Topic

Adobe Flash dead in 5 years... Glitch too?

So, I attended Microsoft's BUILD Conference yesterday in Anaheim (Also ran across the street and went to Disneyland's California Adventure afterwards for some RL Glitchy fun as I had to compensate for missing the EOTW) and kept hearing the same thing over and over again from speakers: "Adobe Flash'll be dead in 5 years"... It wasn't just Microsoft reps saying this though, even Apple and Google were saying it! Even Adobe said it indirectly (Adobe Demo'ed a Flash-to-HTML5 Conversion Kit at BUILD yesterday)!!!

This is bad news for Glitch as it is rooted in using Adobe Flash to play and even visit the site!

So, with HTML5 now becoming widely accepted as its replacement and Adobe making concessions about this now as the following article shows (countless others out there), I have to wonder... How will TS work around this (Convert to HTML5) and/or work with the idea that future operating systems by both Microsoft and Apple with completely negate support for Adobe Flash, specifically from Metro IE10 and Safari?

References:
channel9.msdn.com/Events/BU... (What I attended to learn this)
channel9.msdn.com/events/BU... (What I attended to learn this)
www.adobe.com/devnet/dreamw...
forums.appleinsider.com/sho...
www.apple.com/hotnews/thoug...

Posted 15 months ago by c0mad0r Subscriber! | Permalink

Replies

  • Every technology will stay as relevant as the market wants. Flash is still around because of
    * tooling/support
    * expertise
    * beauty
    * ease
    * inertia
    * lack of sufficient replacement

    Further, HTML5 isn't unseating anything that can't be built in it. Glitch cannot be built in it. Not yet! Once it can be -- okay -- but wait a few years for it to mature and for tools to appear and for expertise to be gained before betting the farm on it. Adobe building an HTML5 tool is strategy, not defeat (also, try it -- it's not great).

    You can be sure that HTML5 will replace what it can do so easily and quickly -- video is the obvious one. But that relegates it to simply being a media widget, not a full toolkit to build big applications. But cross browser support and consistency are not its strengths yet.

    I'm not defending Flash. I used to work on it. I'm simply saying why it's not going anywhere. You can be sure that even when it's long dead-and-gone, if there's still Strongbad or a classic game that needs the plugin, someone will maintain it and everyone will download it, even if Apple won't.

    ---
    The content of this reply represents the opinions and experience of the author, and not necessarily those of Tiny Speck, Adobe, Apple, Microsoft, Sun, nor Unisys (the holder of the GIF patent).
    Posted 15 months ago by Jono Subscriber! | Permalink
  • just like Jennyanydots said, "Singing the praises of Jono! ... LA!" :D
    Posted 15 months ago by jenderal.cilik Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Yeah, for the excellent reasons listed above, there aren't a lot of reasons to be terribly worried. Even IF (and as you can see from my strategic use of caps lock, that's a big 'if'), adobe can afford to stop supporting Flash in the next five years, they are very much at the mercy of consumers. Glitch is far from the only application that depends on Flash to work. Hypothetically, if the ambitious 5-year timeline does manifest, that will be due largely in part to leaps in innovation and the vast and rapid improvement of HTML5 (as well as ALL major browsers to support it). 

    IE6 still hasn't died, and it's just had it's 10th anniversary. My point isn't that we should embrace antiquated technology, but rather that progress is usually pretty slow. While five years seems like a pretty short period of time for a game, it's a pretty decent time frame for development. Should the time come when the writing is on the wall for flash, I suspect it will make good business sense to invest the energy in adapting a game like Glitch for whatever prevailing technology is available. 

    But the bottom line is that new advancements, like HTML5, don't fully replace all of the features of Flash. It's prudent to begin work on replacing those sites and applications that CAN be replaced, but until HTML5 or something else comes along that can truly replicate the features and functionality that Flash provides, it's pretty unlikely it's gonna go anywhere.
    Posted 15 months ago by Xev Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Well-said, Xev, well-said. We'll happily use a better technology if and when it comes along.

    And: If ANY of your are using IE6 to play Glitch, Cosma help you... don't you dare file a bug report!
    Posted 15 months ago by Jono Subscriber! | Permalink
  • LOL, well put. The day recently came where we stopped supporting IE6 all together for any new development. It was a beautiful day for me.
    Posted 15 months ago by Xev Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Saw a post on this on G+ and was wondering what it meant.  Nice to see this posting and here what some pros think about it.
    I feel much better now :-)
    Posted 15 months ago by Stormy Weather Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I hate to troll this thread but one other thing occurred to me: It's fashionable to attack Flash. Just like the days of attacking Microsoft. And the coming days of attacking Apple.
    Posted 15 months ago by Jono Subscriber! | Permalink
  • At a minimum, it shows that OEM's are dedicated to "jump starting" HTML5 finally, which is great because, as you pointed out, HTML5 currently has a very limited set of capabilities and stable options beyond basic YouTube use. The current set of Microsoft Metro tools and API widgets for HTML5 were rather impressive though.
    Posted 15 months ago by c0mad0r Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Oh definitely, and the value of HTML5 and its potential shouldn't be thrown into question. It's a very powerful an exciting new tool in the semi-limited arsenal that web development has at its disposal presently. HTML5 means a world of possibility for things that were limited to Flash because it was the only game in town that offered the wide range of capabilities needed. It also presents a lot of creative opportunity for new innovations.

    Jono made a great point, though: it's very fashionable to attack Flash, because frankly, it's such a powerful tool, but it's also an oft misused tool. It has been the big name in web dev for a long time, and consequently was implemented inappropriately on sites that frankly didn't need it (still is). For interactivity, animation and applications, however, it is bar none the only tool to use for now and probably for a long time to come. 

    Edit: I should caveat my last point, since it might be unclear. HTML5 can replicate much of the functionality of flash in limited amounts: you can do a lot of cool things, but to do them all at once is really tough. Likewise, we're talking lines and lines and lines of hand coding without a real tool to make it all come together. Adobe Flash as an application alleviates a great deal of that, and as Jono also pointed out in his first post, Adobe's recent release of a beta app that lets you edit HTML5 is mediocre at best. It's definitely a step in the right direction, though.
    Posted 15 months ago by Xev Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @Jono It's been fashionable for at least 11 years now, hasn't it? :)  In 2000 Jakob Nielson wrote "Flash: 99% Bad", and someone (ok, me) wrote a fairly decent rebuttal for Webmonkey soon thereafter, even though I wasn't then and still am not a fan of general purpose Flash.  I am a fan of it as a platform where well done (e.g. here), and am a huge proponent of HTML5 (also as appropriate), but this Glitch subscriber isn't troubled by Glitch being Flash-based. 
    Posted 15 months ago by Gloopy Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Both Flash and Java have received the "kick the can" treatment over the years, but that's because they are BOTH closed platforms. When a company can't "own" something, they have a tissy about having to license it.  *Cough* Apple! *Cough*

    As such, I do maintain a similar view of flash as being a capable platform (I still prefer Unity 3+Mono for gaming though hehe), but it's biggest shortcoming right now appears to be the "Mobile Revolution" being unable to cope with the Flash resource requirements. I'd even be willing to bet that if Flash had a smaller footprint and had more of an OpenAPI, one that mobile smartphones and tablets makers could swallow, it would have attacked less at the Microsoft BUILD Conference I attended yesterday.
    Posted 15 months ago by c0mad0r Subscriber! | Permalink
  • In 5 years time, you will be able to play Glitch in the browser on your iPhone8, thanks to advances in JavaScript JITs, hardware-accelerated SVG supported, and a bit of HTML5+scripting that downloads and decodes the .swf files.  Not to mention the fact that Tiny Speck will probably have a native HTML5 implementation, and might even have sorted out the lag issues...
    Posted 15 months ago by Nonsense Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I totally agree with all of those points. The other factor is the average speed with which users connect to online applications coupled with inevitable increases in hardware capability. Regardless of platform, the fact remains that in order to be competitive, companies will continually improve all of these elements. Consequently, we'll look back in five years time and be like, "ha ha, do remember when we played Glitch on computers?! How antiquated! How stone age! I don't know how we did it before YBits*."

    *the whole iX thing will inevitably get old. Then everything will go to Y. YPhones, YMacs, YPods, etc.
    Posted 15 months ago by Xev Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Flash was "bad" because it was (1) overused as the "must-have" way to design websites that worked its way into client conversations like 'I want flash elements on my website' when the customer had no clue what they actually wanted on their websites other than flash (2) people who put autoloading flash components on web pages (like video players and music YAY! not) (3) flash only websites for businesses at a time when many people had computers, browsers and ISPs that couldn't handle all that *flash stuff* and the pageload times were awful (4) businesses with flash sites but have no options for people on devices that can't handle flash or choose not to use flash.

    I'm with Gloopy - general purpose flash or flash for flashes sake - that's right up there with "Make it sizzle and pop". It makes me want to gouged out my eyes and bore out my eardrums.

    As for TS's use of flash - it kind of takes my breath away. I've never seen it implemented so well or pushed beyond what many believe to be the limits of it as a platform. 

    HTML5...yeah. It's the silver bullet alright. We're using it at work for a proof of concept and it's not where it needs to be in order to replace what we have now. Maybe someday. But not now.
    Posted 15 months ago by g33kgurrl Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Slight correction, Jono. The GIF patent expired years ago. I'll dig up the year if you want. 
    Posted 15 months ago by Fokian Fool Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I'm doing a Glitch API project now with HTML 5 and animation. There are still more than a few issues yet with browser support and all. I'm sure the staff of TS is watching what I'm doing and how it turns out.  I've been encouraged by staff and asked to put updates on the forums. When you see my stuff able to accomplish what TS is already doing with Adobe Flash, THEN we can talk about the death of that platform.

    Oh. I'm also a Adobe Flash beta tester right now. In fact I've been playing Glitch partly with the latest beta (64 bit even). Any hate I have for Flash is because of all the Flash ads on web sites that just slow them, and my computer down. And my machine is no slouch either, but the overhead gets ridiculous!
    Posted 15 months ago by Fokian Fool Subscriber! | Permalink
  • bear in mind that Microsoft, Apple and Google/Android are trying to get you to develop for their proprietary platform.

    and bear in mind that Adobe would love to sell you a whole suite of HTML5 and Flash to HTML5 conversion tools.

    so they're slightly biased.

    that, plus the above points about HTML5 performance being not even close to good enough to build glitch on .. yet .. and the fact the old technologies don't just "die" in the way the above biased sources so hyperbolically claim.

    that, and glitch can always be ported to other platforms if the need arises. non-trivial, but extremely possible.

    that, and 5 years is a long time.
    Posted 15 months ago by striatic Subscriber! | Permalink
  • yep and yep and yep, striatic. 

    FF -- ads with flash must die.
    Posted 15 months ago by g33kgurrl Subscriber! | Permalink
  • No - at least ads with Flash have to stay in their box...  just think what ads with HTML5 can do to your web browsing experience.  It'll be like the holographic ads in Minority Report.
    Posted 15 months ago by Nonsense Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I don't think that will really happen (at least within five years). To me that seems more another marketing campaign organized by the main competitors. 
    Some reasons for that: First has to do with the current state of the global economy, while companies in the US and Europe struggle with the austerity measures, others emerge in China, Brazil, Russia, India and others. To change is to invest and all that costs money and I can't sincerely see that happening within five years.
    Second reason is that Flash is a very popular tool, used worldwide, with a big market and continuously on development. People use it often and for many different things... Obviously if it wouldn't be good business Adobe wouldn't buy it from Macromedia and keep its development, only to shut it down after some years and replacing it for some converter. It wouldn't make any sense because it's profitable now and it will still be for many years, at least in my opinion. Considering that this scenario would ever happen (the end of Flash), some other company would immediately be cloning the program (maybe even Google), and everyone would keep using it after it's "death".
    Markets change all the time, new things emerge, but some old ones are still here... MS Word, Photoshop, etc, etc.
    Posted 15 months ago by Kul Koba Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I honestly wish that Glitch were a native app on my Mac. I don't like the way playing the game eats up over 50% of my CPU (on a 1 year old top of the line iMac) and a ridiculous amount of RAM, and then proceeds to run slower, and slower, and slower until I am forced to reload the site and/or crash Flash (FlashFrozen Mac users, get it) and reload. This happens in every browser, Firefox, Webkit, Chrome, whatever, and I wish I could get better performance.

    Adobe has really dropped the ball on Mac performance, and I don't see it getting any better in the next 5 years. Hopefully we will see some improvements, but honestly I'd be very surprised if there were.

    Obviously I still love and play the game and having to reload once every 30-60 minutes really isn't that big of a hassle, it's just the constant degradation of the quality of gameplay after a reload that starts to annoy after a while.
    Posted 15 months ago by Skwid Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @Skwid 
    I'm playing Glitch with one Macbook pro 2.4 GHz and I never needed to reload every 30 or 60 minutes, though I also noticed that pushes a lot for the CPU, uses lots of RAM and it gets slower and slower in time. Sometimes it's so slow/lagging that I can't even chat properly anymore.
    On the last party, Hell was definitely more hellish than usual, until... it crashed. :)
    Therefore I also hope there will be some solutions for that in the future.
    Posted 15 months ago by Kul Koba Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @Nonsense - i totally agree with you. we've almost been blessed with flash ads when you consider the possible alternatives. the whole "flash ads suck" rhetoric is really misguided, because at least with flash the ads are contained as you say .. but not only that, you can use "click to flash" browser extension to lock them down entirely, and they are much more easily targeted by automatic adblockers too.

    HTML5 ads are increasingly deeply integrated, difficult to eliminate, and depending on their implementation are quite capable of slowing a browser down just as well as flash, if not worse.
    Posted 15 months ago by striatic Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Such a great news! Thanks c0mad0r! I guess it will be replaced well with less awfull technologies like JavaScript, some new tags from HTML5 and SVG or canvas.
    Posted 15 months ago by bolotov Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Just because the patent expired, doesn't mean there is/was a holder. Unisys is it.
    Posted 15 months ago by Jono Subscriber! | Permalink
  • An expired patent means the technology is permanently in the public domain
    No one "holds" the technology any more. 
    Posted 15 months ago by Fokian Fool Subscriber! | Permalink
  • The comments about flash's lifetime are almost 100% rubbish. Flash has been "supposed to die" for over a decade. That said, a native app would jmprove performance massively. It's not just macs, skwid, my gaming Pc (win7) will eat yours for lunch ordinarily, but still slogs along with the many draw calls of glitch, cpu usage always over 30% and ram leaking, leaking, leaking... i actually enjoy flash bit it's kinda poor for MMO development...

    Anyway, nuff doomngloom, what TS have accomplished is quite impressive, flash will be around, wait and see, don't drink the Metro koolaid..!
    Posted 15 months ago by FlirtyvonSexenhaven Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Of course Flash will die. Everything dies - even Glitch will come to an end one day, although that particular event is hopefully in the very distant future. 

    But I suspect what most people really mean when they make dramatic pronouncements on the death of Flash is not that it will disappear completely, but rather that it will lose its position of dominance. Not very many years ago, Flash could boast near-ubiquity - it was installed in something like 97% of all web browsers. Today, we're in a market where there are suddenly an awful lot of devices that don't have Flash, and will never have Flash. You can no longer regard Flash as the de-facto technology to use to deploy something to a mass audience. 

    The iPhone may have been the thing that started chipping away at Flash's fortress, but most people never really cared that much. Losing Flash on a device with a three-inch screen was never such a big deal - for most people, it wasn't their primary internet-enabled platform. The iPad really made the difference. All of a sudden, there's a viable computing platform that is Flash-free, and is selling by the bucketload. Even the Android devices are helping erode Flash's dominance - they may run Flash, but they don't do it awfully well. The truth is, Flash on a tablet just isn't that great a user experience. I doubt it will be for quite a while yet.

    So, Flash will almost certainly lose it's position on centre stage - it already has, really. But it's not sacked, it's just been downgraded to another supporting member of the cast these days.

    HTML5 and all the bits that people bundle into that particular bag is vying for the limelight. In a few years time, it will undoubtedly have a pretty decent following, but it's still a very long way from being the "go to" platform for all your computing needs. 

    There are applications for which Flash will remain a great choice for quite some time yet - Glitch is a fine example. There are others where HTML5 will start to become a more compelling choice - ads almost certainly fall into that category.

    And @Fokian Fool - Jono never said that Unisys held the technology, he said they held the patent, which is perfectly correct - they do hold the (now-expired) patent.
    Posted 15 months ago by dopiaza Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Hey Glitchers who work for Apple out in the "real world"! I was seriously trying to tell myself it was okay to buy a pretty pretty (and potentially very useful) iPad that I can't entirely afford. But when it looked like I wouldn't be able to play Glitch on it, I decided against it. 

    By the way, if anyone here knows of a decent way to make Glitch/flash magic happen on the darned thing, I would probably buy one in a heartbeat. A guilty heartbeat, sustained only by ramen and Glitch and the joy of shiny toys. 
    Posted 15 months ago by Aleph Zero Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @Munchma Kuchi - there are a couple of ways to run Glitch on the iPad. neither are particularly great, but if you just want to bring up glitch on the iPad and do some simple operations it is technically possible.

    one way is the Puffin Browser iPhone/iPad application. the way it works is that some server somewhere loads up glitch and starts sending a video stream of the game to your iOS device, it will also take taps and typing and send them to the server for input. the result is actually pretty decent .. considering how big of a kludge it is. if you want to log in and chat, it'll work. if you want to log in and do some basic gardening operations in your home, it'll work. the main problem is that the arrow keys don't really work properly, nor does using spacebar to jump - which is a huge problem but hey, you can still tap to move, and you've managed to get Glitch running on your iPad with pretty much no effort. congrats.

    the other way is essentially the same, except you're not running the game through some server in Japan. instead you run the game on a computer in your home, piping the game through a VNC client on your tablet. there are big advantages to this. when your computer and tablet are on the same network, like in your home, the performance is significantly better than connecting to a server through the internet. there are also a wide range of iOS VNC clients out there and i'd wager that one of them is going to have proper support for arrow keys and spacebar for movement in a game controller style. you can also connect to your home computer over the internet, with lower performance, so it should work outside the house too. the drawbacks is that, of course, the performance is going to be .. let's say .. merely functional. you also need to have a computer running at home, though you don't need to have the screen on or anything. there may also be some simple network configuration involved.

    anyway, these are both sub-optimal hacks but if all you want to do is fire up the game, chat and do some basic things every so often, then they might fit the bill.
    Posted 15 months ago by striatic Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Thanks striatic! The kludges rekindled some of my pretty shiny thing temptation. And/but I'll lug my unwieldy but perfectly functional laptop for a while longer. I really appreciate the info.
    Posted 15 months ago by Aleph Zero Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @dopiaza - just can't figure his context from his OP why he even mentioned it. I remember the anger in the developer community over that patent and Unisys's heavy-handed enforcement 
    Posted 15 months ago by Fokian Fool Subscriber! | Permalink