running the app which reduces performance, increases heat and ultimately knackers battery life (something that the iPhone suffers with already).
This is true to a point. Flash content would run over the top of the OS using the flash runtime environment. This would give apple no control over it. It is debatable about battery life though as you would need to compare flash content with something similar to JS / html5 as often this content will strain the battery just as much. It is not fair to compare flash content with text only content!


I think the long and short of it is that Apple dont want to give away any portion of control over their apps and iOS. If flash was allowed, apple would lose control over the content of iphone apps, potentially opening them up to malicious apps. Before anyone says this is rubbish, just remeber that because of apples strangle hold on their iOS it's currently the only smartphone os not to be hit by in app virus attacks and malicious apps.
There have been malicious Apps in the App store, this is a fact although I cant remember if it was just a one off or if there have been a number. Once realised these apps were removed form the store. For me I'd rather have a choice of flash and get full access to the web, with a slight chance of getting a website that crashes the browser. Again you can quite easily get a javascript site that could kill your iPhone.

If Apple's rejection of flash was a personal vendetta they would have removed flash support from OS X on the grounds that HTML5 is better.
OSX is thankfully not a locked down platform though! Although it might slowly end up being that way with the introduction of the Mac App store! Remember Apple have to approve apps in the Mac App store and take a 30% cut. Its important to note that Apple don't preinstall Flash on new Macs and Safari deliberately makes missing flash content stay missing. I.e it doesn't say flash player required, download it here etc like any other browser. Also it is known that Apple keep certain APIs closed so that flash cant make use of the system to its full potentiol. If flash seems slow on your mac using Safari, try another browser such as Chrome. You will realise how much quicker it is!

Flash will be around for years, but perhaps not in its current state. You wont get flash on iOS though which is why I will never use it!
 
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If youve seen much about the next OS X (Lion) it's becoming very iOS like....
I've had an iphone for 2 years now and think that in that time I've had perhaps 2 issues with no flash, which isn't really much of an issue.
 
Yeah I have seen / read about OSX Lion. Its the App Store which is the first signs of Apple controlling what software people are 'allowed' to install on there computers.
 
I'm talking about accessing next generation 3D content through the browser without having to go through the App store. Can you get advanced 3D capabilities like that on iOS devices through the browser..? NO :icon_wink:
 
Ah I see.
You can run unity through a browser, not on ios but you'd think apple wouldn't want flash playing 3D on there browser as it takes $ from the app store
 
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