Last week Adobe did a (self admitted) terrible job of communicating their future strategy for Flash, HTML5, AIR, and FLEX for mobile and desktop. To be fair RIM didn’t do much better. They made three main announcements but everybody focused on the last one where they are “no longer going to be actively developing the Flash Player for Mobile Browsers.” Their clearly still focused on Flash for desktop browsers while they realize the Flash will not be as big of a ubiquitous plugin for mobile browsers. They still fully intend to use Adobe AIR on mobile platforms.
If you are a Flash, AIR, or FLEX developer you really should read these two articles from Adobe on the future of the technologies:
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I have been having a field day reading all of the articles readers have sent in today about Adobe getting out of the mobile browser Flash game. Read some of the titles and you will see what I mean:
All of these bloggers are harping on the fact that RIM immediately reassured Flash developers who have spent time developing for QNX and the PlayBook that they would not be left in the cold. Andry Gryc from QNX nicely points out that these bloggers seem to have missed what Adobe and RIM actually said. Adobe essentially said that it will be no longer developing Flash plugins for mobile devices for use in their browsers including Android and the PlayBook while still pushing Adobe AIR as a way to package mobile apps. What RIM responded is that they are not going to suddenly dump all of their Flash developers in the cold.
This essentially means that Flash on mobile will continue to be useful since Adobe admits that they are going to continue pushing it for desktops. That means if you want to browse on your tablet just like you do on your desktop you will need some sort of Flash. HTML5 is a strong promise and RIM CLEARLY states that:
We are excited to see Adobe focusing their efforts on HTML5, and on bringing their world class development and design expertise to HTML5 and mobile. As many of you noted, at BlackBerry DevCon Americas this year we strongly emphasized HTML5 development, and all of our platforms include best-in-breed HTML5 browsing capability, based on the WebKit engine. We believe that HTML5 is the future of mobile, and are delighted to be aligned with Adobe on this.
RIM has invested a ton of effort in HTML5 and it is a key building block of BBX. RIM is just saying that Flash will continue to be supported in its current form. All of the future improvements Adobe has planned for Flash in v12 are not intended for mobile devices. On top of that there is the Adobe AIR side of Flash that Adobe clearly says they are going to continue driving:
Our future work with Flash on mobile devices will be focused on enabling Flash developers to package native apps with Adobe AIR for all the major app stores. We will no longer continue to develop Flash Player in the browser to work with new mobile device configurations (chipset, browser, OS version, etc.) following the upcoming release of Flash Player 11.1 for Android and BlackBerry PlayBook. We will of course continue to provide critical bug fixes and security updates for existing device configurations. We will also allow our source code licensees to continue working on and release their own implementations.
So are these bloggers just taking a cheap shot at RIM for essentially supporting developers and saying the same thing as Adobe? Let us know what you think in the comments!
lol, and if RIM dumped flash, they’d be ALL over that as well!
I’m happy with RIMs decision.
It is not like RIM is really going out of their way to continue to support flash. All of the work of putting flash onto the browser is already done. Continuing to support bug fixes and security updates is just common sense, and takes very minimal effort.
You can criticize RIM’s actions a year ago for making a big deal out of supporting a feature that honestly no one cares about. But at this point why should RIM remove a feature from its browser without any good reason to do so? If having flash support really annoys you that much, you can just disable it.
Yeh its insane… The biggest complain with iPad is flash.. here RIM promises to keep flash on the PlayBook which works great.. all the blogs are hammering RIM. Wow.
they’ll never do anything right in the eyes of the media
Amen… I’m sick and tired of the damned RIM bashing… The iLemmings are annoying… Just wait and see what they say when OS 2 finally arrives and the Colt is finally released… Its going to be the best phone on the market and all you’ll hear is “Day late? Dollar short?” Comments all over the place… QNX is going to be the biggest power player around… These morons just don’t know it yet
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Adobe just dropped an interesting bomb this morning. They have decided to relegate Flash to PC browsing and mobile apps while giving up on flash in mobile browsers to focus on HTML5. They plan on releasing Flash 11.1 for the PlayBook and Android and from then only continue to offer critical bug fixes and security updates.
Alec Saunders from RIM confirmed to me that RIM is a Flash source code licensee which means they can continue to release their own implementations even when Adobe stops. RIM has confirmed as much on their official blog saying that they are committed to “support a full web and app experience today and tomorrow” whether it be Flash, WebWorks, or HTML5 websites. This also sort of makes sense since RIM is just trying to attract developers though they mentioned at DevCon that HTML5/WebWorks and Native development are the future.
RIM is committed to delivering compelling user experiences so you can stay connected and take action wherever your life takes you. Often, that action is enabled by a BlackBerry® smartphone or BlackBerry® PlayBook™ app, and other times it’s through your BlackBerry device’s web browser. We’re able to deliver a full-featured web and app experience because BlackBerry embraces and integrates a variety of developer platforms to make it possible for you to experience and consume the content you want, while you’re on the go – whether that’s powered by the BlackBerry native applications, BlackBerry PlayBook OS, Open Source, superior Flash integration, Adobe® AIR®, Web Works, or websites that use HTML5 to deliver cutting-edge graphics and video.
Earlier today, Adobe announced plans to stop investing in Flash® for mobile browsing, and focus more efforts on HTML5. As an Adobe source code licensee, we will continue to work on and release our own implementations, and are looking forward to including Flash 11.1 for the BlackBerry PlayBook.
The strategic direction announced by Adobe today further validates RIM’s decision to launch the BlackBerry PlayBook with a full-powered and uncompromised desktop class browser supporting both Flash and HTML5. We are pleased that Adobe will focus its efforts on next generation Flash-based apps delivered via AIR and BlackBerry AppWorld as well as the great opportunities that HTML5 presents for our developers as we discussed at DevCon Americas.
“The PlayBook browser does a great job of supporting both HTML5 and Flash, including industry leading HD video streaming. Adobe and RIM are focused on HTML5 innovation for mobile browsing and believe it is the best solution for developers to deliver rich web experiences on RIM’s BlackBerry products and other mobile devices. RIM has the ability to continue working on and releasing its own implementations of Flash Player 11 and beyond,” said Danny Winokur, VP & GM, Interactive Development, Adobe Systems Inc.
RIM is also energized by the powerful, open standards-based development platform that HTML5 delivers through our BlackBerry products. To us, this means working with thousands of talented BlackBerry developers to bring new gaming, entertainment, and video experiences that deliver depths of experience we had only dreamed of a few years ago. That’s progress we support, and we look forward to seeing the innovation soon in BlackBerry App World™.
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- Dan Dodge, President and CEO, QNX
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Alec Saunders did not mention Adobe AIR/Flash apps or apps built on the Android Player when it came to their future BBX strategy. I have been trying to confirm this since Alec said that but it looks like he might have just missed it off his slide. RIM’s BBX press release says that:
The BBX platform will include BBX-OS, and will support BlackBerry cloud services and development environments for both HTML5 and native developers. BBX will also support applications developed using any of the tools available today for the BlackBerry PlayBook – including Native SDK, Adobe AIR/Flash and WebWorks/HTML5, as well as the BlackBerry Runtime for Android Apps – on future BBX-based tablets and smartphones.
Hopefully that settles that but it looks like BlackBerry Java is still nowhere to be seen.
RIM mentioned during the keynote that Flash 11 and AIR 3.0 are in the PlayBook preview built of OS 2.0. These new versions of Flash and AIR allow for slick GPU accelerated 3D games as you can see in the screenshots below they were showing off. Pretty slick for Flash.
They also showed off WebGL on the PlayBook browser which you see above but what they didn’t say was that the PlayBook developer beta that was opened up today includes WebGL support for developers to test out. That means 3D games in the browser without Flash! I think that is a first for any mobile platform. Pretty slick!
RIM has pushed out an update to the BlackBerry PlayBook OS bringing it to OS v1.07.3312. This version is now available and addresses a vulnerability that Adobe announced in Flash on September 21st that could potentially cause issues for devices that support Flash though no exploits are currently documented. Users running OS v1.0.7.2942 will get an update that will only include this Adobe Flash update and should take only a few minutes to install. This is because of the piecemeal updates RIM allowed for in the last update which should make subsequent updates much easier.
So what are you waiting for? Hit that “check for updates” button now!
The BlackBerry Partners Fund announced the winner of their Adobe Flash/AIR section of the BlackBerry Developers Challenge this week. The winners were selected based on regions and judged based on quality, visual appeal, user experience, creativity, and innovation. Some interesting winners made the list. Check them out below:
CrackBerry member Maxxberry shared in the forums an awesome website for showing off the BlackBerry PlayBook's browser. The site is called We Choose the Moon and honors the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. It's chock full of flashy goodness, and really shows what the PlayBook is capable of on content-rich websites. Not only that, the site is really interesting! My daughter and I watched Apollo 11 launch into space, and spent quite a bit of time looking through the media, learning about the shuttle and mission - all on my PlayBook.
While Flash Builder v4.5 was supposed to be the version that added mobile support for developers to go cross platform it only really supported Android at first. From what I am hearing from devs this new Flash Builder v4.5.1 along with Flex 4.5.1 allows you to follow the similar export process to develop apps for the PlayBook along with Android and iOS devices from one codebase. I am waiting to hear back from Adobe on exactly what is different between v4.5 and v4.5.1 but you can check out for yourself.
