When everyone can do the same things (and do the same things) in HTML5 and flash, THEN the time to stop flash is then, not when people are still using it. Dropping a product during mainstream use makes sense if it is crap and people are still using it. Flash isn’t crap, it’s well liked, and people still make things with flash. I wouldn’t say now is the time to drop such a product.

I’ve long been an Android convert but I’ve never had a good flash experience when it comes to watching content inline – I much prefer when it falls over to the the phones native player. People musn’t forget that there are plenty of HTML 5 video players which will play inline if required, just because we don’t have flash doesn’t mean we can’t get a lot of the content that is currently served using a flash player as the interface.

In my previous job we did a promo for someone who wanted it to work on mobile devices as well as the desktop but didn’t have the budget for mobiles specific sites. As such we used HTML 5 instead to deliver a rich experience on PC’s and across ALL smartphones (with minimal optimisation required). The work received multiple industry awards and was a major success.

In my opinion (and it is just that, an opinion!) people that write off HTML 5 simply haven’t worked it or utilised it to it’s fullest potential.

Basically this all means for mobile… that APPS win, Browsers Lose. Which means App devs struggle with Publishing APPS to AIR – FLASH pro, flash catalyst, flash builder, flash export from indesign, flash authoring is a damn nightmare of crazy toolsets that cost way too much.

Bleh. when i can actually duplicate flash function in html5 CSS3 javascript jquery moo whatever junkheap of nonconforming crash prone browser prefix CSS3 nonsense… then life will be ok, but right now i do everything in both and its a damn mess. I cant hire anyone smart enough to deal with it.

The thing you have to understand though is this would be true for HTML5 too if you had all those animations, videos, etc being run through it.  So Adobe is just going the more energy efficient route.

Are they dropping mobile flash because of Apple? Yes, I’ll admit, flash might not be what is used 20 years from now. It’s probably not HTML5 either. But I stand firm that Flash is still mainstream today-the time that they’re cutting flash for mobile devices.

(Anyone else think that if Adobe could optimize Flash enough then they could actually beat HTML5? I’m saying they COULD, not that they will. Look at the story-they’re clearly quitting long before that will happen.)

The thing that stings the most is that they didn’t have the intellectual honesty to do this, and admit that Jobs was right in his evaluation of the situation, while he was still alive.

-Steve

Please Google:

IBM detained mother of ex-employee on the day of centennial
     or
How Much IBM Can Get Away with is the Responsibility of the Media 
     or
Tragedy of Labor Rights Repression in IBM China

While at least some of those sites accommodating iOS devices are doing so through Adobe’s Flash Media Server 4.5, which allows Flash content to be streamed
using the iOS-compatible HLS (HTTP Live Streaming) protocol.  The processing of the video is also handled by the server in those instances and let’s less powerful devices play those video files.  Something that helps explain the reason why Adobe feels they no longer need to support mobile devices as they’re already starting to do so on the server side of things.

So it’s mainly Flash games and such that mobile devices will start to be left out of.  Though Adobe will still be using Adobe Air for apps, which should still allow them to give most mobile devices access to Flash content.  Something even iOS can take advantage of now since Adobe has Air for iOS.

Not having flash on my phone is seriously a non-issue…..Oh so my phone doesn’t display half the interactive ad’s its exposed to…….shucks……..

While HTML5 is still a immature product and has yet to be developed to the point that Flash is at now. Though everyone agrees it will eventually get there and then start surpassing Flash but till then Flash will be hanging around awhile longer.

All of which brings up the point that they’re not killing off Flash yet.  They’re just not going to be updating the mobile version any more aside from security fixes.  They don’t really need to with Adobe Air anyway.  While Adobe also has to started getting serious about supporting their products for the up coming Windows 8 and it’s still up in the air how that will effect the mobile market.

“HTML5 has not performed consistently well across browsers.”

“HTML5 was designed for PCs using mice, not for touch screens using fingers”

HTML5 sucks ass if you care to look into it a bit.
This is all hysteric fartileptic frenzy.

Some of you guys just won’t let it go and admit you’re wrong. Flash is dead, has been dead for several years now. You’re just too slow to catch on and still are apparently. The fact is that I have yet to see a Flash-driven site that’s worth my time and any worthwhile site nowadays has an HTML5 fallback for iOS devices. I was amazed when I bought my iPad 2 thinking it was going to be a hassle watching video or interacting with Flash sites. I can’t think of the last site I visited that didn’t accommodate iOS.

Oh but yeah… I reeeeeeaaaaaaaaalllllly miss all those obnoxious Flash ads on my iPhone. Yes sir, indeed, that’s such a huge drawback.