Steve Jobs’ last laugh: good riddance to Flash?

Thursday, November 10th, 2011

Steve Jobs isn’t here to enjoy his triumph, but this week’s announcement that Adobe has stopped developing the mobile version of the Flash player would undoubtedly have delighted him. The title of yesterday’s Guardian story says it all: “Adobe kills mobile Flash, giving Steve Jobs the last laugh”. The first comment is even starker: “Flash – good riddance!”

So why has Adobe taken the decision? Is this really the end of the road for Flash? And is it really good news?

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Windows 8, Flash and Silverlight: some very bad news

Monday, September 19th, 2011

In amongst the flood of details emerging about Windows 8 is the news that the IE 10 browser in the lightweight Metro front-end won’t support plugins. In the scheme of things this might sound pretty small beer, but it’s hugely significant for the long term future of Rich Internet Application (RIA) development and for the web in general.

Most immediately it’s another kick in the teeth for Flash, still reeling from Apple’s iOS ban. It’s not exactly a death blow, as the Windows 8 desktop version of IE will still support the player, but it’s clearly another major disincentive for developers who believed Flash was as universal as HTML.

Understandably all the focus has been on Flash, but even more telling and extraordinary is the realisation that the new no-plugin policy means that the Metro browser won’t even support Microsoft’s own cross-platform RIA technology, Silverlight!

So just what is going on?

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Adobe Creative Suite 5.5: a truce with Apple

Tuesday, April 12th, 2011

Adobe has announced a 5.5 release for its various Creative Suite offerings. As CS5 was only released a year ago, most creatives will be surprised by the news and may well assume that it’s little more than a holding operation at best.

That’s not the case. (more…)

Has Adobe figured out how to get Flash to play on your iPhone?

Thursday, March 31st, 2011

Recently I’ve been making the case that Apple’s anti-competitive ban on Flash has stopped rich cross-platform development in its tracks.

As such I was naturally intrigued by a video post I came across recently asking “Has Adobe figured out how to get Flash to play on your iPhone?” (more…)

The iPad 2: looks nice, plays ugly

Wednesday, March 9th, 2011

The dust has begun to settle on the announcement of the new iPad 2 and first reaction has generally been positive. Not everyone’s persuaded, however. Darien Graham-Smith’s objection – The iPad 2: yes, but still, what’s it for? – is that it’s still just a cross between a glorified smartphone and cut-down netbook, so what’s the fuss?

Darien’s right: tablets are just another form of existing computers, but I think that they are as revolutionary as Apple claims. In particular I think they will come to provide our main platform for consuming web-based content. Key to this is the tablet’s new, book-like, handheld form factor which allows computers to become truly personal and enables their users to move on from merely browsing content to actively and immersively engaging with it (the activity previously known as “reading”).

Apple, as well as pioneering the tablet format, currently produces the best implementation of it and the iPad 2 will raise the bar even higher. Moreover, by providing a superior system for the same price, end users will clearly be getting more for their money.

However, I won’t be buying an iPad for the foreseeable future. And I don’t think that you should either…

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Silverlight 5: Back from the dead?

Friday, December 3rd, 2010

At its recent Professional Developer Conference Microsoft’s Bob Muglia signalled a major change of strategy for the company’s Silverlight technology. When first introduced Silverlight was intended to become a near universal cross-platform web runtime like Flash. Now Muglia revealed that Microsoft saw HTML5 as the future for universal in-browser development while Silverlight was being repositioned as a native application development platform for Windows Phone 7 devices. Unsurprisingly, most pundits saw this as an admission of defeat, with our own Jon Honeyball asking: “Silverlight RIP?”

Yesterday, just over a month later, Scott Guthrie announced the “Firestarter” launch of the new Silverlight 5 beta under the slogan “the future of Silverlight starts now”. So what’s going on? (more…)

How Adobe defied Apple to produce superb iPad magazines

Friday, November 12th, 2010

There’s a lot of excitement in the world of publishing regarding the massive potential of the new tablet market. The biggest news at the recent Adobe MAX 2010 was the official announcement of Adobe’s upcoming Digital Publishing platform for delivering rich, interactive electronic magazines using the Creative Suite design tools and InDesign in particular.

The reason for the excitement is obvious. Up until now the internet has been a disaster for the big publishers, as they’ve effectively been forced to cut their margins, and occasionally throats, by giving away content for free online. Now with the arrival of the tablet, it’s possible for publishers to provide a far richer, handheld, book-like, reading experience. The end user is happy because it’s a fundamental advance on both traditional print and web browsing, and the publisher is delighted because here at last is the chance to charge for content while taking full advantage of the internet in terms of its global audience and  minimal production costs. (more…)

Silverlight RIP?

Tuesday, November 2nd, 2010

The battle royal between HTML5 and the two major plugin runtimes of Silverlight from Microsoft and Flash from Adobe continues to rumble on.

To the intense annoyance of both firms, it appears Apple is holding sway here with its insistence that neither Silverlight nor Flash will be allowed on the iOS platform used in the iPhone and iPad. And that, in its opinion, HTML5 is the future.

Well, there is no doubt that HTML5 is the future, in that the current HTML5 implementation leaves much to be desired and it will take time and work for this to be fleshed out. But Apple says no, use native code on iOS or use HTML5. (more…)

Adobe MAX 2010: HTML5 and Flash

Friday, October 29th, 2010

Just how committed is Adobe to HTML5?

It’s a serious concern. Adobe is not only the developer of the main professional HTML authoring tool, Dreamweaver, but also of the Flash platform which promises to take the browser beyond HTML into richer, more powerful territory. Clearly there’s a possible conflict of interest here – a point I made at the launch of the latest CS5 suites when the page-oriented Web Standard suite was dropped in a blatant attempt to push designers towards the Flash-centred Web Professional suite.

Unfairly promoting Flash is one danger, but far worse is the possibility that Adobe would want to hold HTML5 back. This suspicion dawned with the limited HTML5 capabilities in Dreamweaver CS5 and was reinforced by Steve Jobs’ attack on Flash which ended: “New open standards created in the mobile era, such as HTML5, will win on mobile devices (and PCs too). Perhaps Adobe should focus more on creating great HTML5 tools for the future, and less on criticizing Apple for leaving the past behind.”

There’s a real danger here that HTML5 and Flash could be driven into opposing camps in the war between Apple and Adobe, and you really don’t want to bet against HTML. Based on the latest Adobe MAX 2010, it looks like Adobe is well aware of the potential trap and has acted accordingly.

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Should Microsoft buy Adobe?

Friday, October 8th, 2010

Now this is interesting. The New York Times has just reported talks between Microsoft and Adobe and possible discussions of a takeover. There’s certainly an apparent logic at work. The PC Pro news story quotes analyst Toan Tran saying “It may be a case of ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’ and both Microsoft and Adobe have a common enemy in Apple.” With both companies suffering under the current Apple surge, perhaps such consolidation makes sense.

On the other hand there are lot of arguments against.

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