The end of Adobe Flash and the birth of HTML5
It seems that Adobe’s Flash plug-in is on its last legs and with the recent introduction of HTML5 as a new and better alternative, Adobe is being forced into accepting defeat. The first signs of a change from the Flash platform came when Apple made the decision to not use Flash within it’s iPad product range and from then on it would appear that many other companies have followed suit.
According to Adobe’s blog they have also cancelled any further development of its Flash plug-in for any mobile devices, stating “Adobe 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 continue to provide critical bug fixes and security updates for existing device configurations”
The reason that they have given for this strategic decision is that HTML5 offers “the best solution for creating and deploying content in the browser across mobile platforms”.
There has also been added pressure from previous Flash developers that have formed an ‘Occupy Flash’ campaign in order to get users to uninstall the plugin from their computers and go with the new HTML5 platform. “All of us felt that Adobe’s announcement last week about the future of Flash was a tipping point, and that it was time to start a conversation about finally moving away from Flash entirely on desktop browsers, in the interest of providing a more consistent web browsing experience for normal users,” said a member of the group.
The ‘Occupy Flash’ group have said that the software is very buggy, insecure and will often crash for no reason. One of the spokesmen for the group said, “Our goal is to move technology forward. Sometimes that requires a bit of a sacrifice”.
Adobe themselves are yet to comment on the campaign but it will no-doubt be putting a lot of pressure on them to respond. You can check out the ‘Occupy Flash’ website here.
