Adobe and Apple’s public battles over HTML5 and Flash have quieted down recently, as Adobe rolls out new tools to work with Apple’s iPhone and iPad.
[ad#Google Adsense 300×250 in story]In announcing Creative Suite 5.5, and more specifically the new HTML5 features found in Dreamweaver, Adobe made it clear that it was all about the content.
Adobe said the new HTML5 tools were implemented “to help customers meet Adobe’s commitment to content. Adobe has no bias between HTML 5 and Flash,” Dave Burkett, Vice President and General Manager, Adobe Creative Suite Design and Web Segments, told The Loop.
Apple CEO Steve Jobs posted a letter in April 2010 outlining six points why Flash wasn’t the right technology for the iOS, which now runs on the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. Adobe founders Adobe founders Chuck Geschke and John Warnock responded with a letter of their own saying how they believe open markets are in the best interest of developers, content owners, and consumers.
Last month, Adobe released a Flash to HTML5 conversion tool, giving designers and developers a way to convert their Flash content to HTML5.
It’s a ridiculous sentiment. HTML5 is the web. Flash is a plugin. Adobe has no choice but to support HTML 5. It’s like hearing a panty hose manufacturer say its going to support women’s legs.
Could someone tell John Dowdell that there’s “no bias,” please?
I’ll say what I have been saying all along HTML5 won’t kill Flash. What it will do is put it back in it’s place as a plugin.
Flash is awesome for certain things as is HTML5 the problem is lazy designers who didn’t bother to learn anything but basic markup found out they could create entire websites in Flash and caused all sorts of issues for their clients when it came time to update their site.
John Dowdell seems to have it in his head that HTML5 is somehow a threat to his manhood which is entirely ridiculous. He needs to take a deep breath and maybe a good walk to clear his head this hysterical screaming about HTML5 vs Flash has to end and hopefully his superiors who released this statement will take him aside and reiterate this with him.
I am all for supporting women’s legs.
You’re right HTML5 is the way the web is moving/moved and god damn you can do some wicked shit with it.
But… There is no spoon.
I’ll gladly tell him, but only if I’m allowed to print the message, glue it to a bat and “convey” it that way.
Everything is a threat to J. Dowdell’s manhood, and nothing is a threat to J. Dowdell’s manhood.
As it always is with imaginary things.
But I like your point. Flash has some great uses and a well-made interactive flash site for a movie is nothing to scowl at, but that’s what it is; a tool for special uses, not “the technology that runs the web”.
I’m glad Adobe is being flexible on this matter. Flash will survive or not on its own merits. As iOS devices grow in number, that will effectively reduce the demand for it. It may yet be able to survive through demand from other sources–or not. So Adobe is wisely hedging its bets.
No mention of the AIR 2.6 that has been updated to target iOS, with huge increases in performance. Apple is now okay with Flash on the iOS, as long as it’s a self-contained app that goes through the iTunes AppStore rather than through the Flash Player in the browser, where Apple has no control over.
Some people seem to focus too much on the fact that Adobe is behind Flash and ignores the fact that they also sell huge number of copies of Dreamweaver. Adobe is a tool making company and with better tools, they make more money. It would be pure stupidity to try to sabotage one tool (Dreamweaver) to support another (Flash IDE).
Also long before Steve Jobs famous rant on Flash and how Adobe should make HTML5 tools, Adobe was already demoing such tools with HTML5 support at their Adobe MAX conference.
If you’ve(not you specifically) don’t any cross-platform work, you would have no problem agreeing with Jobs. I’ve worked with several cross-platform client GUIs and they were all, without fail, awful. The best ones were still awful. That platforms either support the lowest common denominator like say, Galaxy or implement truly awful non-standard controls like Flash and Air. They are universally slower. They lag behind the native platform consistently. You inevitably get crossplatform issues. Heck, Java did it better than most and for the client, it wasn’t a great experience. IBM decided to roll oup SWT. And you can argue that the two best tools to come out of client Java is Idea and Eclipse. Server-side is awesome, better than anything else.
Heck, about the only thing crossplatform tools seem really good at is making port bugs and security exploits portable. Take a look at Flash. You’ll get a zero day exploit that runs on Mac, Windows, Linux and Android.
The best experience for a platform is, bar none, native. I don’t believe that this will change for the foreseeable future.
The AIR 2.6 release proves all the points about why cross platform IDEs suck. It’s only NOW they get support for iOS features that have been out for almost a year now. But, when you want one size fits all, you get a Sears jumpsuit, not Armani.
The main reason Adobe is promoting HTML5 in CS5.5…so they can charge for this ridiculous update!!
Adobe is pathetic!!
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Please forgive my nitpicking, but Apple’s not ok with flash, just with applications that were ported from flash to iOS, which is a huge difference.
Absolutely. Why on earth would Apple want to have their platform’s features dictated by any third-party company, especially a company that has proven time and time again that if it is possible to fall behind, deliver late, deliver feature incomplete or with poor performance, Adobe will do so?
Why would any company that isn’t desperate, and isn’t Rim or Motorola do this?
Since when is Flash ‘open’?
When Google get behind it.
whatever Google says or do is “open” and not “evil”.
If there is no bias then where is Adobe’s website that I can browse with just an HTML5 browser without Flash plugins?
John Dowdell’s fans are always running full-blast.
I’m sorry… But did that adobe exec say that headline out loud or had he eaten mushrooms before the interview. Wow!
Flash still sucks.
Ridiculous…
1) Javascirpt/css/html5/ Dom is anarchic to modern programming… You can hate flash all you want but the truth is that Actionscript/flex is way better language to develop in if you have any experience in modern object oriented language…
2) Jobs pushing open standards is bullshit… A year or two after flex was introduced it was made open… anyone can go to the opensource.adobe.com and get the sdk, and start building with it.. FOR FREEE…
3) The only reason Apple went after Flash is because allowing people to access flash through their mobile safari would undercut Steve Jobs business of keeping users in a private garden. (PERIOD).
4) It is easy to turn off flash if you don’t want it playing in your browser… wait until stupid banner ads get made in JS… and you can’t turn it off…
5) Only a minority of flash developers go on tangents about how much they hate javscript/css/hmt5/dom stack development, while the inverse can not be said… These js developers are a bunch of haters because if it was not for steve jobs and his private garden business strategy through iphone and ipad.. js would eventually freakin die out as flash gets better with enabling web search crawlers…
So you flash haters say what you want… javascript is still some sort of bastard coding technique, whose champions are like the society of anachronism, no matter how plainly evident it is that Javascirpt/css/html5/ Dom is a far inferior tool than flash/flex…and no matter of Flash sucks and Open web crap is going to make it so…
Seriously uncool. Disagree with beliefs, but threatening harm to people is over the line.