Why No Flash?
/// If you don’t know what Flash is, here’s a quick definition:
“Adobe Flash is a multimedia platform that is popular for adding animation and interactivity to web pages. Flash is commonly used to create animation, advertisements, and various web page Flash components, to integrate video into web pages, and more recently, to develop rich Internet applications.” Wikipedia
/// Here is an excerpt from an article written by Morgan Adams, an interactive content developer, on why the iPhone, iPod Touch or forthcoming iPad will never have flash (like we know it today).
“I’m biased. I’m a full-time Flash developer and I’d love to get paid to make Flash sites for the iPad. I want that to make sense—but it doesn’t. Flash on the iPad will not (and should not) happen—and the main reason, as I see it, is one that never gets talked about:
Current Flash sites could never be made work well on any touchscreen device, and this cannot be solved by Apple, Adobe, or magical new hardware.
That’s not because of slow mobile performance, battery drain or crashes. It’s because of the hover or mouseover problem.
Many (if not most) current Flash games, menus, and even video players require a visible mouse pointer. They are coded to rely on the difference between hovering over something (mouseover) vs. actually clicking. This distinction is not rare. It’s pervasive, fundamental to interactive design, and vital to the basic use of Flash content. New Flash content designed just for touchscreens can be done, but people want existing Flash sites to work. All of them—not just some here and there—and in a usable manner. That’s impossible no matter what.
In addition, some Flash sites rely on right-clicks (such as for security settings), and many rely on a physical keyboard. Especially games, which are the main kind of content people want from Flash. (I’d say video, except video can easily be done without Flash, and sites are increasingly doing so. Much of the video missing from your favorite Flash site is probably easily found on YouTube anyway.)
So it’s not just that Apple has refused to support Flash. It cannot, logically, be done. A finger is not a mouse, and Flash sites are designed to require a mouse pointer (and keyboard) in fundamental ways. Someday that may change, and every Flash site could be redesigned with touch-friendly Flash. But that doesn’t make Flash sites work now.
Even if slow performance, battery drain and crashes weren’t problems with Flash (and they truly are), nothing can give users of any touchscreen, from any company, an acceptable experience with today’s Flash sites.
The thing so many complainers want is simply an impossibility.
By the way, imagine my embarrassment as a Flash developer when my own animated site wouldn’t work on the newfangled iPhone! So I sat down and made new animations using WebKit’s CSS animation abilities. Now desktop users still see Flash at adamsi.com, but iPhone users see animations too. It can be done.”
If you want to read the article in it’s entirety, you can do so on Roughly Drafted magazine by clicking HERE.
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A very valid point! The touchscreen completely changed the way we interact with computers/smartphones and some technologies will be left behind.
Adobe’s struggle is laughable – they should stop the flame and start designing a Flash-like technology that can work on touch-enabled devices. And I wouldn’t call it Flash Touch
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This is absolutely true and I’m surprised NO ONE has mentioned it! The “hover for menu” stuff would be ridiculous. The blackberry storm tried to emulate hovering and clicking with a clickable screen, but after using it for a few weeks our company went with the iPhone instead. I don’t miss flash.
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