Despite all the hoopla & animosity, Flash is what drives innovation on the web
Flash was blazing trails doing widespread use of RIAs & XML data exchanges long before AJAX took off (or the term AJAX was even invented). RIA (Rich Internet Application), by the way, was a term coined by Macromedia with regards to how Flash was used. Before Flash started doing what it was doing, surfing the web meant reloading entire HTML pages or the marginally better iFrames (which were a compatibility big headache back then because of the browser wars between IE & Netscape) to make simple data calls.
Flash has driven the ubiquitous and acceptable use of internet video, saving content creators from the huge costly headache of having to support multiple formats. Not only that, but Flash has made video interactive, allowing everyone to embed videos as entire rich mini-websites even non-tech savvy end-users can stick on any webpage they wanted.
Flash is the reason why casual games and the web games are so popular now, especially with both genders. Now, Flash is going to have full GPU hardware 3D acceleration, gamepad support and will be running on upcoming TV set top boxes including Google TV: http://tv.adobe.com/show/max-2010-keynotes
HTML5? Every single HTML5 demo you see now is playing copycat catchup to what Flash was already doing 5 years ago.
Think about it.
Can't wait to see what the web will be like in the next 10 years.
(btw, big shoutout to http://opera.com which has been responsible for most of the innovations modern browsers have today such as tabbed browsing, tab session saving, thumbnail preview buttons to your favorite sites upon opening new tabs, and speed, speed, speed http://bit.ly/aeEuFO )
5 comments
[ 4.2 ms ] story [ 24.7 ms ] threadThe past does not predict the future.
And this is a very tired debate at this point.
Unity3D is what's pushing the envelope for 3D on browsers right now, but once the clamored for Flash 3D acceleration tech goes out of beta (http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flash/molehill) it'll be interesting to see how web evolves.
Flash's new peer-to-peer communication (http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/cirrus/) capability is very exciting and it'll be interesting what other apps will pop up when developers start playing with it more (NSFW shenanigans aside, http://chatroulette.com is cool result of this technology)
I think you also don't understand the impact of Flash to gaming. With just the 62 million Farmville users alone, Flash is one of the biggest gaming platforms in the world and its impact and boon to amateur indie game development & creativity cannot be stated enough. With all the upcoming features, it'll be interesting to see what amateur & indie game developers without the capital of hundreds of thousands of dollars will be able to do, especially in the living room (via set top boxes + 3D/gamepad support) where barriers to entry to X-Box Live Arcade, Playstation Network & Wii Ware are very high.
Add to this that mobile is the current big push, so all of these are coming to your mobile web browsers and you won't have to always download and keep updating and reinstalling standalone native apps to be able to experience these things.
Do you also know how hard it is to port across platforms if you're an indie? With Flash/AIR, you can now deploy simultaneously to Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, iPhone/ iTouch/iPad (via Flash iOS Packager) & Blackberry Tab (and soon, Windows Mobile 7 + Meego) with minimal porting effort. Sure, native is still optimal in terms of performance & capabilities, but for content creators with limited resources, this is a godsend.
There is a lot of overlap. Advantage of sticking to browsers is better integration with everything else that exists in browsers.
Another thing going for browsers is economics. Google is interested in keeping the web alive and well, make sure websites load fast, visual extravaganza works fast. They'll prioritize that because their revenue depends on it. Adobe has different motivations, so they allowed visually intensive sites to run slow for years, didn't prioritize hardware acceleration. They get their money from selling tools, don't care about end users.
It will be interesting to watch, but I think Flash's development priorities are out of touch with what people do on computers.
That's the innovation. You can finally do it with a few lines of HTML instead of a god-awful binary closed-source chunk of browser crashing plugin that saps 1/4 of you users batteries just being on the screen. Thanks flash.