HTML 5 Versus Flash/Flex
June 18, 2009 - 11:15am — bexThere's been some chatter lately about how the next version of HTML 5 might make Flash irrelevant. And not only Flash, but also Adobe Flex, Microsoft Silverlight, and Oracle JavaFX might similarly become useless.
This is because the latest version of HTML has a lot of features that were previously confined to advanced animation plug-ins... the three I like the most are:
- The <audio> and <video> elements, which allow for embedding rich media directly into the browser; the #1 use case of Flash.
- The <canvas> element, which allows for images and vector-graphics to be directly rendered with JavaScript, which allows simple animations; the #2 use case of Flash.
- Offline data storage so your users can keep a 5Mb database offline, manipulate data, and re-sync the data later; an uncommon use case, but vital for rich internet application that you can use on an airplane.
These features have been necessary for a long time... and even though HTML 5 is not yet a finished standard, most of it is already supported in major browsers: Firefox 3, Internet Explorer 8, and Safari 4. This means that you can create a HTML 5 application right now! Probably the most famous HTML 5 application out there is Google Wave for email, which we are all just dying to try out!
I feel that this kind of competition will be healthy... I'd wager that 90% of what people currently use Flash for could just as easily be done in HTML 5. Also, by being standards compliant, you'll have fewer concerns about vendor lock-in. What happens if Adobe gets into trouble, then is bought out by Computer Associates? No more Flash for you!
However, there is still a problem... currently HTML 5 compliant browsers are only 60% of the market... I know quite a few enterprises that are still on IE 6, fer crying out loud... Flash has the distinct advantage of working on older browsers, and has about a 95% market penetration. Although, last year at this time only 5% of users had a HTML 5 compliant browser, so maybe by May 2010 HTML 5 will be as popular as Flash?
Hard to say...
UPDATE 1: Well, it's now May 2010, so I redid the numbers... and according to the browser numbers from W3Schools about 75% of the market is using HTML5 compliant browsers. Now that Google has dropped support for IE6, I'd wager this number will be close to 95% in May 2011...
This question came up recently in the content management universe... a few weeks back EMC/Documentum unveiled their latest UI at the Gartner conference on Portals and Collaboration... and it was a pretty slick Flex-based UI. A daring move... However, slick UIs don't need Flex. Billy and I got a demo from Jason Bright about Media Beacon's latest app. It was very flashy, and uses pure HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. As Jason told CMS Watch:
"Flex, like ActiveX, Silverlight, and Java Applets before them are, in a sense, replacements to the browser. Each replaces the web browser in a proprietary way. While I love Flex as a technology, I do not think it is a good strategic decision to throw out the traditional browser for a new client-server model no matter how attractive"
The problem boils down to this: there are millions of people dedicated to making the web better; but only one small part of Adobe is dedicated to making Flash better. The same holds true for Silverlight and JavaFX.
If I were writing a one-off rich internet application, I might choose something like Flex, because Flex development time is half what it would be for a similar HTML/CSS/JavaScript app. There are so many browser bugs, and oddities in JavaScript, that its always a long slog to debug it. With the possible exception of the Google Web Toolkit, there really are no good ways to easily design a flashy HTML/CSS/JavaScript application... whereas designing application with Flex is relatively simple.
But... if I were making an application for resell, or one that I intended to have other people maintain, I'd be more hesitant to use anything but web standards. HTML 5 is right around the corner; product development cycles are long; and HTML 5 browsers could reach 90% market saturation in 12 months.
All things considered, the best option now is HTML 5...
UPDATE 2: in case you have been living in a cave, and missed the launch of Apple's new iPad, you might have missed the fact that the iPad will not support Flash or Flex. I'm uncertain whether this new device will really take the world by storm, but if it does, it will be one more reason to switch to an HTML 5 code base.
UPDATE 3: it appears that Steve Jobs has gone on records about why the iPad and iPod will NEVER support Flash. Steve-o brings up a few more reasons I did not cover here: Flash is a power hog, it doesn't support "touch" interfaces, and it crashes a lot. Steve Jobs ends with a plea: Adobe should use its brainpower to make a cross-platform IDE for HTML5, and stop trying to cram Flash down our throats. If they don't, then the "next Adobe" certainly will...
How about jQuery?
Nice post. One comment though: "There are so many browser bugs, and oddities in JavaScript, that its always a long slog to debug it"
What about jQuery? It's supposed to remove the browser oddities by programming using one API.
Millions vs a small part
"There are millions of people dedicated to making the web better; but only one small part of Adobe is dedicated to making Flash better."
I don't think that's so. There's a wider and more diverse ecology around the total Flash platform than around the total "HTML5" ecology -- many, many, many businesses are based atop using the capabilities available to nearly all browsers today.
And within Adobe there's a united emphasis in working atop Flash: the new Text Layout Framework came through the InDesign research groups... the video and metadata teams have been leading the way on automated captioning and text search within Flash video... acrobat.com and LiveCycle are developing other aspects of the Flash Platform. This is larger and more cohesive than what the companies behind each different HTML runtime are doing.
... but, as usual, the world will judge a technology by its results, and what it actually offers. :)
John Dowdell
(employed by Adobe)
http://blogs.adobe.com/jd
Re: Millions vs a small part
You are correct that Flash has a thriving community and a large ecology of add-on functionality, whereas HTML5 right now has pretty sparse support.
However... that all grew after Flash gained a large browser market share... Right now, there is nobody "pushing" HTML5 other than geeks. But, once HTML 5 has a killer-app that everybody wants -- like Google Wave -- then that could trigger the same kind of thriving community.
I'm just sayin... if I were making a killer web app that wouldn't be finished for a year, I'd probably pick HTML5 over Flash.
Integration?
In all the of the debates I see people are making a case for HTML 5 or Flash/Flex they all failed to consider one thing: integration
Neither HTML 5 nor Flash/Flex will ever be able to integrate at the level Silverlight will. The real case for Silverlight is its integration model (WCF on the server and Silverlight on the client). Microsoft will push Silverlight into its core products including SharePoint, ASP.NET, Windows Mobile 7, and the biggest bets of all its cloud OS, Windows Azure. I think Silverlight is here to stay regardless of what happens to HTML 5 or Flash/Flex.
Re: Integration?
The real case for Silverlight is its integration model
And that's exactly why a lot of people say that Silverlight is a replacement for ASP.NET, and not really a replacement for Flash or HTML5. If you choose Microsoft as your dev platform, and you have a captive audience, then Silverlight makes a lot of sense... but you might also need to add Flash/HTML5 widgets as well.
Silverlight Integration
Silverlight has a great integration story with MS core products, but it has much more than that. Silverlight does not require the use of MS products beyond the client, indeed it can be served from any server and communicate with other servers and the tooling is very good. Microsoft's presentation layer technologies have always been 1st rate and compilable. Flex is also a good platform and the two will live on and compete with HTML 5. As an architect, prematurely advising clients to take the HTML 5 path seems unsupportable at this time.
Re: Silverlight Integration
Silverlight is nice, but its more of a replacement for ASP.NET; not a replacement for Flash/Flex.
As an architect, prematurely advising clients to take the HTML 5 path seems unsupportable at this time
I'm using my developer hat, not my architect hat. If this were a one-off solution, I'd advise Flash/Flex, or one of the popular JavaScript toolkits. If I were writing an application for resale -- where your app might not be released for 12 months, and might not be popular for 24 -- then I say the time is right to bet on HTML5.
Windows Only: will never be a real standard
Until Silverlight becomes truly cross platform, and not just Windows (and maybe Mac), then it'll never be a standard. Too many Internet connected devices (Netbooks, Cellular Phones, Set Top Boxes, the workstations of a large proportion of software developers) have support for HTML5 and will have support for flash over the next year or so for Silverlight to succeed unless Microsoft starts a big push to diversify the player.
Re: How about jQuery?
I like jQuery, but I usually recommend the Yahoo User Interface (YUI) library to enterprise customers. Its a bit easier for clients to swallow a library backed by Yahoo, then from a handful of "dudes" who might find something better to do next week ;-)
Also, once HTML5 is popular, I'm sure libraries like jQuery and YUI will take advantage of the extra features... You'll probably still use the same function calls, they will just look a LOT cooler.
Re: How about jQuery?
jQuery is the only open source javascript framework shipped with the Microsoft stack. That should make it easier to swallow.
jQuery/Yahoo
Is Yahoo really that different from those jQuery "dudes"?
It doesn't seem the most stable to me. It is constantly entertaining deals and offers and the talent pool seems to be a revolving door lately.
re: jQuery/Yahoo
Which one doesn't seem stable? jQuery or Yahoo?
leef
On the surface your statement sounds great; "The problem boils down to this: there are millions of people dedicated to making the web better; but only one small part of Adobe is dedicated to making Flash better".
But then why has Flash been vastly superior in contrast to HTML, and even AJAX, for so long? You're in a sense saying that a group of guys have been far outpacing the mob? Delivering audio/video/3D/complex animation/file-reference-uploads/and so much more, and the "millions of people dedicated to HTML are just now nearing agreement on audio/video element attributes? Will that element have a computeSpectrum method? Web 2.0 was bubbling with the concepts of "cloud computing", "online OS", and RIAs, and the Flash Player has been the closest reality to a programming platform to deliver apps that rival photoshop. A Flash App was touting the new bitmap smart-scaling technology before Photoshop itself. Flash Player 10 is entirely more comparable to Cocoa than HTML/DOM scripting. And best of all the Flash Player elegantly side-steps the tremendously ridiculous render/display differences between the multitude of browsers. The best thing about HTML5 is that it may continue to convince Adobe to further open-source the Flash platform. If that were ever to occur I'd be surprised to see an HTML 6. Flex is adapting the niceties of element tags, but As a developer I'll always choose rendering consistency, and sprites over browser-display-differences and divs.
Re: leef
"But then why has Flash been vastly superior in contrast to HTML, and even AJAX, for so long?"
Web standards take much longer than they need to... mainly because the process is so political and bureaucratic. However, that hasn't prevented Microsoft, Netscape, Mozilla, and Apple from making additions to the standards that later became standards.
That whole AJAX/XmlHttp thing? Invented by Microsoft. WebKit? Apple. But each one was an attempt to add one small thing that made a big difference to the web. Flash is a BIG THING that makes a medium difference. It will still be useful and cool and will probably always have something of a niche... and maybe Adobe will come up with some insane innovation that will drive the HTML6 standards 10 years from now.
Who knows?
All I know for certain, is that once the enterprises ditch IE 6, they might jump to IE 8. Then the market penetration of HTML5 browsers will be as high as the ones using Flash... at which point it makes the most sense to use the open standard, unless you 100% need Flash.
Leef, I couldn't agree with
Leef, I couldn't agree with you more.
leef
Amen! You're opinion that using HTML5, when it has the same market-penetration as Flash, makes more sense doesn't make sense to me. Your 'what if Adobe tanks' statement is a valid concern, but one that is shared in similar ways by open-source tools/languages. Proprietary software runs the same risk of being deprecated, or mishandled by new management, as does open-source software.
That's opinion. How did you measure the impact?
Anyhow, HTML is great, I'm glad to see it's advances. It is the browsers display inconsistencies I have real issues with. I'd be happy to see a one browser world, or one where any browser deviating from display-standards is fined, sued, and flogged by an international jury of disgruntled web design/developers = ] I also look forward to the day when the Flash Player is open-sourced, and becomes an integral piece of the browser's rendering engine, not just a plugin. It's a small world afterall, and we are the people.
I would gladly take you up on the wager...
"I'd wager that 90% of what people currently use Flash for could just as easily be done in HTML 5"
1. If you knew how to code in ActionScript3 and use the Flex 4 libraries you would not make that statement because you would know that what takes sometimes 60 lines in .js or xhtml can sometimes take 4 lines in Actionscript and/or MXML
2. Most javascript "programmers" do nothing but IMPLEMENT pre made modules. Unless they start learning how to program them - html 5 has a LONG way to go.
3. Wave could have been built with Flash about three or four years ago. Flash has had persistent cookies, messaging, remoting, real time shared objects etc.. for years and by the time html 5 is ready for prime time...Flash and Silverlight's tools will have evolved far past HTML.
4. How fun is it building something for months...only to find out it will work in 10% of browsers instead of 99% of computers?
I wish you all luck...
"1. If you knew how to code in AS3 and use Flex 4..."
amen, brother. amen...
I was thinking the same thing while reading this.
(btw, either the CAPTCHA's on this site are too hard, or I need to enroll in some type of CAPTCHA class... I hate always trying to prove I'm human)
Well, reading articles like
Well, reading articles like these make me wonder if the writers really know why Flash is so widely used and what it is used for and why HTML 5 is something serious Flash developers do not take serious at all, simply because it can't do what Flash can.
First of all, one of the best and most popular uses of Flash is ANIMATION and second, MULTIPLAYER GAMES. No, you can't make Joe Cartoon with HTML 5 and NO, HTML 5 is not suitable for creating huge complex online games like HABBO HOTEL. Creating stuff like that with HTML 5 is simply impossible. And if you're gonna try it anyway, the result will be way slower and bigger than it's counterparts made with Flash. WHY? Because the SWF-format is a compressed format. Creating vectorimages with the buggy SVG result in filesizes 4 / 5 times bigger than if you would save the file as SWF... So if you really think HTML 5 will make the web faster, think again. As a matter of fact, it won't. Slow websites made with Flash are not slow due to Flash, but due to bad programming. That's something HTML 5 will not change at all.
"The problem boils down to
"The problem boils down to this: there are millions of people dedicated to making the web better; but only one small part of Adobe is dedicated to making Flash better."
And yet, HTML is JUST getting around to being able to play a simple video, something Flash has had for nearly a decade now. How about Fullscreen? Closed-caption support? Streaming video? 3-D? Bitmap manipulation? Sound spectrum? etc...
tradeoffs, boys... its about tradeoffs
I fully agree that Flash/Flex will always have features that HTML5 will not have. However, focusing on that misses the point.
I'm talking about creating a next-generation web application. If I were to do that, what technology should I choose? Should I pick HTML5 which is a standard and gives me 90% of what I need... or should I standardize on a 10-year-old proprietary toolkit that still gives people the heebie jeebies because of it's closed nature? Also... neither the iPod nor the new iPad support Flash, and probably never will... but they do support HTML5.
For my money, HTML5 is the future. Flash will probably still have a place, but Flex probably won't.
I wouldn't be too quick to jump on the Apple bandwagon...
Yes, the iPhone and iPad don't support Flash, but that is by design. Jobs is being pretty public about his dislike of Flash, and while he can sugar coat it and say it's because it's unstable, I would venture that it's more likely because Flash is not something he can control.
One need only look at the iTunes DRM and the App store to see that Apple doesn't have much interest in nonproprietary development, and I believe one of the main reasons they are backing html5 over Flash is because they can at least exert a small amount of control over the development of html5. For instance Canvas was originally developed by Apple and at it's inception they patented it and had planned to license it.
Now i'm not going to say that the days of the plugin aren't numbered, because they are, eventually open standards have a way of winning. However I don't see the end of plugin architecture for a while. That leaves a lot of time for Adobe to improve on Flash and if Adobe ever really did feel backed into a corner they could always make Flash open source.
While the concern of "what if Adobe goes under" is valid, lets not forget that just a few years ago Flash was Macromedias baby and Adobe seems to have done pretty well with it sense its acquisition. Generally when a company buys another they don't abandon major revenue generating platforms.
I am excited for the new html5 spec, but like everyone else here my biggest concerns are support and rendering. At this point in time my clients prefer not to pay for hours of extra work debugging on multiple platforms (though jquery et al are god sends they are not perfect). Flash/AS is still a viable platform, and will continue to be for a while, though a little competition never hurts the consumer.
first next-generation web
first
next-generation web application is NOT a page where you put your video up and have a 3D teacup rotate !!!
second
no one studied how fast, precise you can create pages with HTML5 what looks and feels exactly, that is exactly the same on all browsers.
a next gen app:
advanced search engine takes 1.5 days (including scripting the buttons, my fetish) in AS3 and 2 h at the server side. over 8000 entries after 6-8 criteria and have it update real-time without communication with the server. and you use the clients computer and not the servers CPU and it is way faster than anything i have ever seen.
and it's 355k (host, send me a mail if you need the link).
many people make clauses with the support. but if a browser puts the border inside the other one outside that is a shit worth of standard border property. and that is crazy basic stuff. (try working with margins combined with padding, and that is crazy)
i see no support here. who supports the developers?
i know that you don't want to install the flash player because there is a ton of advertising done with it. do you honestly think, without flash those ads will disappear? the most offensive ads i have seen are done with js.
i have no objection to add some functionality to html (like creating a component in Flex) that eases my work, but if it does not deliver the exact same results everywhere, it's useless for me. 1 pixel is a mistake i can't afford. and for that 1 pixel i am limited to a very small portion of html.
leave Apple alone. i have seen adobe air (witch is something like offline Flash only better) on iPhone and so far so good. adobe needs to work a bit more on performance, and they do.
a 20 year old shit technology remains and gets more shitty if millions of people are trying to make it better.
Jason Bright is crazy with that statement. if a browser is not like the other browsers and does not like your code you have to replace it in the least invasive manner if you can. can html do that?
"Flash will probably still have a place, but Flex probably won't." now that statement i call noob, LMAO.
PS: i don't use flash ide, i don't use flex for coding my flash apps or creating fancy animations. i use a script editor. i use flash and flex for managing my assets and compiling only. i don't hack, i code code to be hacked, feel free to do so.
first next-generation web
"a 20 year old shit technology remains and gets more shitty if millions of people are trying to make it better."
hehehe... I do agree with this statement... sometimes ;-)
"Flash will probably still have a place, but Flex probably won't." now that statement i call noob, LMAO."
That statement applies to applications that people re-sell... not to one-off solutions for individual clients. If you want to make your website in Flash/Flex, then that's your decision. It's widely supported... However, if you are creating an application -- specifically an enterprise application -- or any kind of framework, then you should probably stay away from Flash/Flex. It's a closed standard, and therefore too much risk...
Standardizing on Flex is the same idea as standardizing on Internet Explorer. Yes, choosing IE meant you got all those fancy features, IE was free, and on most computers already. But... from a long term code maintenance perspective it turned into a nightmare.
maybe
"
However, if you are creating an application -- specifically an enterprise application -- or any kind of framework, then you should probably stay away from Flash/Flex. It's a closed standard, and therefore too much risk...
"
it does not interests me or that particular corporation what standard it uses as long as the framework / application works as intended.
i did develop flex apps for corporations (,a huge one in Switzerland).
there are rumors that flash player (the web player) get's open sourced, so it just gets a lot un-risky.
i don't think that there is any reason for adobe to channel revenue from businesses using their products/standards which they say it's free to use. it's true, a few years ago it had a very real risk to it, especially the time of macromedia - adobe transaction, and it still holds a bit, but the sea is calm and it will dry out eventually.
Re: maybe
If you are a good coder, then you can probably use just about anything, and make it "future-proofed." Example: put a lot of your logic in the back end, or in XML data files, or whatever. In that case, Flash/Flex would just be the "front end." If HTML5 every got good enough to replace it, migration would not be too much of an issue.
The problem is, that you can't always make the assumption that coders are good... sometimes the tools you need to pick are the ones with less flare, because there is less chance that the end result will be difficult to maintain.
future of web, time/money value
Guys, wake up. Adobe is not just some backward company. They are leaders in developing softwares for advertising (Illustrator, Acrobat - both used for printing), Production ( After Effects, Sound Booth, Premiere, Encore),Web (Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Flash), General Design (Photoshop). Every mid and large size company is using their softwares (if not, hiring other companies that uses it). Even Microsoft (the largest software company in the world uses their software). Adobe is really hard working on cross application compatibility. Yes, html5 "might" be great, but if that so, why.. tell me why the LARGEST SOFTWARE GIANT like Microsoft would push so much their silverlight??? Investing millions of dollars in something that can be so "easily" swapped away ???? It doesn't sound logical, specially in the world of money. This thing is far bigger than me and you as developers can think of. It's about controlling rich multimedia online content. Microsoft is holding the rights for EcmaScript 4. Why they don't sell it to Adobe ??? Adobe wanted it and still want it, so that they can continue developing actionscript (as you know, Java script and Actionscript are based on EcmaScript). Opera and Chrome are considered to be the pioneers of HTML5 support, then why the FlashPlayer will be embedded in Chrome ??? Do you think that we know something more than those software giants? Or we just think that we know something?? IE9 is on the way as well.
Don't get me wrong, I'm currently working for one of the world's largest marketing agency - Wunderman, what we do is developing and maintaining a lot of Microsoft websites, about 250 actually. And You know what ? I don't have Silverlight installed on my personal PC. I'm inside and I don't like what I see.
As for HTML5, we'll see, but i don't expect it to be as powerful as application running on virtual machine, since it will be rendered on different browsers. No need to mention java script programming, html5 coding, css styling, cross browser compatibility - testing and debugging.... messy don't you think ?? For example, it takes me half time for designing and developing website on flash, with cool features and rich user interaction, than make a simple site cross browser compatible. Time is money, clients don't care what you like. They don't understand your knowledge, nor they care about it, money rules, they want it fast, they want it good. don't bother with technologies that may not bring you enough profit!
Re: future of web, time/money value
tell me why the LARGEST SOFTWARE GIANT like Microsoft would push so much their silverlight???
Silverlight is a replacement for ASP.NET... not a replacement for HTML5. It will make developing in the .NET stack much easier, but if you use it too much, you risk vendor lock in. Just the same as any proprietary framework.
The iPad is about to explode in popularity, and the only hope for "open" web applications on it is HTML5. Not Flash. Not Silverlight.
Nas ,... why are you so
Nas ,... why are you so angry..
what is siverlight ???
:P
siverlight is not an issue. nether is EcmaScript 4. if adobe wants it, adobe gets it. the current level of actionscript (3) is good. E4X was very needed and it is supported. so let them focus on multi-device, and the merge of flash lite with flash 10.1. in fact the successful replacement of it by 10.1.
Can't replace flash but..
HTML5 and CSS3 can't replace Flash but they will make some serious dent in FLASH popularity, means less peoples will prefer having Flash player installed on their system. Microsoft and Apple already against Flash, while Google will most likely to treat Flash as step child in future since Flash is closed-source. This will result in decline in use of Flash and development of flash as well. Not only flash but few other technologies like Flash will need to search their new home, like silverlight finding its home at Windows Phone 7. But as far as online game and other cross-platform application development goes, most website would prefer Flash - silverlight or even java-swing as it fits their needs perfectly. But for casual web development , developer would prefer using HTML5-CSS3 rather than Flash like technologies to target wider audience, and even employer will prefer that.
HTML5 is not ready for prime time
Why would anyone choose a technology that is not proven, and unsupported by the most widely used browser?
Life is much easier when you avoid the bleeding edge. HTML5 is the bleeding edge. Flash/Flex is
proven, mature, and 10-1000 times faster than Javascript.
Steve Jobs supports HTML5 because he knows it will never compete with a native iphone/ipod app in terms of
performance and experience.
I make an awesome living developing flex apps. I don't have to deal with the nightmare of weakly-typed Javascipt and
CSS. I'm no GUI designer, buy my Flex apps look amazing.
So by all means, please focus on HTML5 so there will be fewer Flex developers out there.
In 10 years, when you finally get HTML5 up to where Flex is now in terms of capabilities, I'll be on using the advanced features of Flash 20.1. By then, it will be running on the iphone/ipad/ixxx device too.
the same was true about HTML4
Client-Server technology was vastly superior to HTML4 when it came to easily developing a rich interface... but HTML4 won out. Why? Simplicity and openness are two big reasons... as nifty as Flex is, the underlying engine is a big 'ol mess of legacy code and crashy, buggy software. According to Steve Jobs, Flash is the #1 reason why Macs crash.
Adobe has two options:
Option 2 makes MUCH more sense... because it won't take 10 years for HTML5 to catch up to Flash/Flex. Once IE 6 is abandoned, many folks will probably leapfrog to IE 8, and you might see a critical mass by 2012. Adobe should build off the success and launch the "Next Big Thing" before some startup does, and becomes the "next" Adobe.
Jesus Christ...
I think there's a better chance of Jesus Christ returning and all web application developers killing themselves before HTML5 displaces Flash.
As a Developer, I know what Flash is capable of. I know it's made by one organization, so it renders the same on all browsers on all platforms. I know ActionScript 3 and its core classes (not to mention Flex) makes JavaScript/Webkit/etc. look like a clusterfuck of incompatibility waiting to poison my CPU with verbose instructions and vomit shit within the boundaries of my web browser window's frame.
You guys keeps talking about web-standards. HELLO 99% penetration rate of Flash!? How is that not a standard? Browser vendors need to realize that there's HTML content and FLASH content. There are two MAJOR types of content. They're in the business of displaying web content and they're IGNORING the fact that there's TWO KINDS. It just so happens that the code for displaying FLASH content is written by one company and HANDED TO THEM, and BEATS THEIR ASS at delivering, displaying, and interacting with the content. Adobe should just build their own web browser SEALING FLASH as the dominant web content and make firefox, etc. their plugged-in bitches.
Amen to this. With Wired
Amen to this.
With Wired now declaring the Web as "dead" the real issue isn't if HTML5 will replace Flash but rather if the browser itself is going to continue as the technology carrying the Internet forward. Apple itself isn't really that interested in HTML5--it wants developers to use Objective C and the app store. And why you may ask? Because even when HTML5 fully arrives it will be as a poor shadow of other technologies currently out there (Flash & Silverlight to name two)
Flash 10.1 is much faster than HTML5 right now and it is moving out onto a host of devices--sometimes in the browser window and sometimes natively as an AIR app.
I've developed with HTML/Javascript before and I develop with AS3/Flash/Flex now. The difference is night and day. Development and deployment in Flash is just so much faster.
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