graphicbreeze
Member
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?
the future of flash will be much brighter when steve jobs dies
Just out of interest what is the situation anyway, why don't apple want their devices to be able to play flash files?
That is Apple's side of the story. This is Adobe's side of the story: future of Flash | AdobeStability and security I think were the main reasons.
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.I'm sure there was some issue about early attempts at flash for smartphone being massively memory intensive and causing them to over heat?..
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!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).
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.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.
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!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.
Flash will be around for years, but perhaps not in its current state.
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