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On Friday we learnt that Adobe would be withdrawing Flash from Google Play in mid-August, after which the only way to get it would be by purchasing certified devices or through other, unofficial means. While they will continue to support it in terms of security updates, it’s quite clear the end of mobile Flash is upon us.
A couple of years ago, when the iPad was launched, there was a huge furore regarding Apple’s decision to block Flash from the tablet. Flash support gave Android an advantage when it came to marketing for quite some time. However, to be completely honest with you, I’m glad to see the end of mobile Flash. And I hope we don’t have Flash for much longer on PCs, either.
The reason is that I find Flash to be extremely resource hungry, and I try to keep it disabled on my laptop. Unfortunately, it’s impossible to currently spend significant amount of time on the web without it. I end up turning it back on, and quite often I end up frying my thighs. Today was, in a sense, the last straw. The Flash plug-in had gone crazy and as I kept scouring the internet for news to bring to you guys, it made a simple task of switching between tabs almost impossible. Once I disabled it, everything ran as smooth as one could desire.
I don’t mean to say I hate Adobe. They’ve been making some good moves as they strategize for the long term. I had spent time developing with PhoneGap prior to the acquisition, and I prefer to see them offer that as a platform to develop apps across various systems as opposed to AIR or Flash. Also, I’m really impressed with their new web-development IDE, Brackets, that I now use on a daily basis instead of Dreamweaver.
TL;DR: I’m glad to see the back of mobile Flash, and I hope to soon see the end of Flash in its entirety. What do you guys think?
It’s not a matter of whether I like Flash or not. I really don’t. But a lot of the content I want is locked into Flash, and I think mobile Flash is going to be gone long before Flash content disappears from the web.
Exactly my point too, whether I like flash is irrelevant, the web is not converting to html5 as quickly as adobe is hastily forcing us to drop it. They should drop it only when it is no longer required anymore and not at a time that may cause a lot of annoyance to a lot of Android users among others.
You two said it perfectly. I have no problem with dropping flash and it’s battery/resource hogging ways, but above all else, I want to be able to access content from my phone!
While I completely agree, Flash is going away before the sites convert, at the same time, sites wont convert if something works for them. Unless they start to feel it due to the loss of all mobile traffic, there is no need to pay someone to rewrite their whole site.
Overall because of that, its very bittersweet.
Once flash goes way, then flash wont work anymore, and sites that want to be visible will stop using it. Flash was a horrible idea from the start. For video, you can just link to the damn video file, and browsers/users can play it directly. And the only other main thing it was used for was to make ads MORE annoying than could be done with animted GIFS.
iOS never had flash and always generated a lot of traffic, but flash sites are still there. Sites won’t change, HTML 5 sucks.
This is an untrue statement. Many, many sites were created not by, but for small businesses who can’t afford to once again pay a developer to build their entire sites from scratch. Many weren’t created by businesses at all, and there is no money to pay someone to develop a site just for mobile. Those sites are a favor to the users.
And many mobile sites just suck. They have a fraction of the features of their desktop equivalents.
Let’s take the Gawker sites as an example. Their mobile site has nowhere near the features or content accessibility of their desktop Flash site. The same goes for Facebook. Justin.tv, Ustream, Blip, Vimeo, Livestream, CoverItLive and lots of custom video embedded content are ALL Flash, with no alternatives.
There should be NO NEED to rewrite sites. It is the OBLIGATION of device manufacturers and OS writers to access the Web as it exists, not tell web site owners how to run their sites.
good call bro. my website is made with flash because it offered me a self simple creation with lots of flare. and it was very easy drag and drop. the hosting service now offers html5, but its much more difficult and it does not have all the flare and options as the flash site does. we shouldnt be forced into updated or changing our site structure just because a company wants to make money another way
Porn?
My kids mother dumped Blackberry because the web experience was better on Android. She was able to do college homework better on my Droid X1. Flash had issues on whatever BB she had.
I’m all for progress, but there should be a better transition period. If this pushes a faster move to HTML5, so be it…site designers and content makers need to move fast or faster.
As for Flash on the desktop…..my son lives by it for games. So I try to think about others and not my own needs. HTML5 isnt being used enough to just up and get rid of Flash IMO.
It will be missed. There are plenty of random websites out there that only offer flash navigation. I used to poke fun at my friends with iOS because their phones were useless in said situations, but now android will be no different =/
Not as long as you don’t get JB. I mean the apk will be on the interweb, so it’s still kinda ok.
It’s been reported that JB can run the ICS APK and get Flash running on it.
I’m with you raveesh. Flash sucks. Plain and simple. I’m sorry if that hurts anyone’s feelings but it had to be said. Between flash and resource hungry anti virus software, my netbook often slows to a crawl. As the English say…good riddance to bad rubbish.
I’m pretty shocked by it. I love Android, but it makes me pine for Microsoft to merge their full operating system with an x86 (x64) based phone operating system that docks with USB 3.0. I don’t want to deal with these stupid compatibility issues. I want to carry around a full computer in my pocket.
Flash is crap there’s no reason we should keep it around. And they already made that phone it’s called the xpPhone or something.
Oh if Flash is so crap why is it on every website major website flash is present? answer that… Also HTML5 is practically non existent on the web as of now
because they are too lazy to switch to html5
Honestly, since I got my phone, I haven’t had a single time where Flash was needed for me to do something. YouTube links just forward to the app, Twitch.tv has an app, etc. My phone, for the longest time, did not even run Flash because of the lack of HW acceleration on my hacked together version of CM9 on the Bionic. And even when I knew it wouldn’t work, it didn’t really matter. Then we finally get HW acceleration thanks to the ICS leaks, and Flash works, but I still haven’t needed it. Many sites are going to HTML5 based media (YouTube is, Vimeo, a few others). Plus, once Flash dies on mobile, everyone with a Flash-based website/application will realize that they should probably move off of Flash onto something else. Of course Flash has been extremely influential, but for me, I won’t be greatly affected.
Haven’t cared about Flash since Chrome was released for Android.
It would be really nice if some of us could get official versions of ICS (or jelly Bean) on our devices…
Official sucks. CyanogenMod ftw.
Buy a nexus then or stfu
He shouldn’t have to buy a phone with old technology to get reasonably tinged upgrades. why settle for mediocrity when you can complain and push for reasonably excellence.
I won’t mourn it as much today. With more sites finally changing over to HTML5, it’s not as hard to swallow as a few years ago when HTML5 was still “new”.
HTML5 would have been a game changer back in 2002, but as of now, it’s simply not ready and even if it were to reach its full potential, it still falls way short of what Flash offered years back.
HTML5 is basically just Web 2.1 — so even more JavaScript bloat — which for most tasks on the web is fine, but only a desktop. It’s way to slow when handling anything to complex, especially on mobiles where it can absolutely cripple a dual-core’s performance; but that’s OK, that’s why we have apps.
Flash was very important to me in past couple of years. I will still most likely get the unofficial version for whatever future phone I get.
Flash will soon die on all phones… Then on PC… Then HTML5 will replace it… HTML5 is already on windows phone so they will have a advantage…. android will die soon prepare for the worst…
Eh? Android has been HTML5 ready for ages.
Could care less. Html 5 is the future!
Seriously Raveesh, you’re perpetuation miss-information on things it’s clear that you do not fully understand.
It’s nice that you have an opinion, but now if only you had a clue.
Flash has it problems, but html5 that should replace aren’t even close to be as good as flash for neither games nor video. The facts that the standards haven’t been set yet will give a lot of problems down the road. I don’t like flash, but as we aren’t living in the future, but in 2012 we still need flash.
How long can this argument be made before it’s moot? I’ve been using it and hearing it for 18 months now. When is the future? I’m not being sarcastic either. I would like to know.
You can’t put a precise date on it, since I don’t know how fast HTML5 will be used as everyone, and how fast flash will die. There are still a lot of sites where you need flash, and there are still sites that choose Flash over html5, because HTML5 isn’t good enough, when it gets to an advance level. Games made with html5 still sucks to make and they don’t perform well.
But if you want a release date, when html5 could start being a replacement, then it is in 2014, when html5 standards will be released
Yes, good thing flash is gone, i don’t like being able to view certain content on my mobile device anyways /sarcasm
Well — until there is an equivalent technology to take its place (HTML5 is not there yet), Yes. The web will get stupider in the short term (with later versions of Android devices.) How nutty is that? Perhaps Adobe will open source the Flash Player (like they are doing with Flex through the Apache Foundation, which would smooth this out in the short term as open source versions of ‘flash’ could get loaded onto devices in the short-term at choice of the devices owner or not.
http://www.ferryhalim.com/orisinal/g3/bells.htm
the main reason i’ll actually miss flash.
there is an android version, but it’s very different and much harder than it should be.
The website at work uses Flash so I kind of need it if I’m to view it on a mobile platform. :/
But but but….Flash is useless!!!! Its only for porn!!! :-)
Although….devils advocate n all…..I could it needs to move to HTML5 then.
Of course! I need my mobile pron!
I need flash until every single online video provider moves to HTML5. What’s the point of a big Android tablet if I can’t watch Colbert or Fox Online? Makes it no better than an iPad, Flash has long been a major advantage of Android adoption and now it’s gone.
I’m surprised that the android community hasn’t encouraged Adobe to keep it alive longer. I think the real question now is: would you buy a device that supported Flash through some kind of license over one that doesn’t? Seems like the mfg could have a very strong selling point if they can get Adobe to license it to them.
Not gone yet… Android Jelly Bean hasn’t been released to everyone yet.
I don’t understand why people are wanting to be rid of flash. If you don’t use it, fine. But at least the option is there for you. As many websites use flash it is always good to have it there just incase you need it. Why wish to drop something that just cripples the browsing experience?
I’ll miss it, as much as we try to move on from flash there is no getting away from it that there is still a whole lot of stuff on the web that uses it. I’m sure there will be some work around cooked up by someone on XDA or similar, but even if there isn’t we knew this day would come since Adobe killed mobile flash… :(
YESSSSSS, I am mourning it already.
Sure I hate most flash sites, I hate the ads, I hate that they can require a lot of resources, but it is an option. If you don;t want it, dont install it, simple as that.
Also, I really like flash. I has learned me a lot and even though I know next to nothing about creating a game requiring animations, flash taught me the basics.
While I will probably never be able to create a game the way I envision it for android (although I’d really want to) I did manage to make this a 5-6 years back (I still won;t ever be able to create a cool game, but it did give me something to do when I was around 15yo and now still)
WARNING: RESOURCE INTENSIVE!!!!
http://www.oemraw.com/m/old/
http://www.oemraw.com/m/old/lvl0.swf
http://www.oemraw.com/m/old/lvl1.swf
http://www.oemraw.com/m/old/lvl2.swf
http://www.oemraw.com/m/old/go.swf
And seeing as my love for the metroid franchise never died I tried more recently to make a 2d sidescroller, although I never got past the animations part….some initial stage of that can be found here:
http://www.oemraw.com/m/
The nostalgia associated with it really makes me sad to see it go the way of the dodo.
My sole hope now rests with Adobe Flash Next:
http://arstechnica.com/business/2012/02/adobe-lays-out-the-future-for-flash-a-platform-for-the-next-5-10-years/
you may say Flash is “resource hungry”, but how will you prove HTML5 is not? Without Flash, the web will be filled with badly coded HTML5 banner ads, which will consume much more resource.
HTML5 will be able to do basic video/audio playbacks, but in terms of developing large scale Apps and Games, HTML5 with prototype based JavaScript is just a joke.
Adobe removes Flash Mobile version, but why not run full version Flash on your new quad core tablets instead of having the “mobile” label?
I really like my Kongregate arcade, and screw you for hoping it dies. It does not work without the flash plugin and I wont be updating to a device that wont support it unless the make it work without it.
Oh my gosh!! I’m not the only one in this boat!! =.D
Too many web sites stir require Flash. But Flash is a gluttonous pig that eventually crashes my phone and my tablet. So I hate to see it go and I hate to see it stay. Maybe websites will move away from Flash once no mobile devices can interact with them – will have to wait and see.
I think I’ll miss it a little.right sway because nit every where will.adjust right away but for the most part probably not so.much.
So long as AIR is still here I’ll be fine. I’ll mourn but.I’ll learn to live without. And since I have unlimited data and Verizon only has share all plans. I probably won’t be upgrading for a few hears anyway from my G nexus.
Until the overwhelming majority of the web has adapted the new format, I’d like Flash to remain as an option that I can turn off or on as I desire.
Exactly. On Android you can set it to be On Demand…which means it will not run unless you hit the symbol.
Or…you can set it to Off. Either way…its not like ppl dont have options with Flash.
Flash is everywhere. Even YouTube! Cmon Google!
Youtube falls back to HTML5, if Flash isn’t available… like all sites should.
Go to theverge.com on the chrome browser for android. look for any embedded video you find and tell me what you see. or heck go to the YouTube site on the same browser and tell me what you see.
until a better alternative is out there, Flash will still be used. HTML5 doesn’t have the necessary DRM that content providers need (not saying I like it, just that it’s a big reason) and development tools for HTML5 aren’t as good as flash for now (I know Adobe is working on that)
The funny thing is, Adobe was mad at Apple for banning flash, but now, Adobe is going to make all developers move to a new platform i.e. buy New Adobe products instead of using older flash programs, so in the end maybe Adobe does win
Flash was a reason why I wanted an android tablet, now that it is cut, I will look into the surface pro tablet.
The funny thing is that it will have Flash. I wonder if they will use it as a selling point.
Good riddance to bad rubbish, I stopped using Flash on my desktop a while back. I miss out on very little.
There are several sites that I browse on my phone that use flash to render their video content. I haven’t delved to see if HTML 5 is an option but I suspect it’s not yet. I guess this is adobe’s heavy handed way to force web sites to migrate to HTML 5 video. Is it a good thing in the long run? I don’t know. I just don’t want to be denied content that I can currently view now(with Flash only) due to this. I will miss it and while I agree that it’s a resource hog, I have not witnessed it bogging down my dual core laptop, nor my quad core desktop, nor my Galaxy S3. IMO this push is premature…I hope someone will make an unofficial flash plugin so that we can still get to the content that we want to see.
I wont miss it provided all the content I view is html5. PS thanks Steve jobs for killing flash. j/k
I will as some sites still use flash for many things and HTML5 isn’t ready yet. I don’t get the backlash flash gets, the past ten years whether you like it or not would have been boring on the internet if there was no flash. Imagine no flash animations, Most streamers on-line use flash. The Job’s comes ad condemns it and millions flock to hate it. Adobe should have pushed more when he made that statement as a FU to apple. Show them what they are missing and improved there platform and optimized it. Instead they just condemn it. So I have no faith in the future of flash at all if Adobe doesn’t.
Jobs condemned it because it ran like crap on every computer, hogging resources and it had so many gaping holes in it.
Jobs condemned it because they didn’t have and Android did they were just trying to make it seem like flash is irrelevant and not have backlash from iPhone customers about it.
That was the reason Jobs gave that he didn’t like it. The real reason he condemned it is because running third party code on his iPhone would give developers a way to circumvent paying him his pound of flesh to put apps in the App Store.
flash runs like ass and sends the fans blazing on my i7 ivy bridge computer with 8gb of ram. html5 videos on the other hand let it run whisper silent. its a piece of crap.
Yes. Those 5 random HTML5 videos. I’m so glad you lyk watching them over and over while the rest of the world suffers and watches as many videos as they want on YouTube.
And how can you even argue that flash sux on your computer? i7 with more 8GB RAM? Flash should be running lyk a newly bought fridge. Wii don’t want to here your bucket of lies. You’re clearly bragging about your computer. LoL!! =.P
youtube has html5. i use it exclusively. youtube.com/html5
not bragging about my computer. it might be running worse because its a mac but thats not a very good reason.
Oh my gosh!! This is insane. I’m going to have to give this all a try. Cool.
yupp its really nice! videos with ads still play in flash but everything else is good ol html5
my i5 with 4g of ram runs it fine..
really ravishah? my first gen i3 laptop with no gpu and 4 gb ram runs flash sites beautifully, but it youtube’s html5 videos iften fail to work properly, lag, freeze up, ect.
if you,re simply going by videos, Flash is superior
your laptop then is proof of the horrible programmers at adobe for the mac platform.
uh, what? i own a Toshiba Satellite computer running windows 7.
exactly. flash runs fine on your windows computer but on a mac with the same specs it runs like crap.
It’s a piece of crap that’s all over the place though. Until Web developers stop developing web pages in Flash, removal of it is pure lunacy.
well it won’t be removed from the web unless its forced off the web which is what apple and now adobe/google are doing.
YES. Whether or not I *like* it on the other hand is irrelevant. A very large portion of the web still contains flash content and it is hugely necessary for me to enjoy web browsing on my Galaxy Note (especially as a larger device!)
How the frak am I supposed to watch p0rn now??
Via an AIR application. They’re coming.
I will not miss flash cause it always was slow and I couldn’t use stuff that required a keyboard.
Hell yeah I will, all the good porn sites still use flash!!
Not the mobile versions.
neither mobile nor desktop. never been a flash fan, always a resource hog.
I don’t like flash and I like that their cutting support. Some time would have to go by before everyone adapts to the change and that’s on the consumer which sucks.
I won’t miss it at all (and don’t have it installed on any of my Android devices). I’ll be happy to see it disappear from the desktop, too. Buggy, bloated, and above all security-hole-laden piece of crap.
Flash still powers 3/4 of the web, and to arbitrarily pull suppprt from the user while continuing supprt for the web is a criminal act. The availabilty for flash was a major reason for my move to android, and the lack of it’s support will be a major reason for my leaving it and going back to my windows 7 desktop and laptop. I want a complete desktop experience of the web or the device is totally useless to me.
I would miss it. It is still a key part of the web and as much as HTML5 has been touted as the Flash killer for years, its progress has been glacial. I’m not even just talking about adoption rates either, it wasn’t until a month or two ago that a board to establish standards for HTML5 was made. All this time and they’re just now establishing a board to decide standards?
Adoption rates are already going to be slow(as it is with all new technology) and W3C is dragging its feet to even get it into reasonable shape for adoption. Flash may not be pretty all the time but at least its here and usable.
Adobe needed to do this in order to force websites to change their content to use HTML5
It does really suck not having major part of the internet work when browsing, just use Chrome on Android and you’ll find out how frustrating it is. A big question is why aren’t web designers moving to html5, especially on major websites?
Because even with the hype around HTML5 its still not better than flash
If everyone hops on HTML5 I will not miss it but this is so inconvenient they should wait till the majority stops using it. Sure HTML5 code maybe easier to work on but dropping support while the majority of sites rely upon it is ludicrous fucking Adobe is stupid.
I guess there’s always the Skyfire browser if tshtf…
As a professional web developer, my answer is emphatically “no.” Flash has been dying a slow and painful death for a long time now. In reality, it’s been doomed every since the push for web standards gained momentum.
Remember when Steve Jobs wrote that open letter about Flash? The very first point he made in that letter was that the proprietary nature of Flash made it the black sheep of web technologies. HTML, CSS, and JavaScript are all open standards, and it is up to the browser developers to implement them to spec. If one browser does a substandard job, there are more to choose from. We have no such luxury when it comes to Flash. If the Flash plug-in performs abysmally (it does) and is insecure (it is), well that’s just too bad. Remarkably, the supposedly open-source friendly Android community did not take a shine to this argument. But he had a valid point.
Flash got its start when the web was still very, very young. It has lost much of its usefulness as the web matured. CSS and JavaScript enhancements have long since relegated Flash to be used solely for games, embedded video, and ads, and now HTML5 aims to fill those roles as well. Is it ready to do so right now?
For games, probably not. There’s some cool demos out there that demonstrate that we’ve got all the pieces, but this is an area that will definitely benefit from people creating open source JavaScript libraries to make game development easier.
For embedded video, maybe. The video tag itself is straightforward, but there hasn’t really been a clear decision on which video formats to support. H264 appears to be winning out, though. (Personally, I think it should be agnostic.)
As for ads, I really don’t think Flash is a requirement for these, but I can see how having all the elements in a self-contained package is more convenient for advertisers. (Won’t somebody think of the advertisers?!?!)
Despite the relative immaturity of HTML5, here’s the bottom line: Flash is on the way out, Adobe knows it, and they understandably don’t want to continue supporting a product that has no future. The transition may be a little rough at first, but that won’t last long. Companies will adapt, or face being steamrolled by their competitors. With the number of smart phones out there right now, do you guys honestly think they aren’t going to make this a priority?
I find it ironic that the King of Proprietary complained about Flash being proprietary. I guess if it were an Apple product it would be considered great to be proprietary and only run on iPhone, iPad, or Macs.
I do agree that Flash really isn’t a major issue. Look at all the people buying iPhones and iPads. Web sites are going to have to come up with viable alternatives for mobile or lose traffic.
However, in the short term; I think Adobe should come out with a Jelly Bean version of Flash or make Flash open source so someone else can do it.
Yes, I’m skeptical that SJ himself believed what he was saying re: the open web. I think it just happened to serve his purpose in defending the iPhone’s lack of Flash. It was still a valid point though, regardless.
How are they going to support mobile Flash with security updates after pulling it from Google Play?
I dont understand why flash isnt implemented into mobile browser much like firefox just did. This would alleviate this problem for the time being.
Seeing how 95% of the web is flash based, I will miss it.
If anything it will make people and.companies redesign there site so as not to lose a customer I converted all my sites when crapple was the only game so not to lose business. If anything adobe will help site designers as people will need them to convert or at least make a non flash mobile site.
This is frustrating! Despite it’s daily challenges Flash is good technology. It is scary to think that Google and Apple are going to bring it to it’s knees.
i am angry at apple because they are lawsuit stupid.
i am angry at adobe because flash is still a standard.
i am angry at google because tablet chrome does not have flash and thus i have to switch back and forth between browsers. aren’t these companies supposed to be serving the customer?
Flash is still way too widely adopted for it to be removed yet. HTML5 is hella complicated and a very small minority supports it. This is why I will not use Chrome as my Android browser, ever.
I will miss Flash, I was watching an episode of 90 Seconds on The Verge(great new daily show that the Verge has, incredible site by the way, just discovered about em and can’t believe how good it is, but I am kinda rambling and advertising another site lol) and I really felt that Flash was so useful. Sometimes though, I was on Engadget and the flash player was not playing nice with my G Tab 2 at all, it wouldn’t play and it crashed the browser. So I just hope mainstream sites start offering HTML5 players, as for Phandroid you upload your stuff on YouTube so there is nothing to worry about there.
So far, the discussion has been geek to geek – as expected on an OS fan forum.
There’s a bunch of useful web content built by non-geeks. Much of that was built using templates. And many have paid serious cash for very rich templates. These buyers had no idea what the underlying technology was. It simply allowed them to present their non-geek creativity on the web in a very attractive manner. And many of these templates they paid hard-earned money for are flash based. We have a bunch of web content that will simply stop working like it used to. Most of these poor saps will have no idea what broke, will have to buy support, then buy a new pricey template and start over.
What kind if people? Visual artists, such as photographers, for example. A vast majority of professional-appearing galleries are flash-based. The typical wedding photographer is not a code slinger.
I’m not saying that standards shouldn’t advance. It’s inevitable. But there are casualties outside our geek board realm, and the previous 80+ comments neglected to recognize them.
(Disclosure: I am a photographer, but not a wedding photographer. I knew enough to avoid flash on my site.)
Sounds lyk you’re talking about the circle of life. When Flash goes out, then those same ppL will have a job again. They’d use HTML5 instead of Flash. PpL need jobs, don’t they? And yes, I know I’m taking your comment on a completely different subject.
I would be fine with not having flash, but unfortunatly websites are not going to drop flash anytime soon and a lot of the website that I view run off of flash. If they are going to kill flash they need to do it across all platforms so website are forced to adapt to the next big thing.
I use flash based content consistently on my mobile device. One of the reasons I use android is because I can access blackboard (university web campus) on it.
Adobe’s sense of timing is off. Web not yet optimsed for html5, the sooner the better
It was buggy, never ran smooth. Hopefully HTML5 will be better.
I don’t get what’s going on. If Adobe takes Flash out the market, how do they give updates? I thought the updates went through the market?
And they can take flash all they want. I’m sure the .apk will be floating around the internet anyways. Another user stated a cool thing. Open source flash so the developers can take control of it. Thought that was a cool idea. I mean since it’s going to be gone anyways, they’d be able to keep it alive until HTML 5 is out.
I mean my school uses Flash for the online work and all. I wouldn’t be able to do my homework. =.(
it isn’t that I’m sad to see flash go, but there are times I need/want it and it isn’t there. HTML5 isn’t ready yet.
I look forward to the demise of Flash.
That way, I can play all the Facebook games on my tablet. I also don’t have to put up with non disableable ads like this stupid “android rewards” garbage that hijack the mobile version of this site’s.
I kinda agree with you, but at the same time I dissagree. I mean, I don’t necessarily wish to see the end of flash as much as I wish to see the end of flash usage. Remember how only recently, MS had to start forcing people to upgrade their version of IE, because so many people were still using the derelict IE6? It’s going to be a much tougher challenge trying to force people to use HTML5 rather than Flash.
Yes, I dislike flash a lot in terms of its stability, though in terms of its support, I guess it affects everyone differently. I am studying towards an honors degree through a distance learning program, and have come to rely on flash with my trusted transformer prime. There is light at the end of the tunnel however. With Microsoft dropping support for Flash on Windows 8 tablets, it looks unlikely that the desktop editions of Internet Explorer will be supporting Flash in the near future. I guess the less devices there are that support Flash, the more incentive there is to switch across to HTML5.
Fingers crossed….
I will always want the option of viewing the same content as can be viewed on a desktop browser.
Are they just going to stop putting out updates for Flash?
I would think that a version of flash you have installed on your phone already would still work past August, I could be wrong though
I buy Android devices because it has Flash.
Loss of Flash is not some loss of an unwanted, unloved resource hog. It’s loss of 90 percent of the utility of my Android devices. The web uses the technology appropriate to content providers. It is not the choice of the mobile device makers to tell us that we can’t access that content. The web is why I bought Android in the first place. Now they’re taking it’s one unique advantage away.
Flash should not be abandoned on Android, until every last Flash site is converted to HTML5, not one second before that happens.
I hate my razr maxx now. I use to love it. No flash means its just like the iphone. I want to break my phone so i can return it and get another phone with gingerbread on it. How can they do this knowing that most sites use flash. F**k ICS.
Flash is clearly on it’s way out, but that doesn’t mean it’s not going to hang around for a while. There’s still many sites that rely on it, and I’m sure that doing a straight conversion from Flash to HTML5 won’t be as easy as it sounds. As far as dropping Android support I think it’s safe to say that the fine people at XDA and other groups will modify the APK accordingly to allow us to use Flash on our JB devices. Looking back I’m glad that I didn’t focus a lot of my development work on Flash and instead focused on .Net technologies.
Until html5 does everything Flash does, support for Flash is necessary! For example, transparent background in videos do not appear transparently in html5, and require flash.
when will youporn dot com switch to html 5? thats all i care about.
for everoyone who says falsh is going to be irrelevant soon, i ran into an architech’s website at work that was written in SHOCKWAVE the other day. i see quicktime videos all the time online. and currently, i only know of a small handful of websutes WITHOUT flash content. HTML5 just doesnt cut it for a lot of people, and its adoption rates are staggeringly slow. there are more computers out there that don’t support html5 (anyhting XP or older, and most people use IE, for some reason) than there are computers that don’t support flash.