Post by Aron / January 29th, 2010

Why the web used to need Flash (and might not need it anymore)

Undoubtedly Flash put the web to another level. With Flash there was finally the ability to create content with user experience not dictated by a markup language (HTML) but freeform, whatever the user liked, whatever the best usability was, whatever the IA / designer / programmer thought was best. This made the web big, this made Flash big.

However, times have changed. Flash is no longer the only technology to achieve all this. HTML5 can do some of it, JavaScript can do some of it, other proprietary platform like the iPhone and iPad can do some of it.

We all agree that Apple keeping back a hole bunch of cool content from the users by not putting Flash on their devices. On one hand they are doing it for “evil” business interests. They want to push their own gaming platform and don’t want all online Flash games on the web to be playable on their device. On the other hand they have good reasons: The iPhone was not powerful enough to render and display demanding Flash content.

With the iPad however the performance argument is obsolete. The hardware can “do” Flash. So why didn’t they put Flash on the device? Ok, there is still the business reason. The other thing is – I’m afraid – the demand from the users for Flash was simply not there. The majority of users feel perfectly comfortable in the App / HTML5 environment. Except from not playing videos on major news sites, the only experience from missing Flash was that there are no annoying banners.

For me it’s a bad sign that Adobe uses mostly videos and games content as an argument for Apple to put Fash on the iPad. For these two issues Flash is not necessarily the best solution, although it is currently industry standard. Why doesn’t Adobe argues with all the cool micro sites / agency sites / data visualization sites / multimedia sites?

Because they don’t find this content relevant enough. They concentrate on the blockbusters (video and games). And then, why should Apple find this content relative enough?

I don’t want to “rant” Flash (again). It’s not closed against open source. All I’m saying is that Adobe set a proprietary industry standard with Flash (perfectly described by Ryan here) and now Apple (tries to) set a new proprietary industry standard with their platform. Which might end up to be not the worst thing.

Not that big of a deal.

PS: Point taken on the general critic on closed platforms.

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    January 30th, 2010 / 15:30

10 Comments

  1. Steve BallmerJanuary 29th, 2010 / 16:29 / #991

    “…the demand from the users for Flash was simply not there. The majority of users feel perfectly comfortable in the App / HTML5 environment. ”

    [citation needed]

    Or did you just pull that statement out of your butt?

  2. TJJanuary 29th, 2010 / 17:06 / #992

    Many of these statements are true if you believe that all platforms are the same. Unfortunately it will be many years until all browsers are HTML 5 compliant and the saturation rate is above 98%.

    Also, consider developing Flash-like solutions with the HTML5+JavaScript solutions you propose. It would be more difficult and far more CPU intensive. To me, it’s not a matter of if HTML5 can be a solid replacement for Flash. Its a matter of tooling, support, ease of development and I do not see any of those from HTML5+JavaScript. This doesn’t even factor in the lack of OO-ness. I can just picture the spaghetti mess of code in the coming years from people who try to develop RIAs with HTML5. Scary.

    The Flash Open Screen Project is bringing Flash to many types of devices, including televisions, gaming consoles, mobile devices, etc. I’d rather develop for a platform that has a wide distribution network.

    So, while there are a significant number of people who do not like Flash, it will be a very viable platform for many years to come.

    Yep, I’m a bit of a Flash fanboi. After a lot of years of Flash-hating and AJAX hackery (before excellent frameworks like jQuery and Prototype), I finally started to realize the value in a runtime environment that had a huge install base.

  3. Sven BusseJanuary 29th, 2010 / 17:53 / #994

    Hi,

    “Adobe set a proprietary industry standard with Flash (perfectly described by Ryan here) and now Apple (tries to) set a new proprietary industry standard with their platform.”

    Come on, you can’t compare that. The first one provided a platform, that you could use to enhance the web experience. The second one is trying to dictate, how you experience the web, if you’re into apple products.

  4. Jens FrankeJanuary 29th, 2010 / 21:37 / #995

    From my perspective Flash is standing still for more then one year now.

    My main problem with Flash are usability issues and I don’t think that Adobe will work on this topic in the near future. My second problem is that I can’t see a real strategy behind all this new products. Currently most of them are no products for productions – most of them are buggy beta stuff.

    My first job with XCode, Cocoa and the iPhone SDK was a really nice experience. Apple offer such a great UI-Framework and I also like the Interface Builder. I really like the focus on usability and simplicity and that’s also an important point from a user perspective.

    And sure as developer I don’t like the Gateway-Keeper politics, but for me as a user it isn’t such a big thing. Will this politics kill innovation? Maybe yes, but in a really short time the App Store is full of great applications and innovations.

    A long time ago, Adobe release Flash Lite … and it’s hard to see that Adobe miss some things: A distribution model, which is usable for users.

    Cheers
    Jens

  5. AronJanuary 31st, 2010 / 14:43 / #1002

    @Sven I admit, that I’m mixing up two things here. I share the critic on closed ecosystem (the gatekeeper issue) like described here and here (german). This can block innovations in long term.

    However, as Jens correctly said, this is (sadly) a good thing for normal users, especially when they’re not tech-guys. The normal user simply do not care. The normal user want to have a stable, easy to use system. The normal user has no need to customize the system, like we do. The normal user just want to have it worked out.

    Maybe a compromise would be to have a super easy to use OS like MacOS with still all rights on the system (highly customizable) and besides that an AppStore with reviewed and certificated Apps for normal users.

    Also, I fully agree with Jens, Apple has the far better tools. I know, not 100% comparable to Adobe, since different target systems, but still. Apple made a hell of a job, by giving the developer tools, that almost automatically end up in well designed and well to use applications.

    Adobe missed that train. Adobe put all their focus on technology. Missing, that the majority of users don’t care about features, what they do care about is user experience.

  6. Jens FrankeJanuary 31st, 2010 / 15:05 / #1003

    @Aron: I would like to use the handshake icon from Skype. ;)

  7. DorianFebruary 1st, 2010 / 09:31 / #1004

    Hey Aron, good writeup! I just think that even if the hardware of the iPad was powerful enough it wouldn’t necessarily mean that Flash would “work” in mobile Safari. E.g. Safari uses some logic to guess which link you wanted to click when you tap on the screen, so you don’t miss it with your clumsy fingers. That would probably not work inside a Plugin. Another thing is that you don’t have a mouse over state, and many Flash interfaces rely on it. It wouldn’t have been a good experience anyway.

    I wrote down my two cents on this yesterday as well, leave me a comment!

    Cheers, Dorian

  8. PhilFebruary 4th, 2010 / 12:05 / #1007

    I think Grant summed it up pretty well:
    http://www.gskinner.com/blog/archives/2010/02/my_thoughts_on.html

    let’s just wait and see ….

  9. jobSuckerMay 19th, 2010 / 17:14 / #1136

    lol – from your article it sounds like someone has drunk the apple cool aid.

    if you’ve got an apple shaped hole in your heart then no fact or argument or list of statistics is gonna help reintroduce you to the real world

    but hey best of luck dude- you’re gonna need it! lol

  10. lsyreAugust 23rd, 2011 / 13:21 / #1611

    Actually, i don’t see the point in discussing the whole Flash vs HTML5 stuff (again). Apple has set a standard in leaving Flash behind. None of the (happy) iOS-Device owners is really complaining about the lack of video and banner ads. Just look at Youtube and Facebook: HTML5 is the new de facto standard.

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