Comments on: Why Flash is Here to Stay

By: Andrew

Andrew — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 22:53:57 +0000

Florin – you have no idea what you’re talking about.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 22:52:23 +0000

Agreed Wes.

Websites are one thing and browser-applications are another.

Flex is amazing for browser-based applications. It provides the ability to do things that you would be really hard-pressed to accomplish with other platforms.

By: Jose Galdamez

Jose Galdamez — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 02:26:35 +0000

@Darren
You’re right. Flash will probably be more innovative 2-3 years from now for vector-based animations (noticed I did not say streaming video). At least with a combination of HTML5 and good JavaScript you can guarantee your pages will load on Apple’s iPhones and iPads. That is unless Steve Jobs changes his mind, which we all know won’t happen.

By: Jose Galdamez

Jose Galdamez — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 02:23:12 +0000

@Monji
No problem! Like I said, great commentaries. As for the speed tests and GPU utilization, these are some good references to go by as they are pretty recent.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/10/html5-vs-flash-comparison-finds-a-few-surprises-settles-few-de/

http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2010/03/16/html5-hardware-accelerated-first-ie9-platform-preview-available-for-developers.aspx

http://www.themaninblue.com/writing/perspective/2010/03/22/

The short version according to Engadet is that currently Flash wins in speed on Windows. On Macs, HTML5 is faster on Safari only.

By: Monji

Monji — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 01:11:48 +0000

Thanks for the catch, fixed it. (small mistake in implying HTML5 was a ‘plugin’ instead of ‘solution’, which is what I meant)

As far as the 99% statistic, even if it is for mature markets, the adoption rate for all others would be fairly high I imagine as well. The main point is that the Flash player is very widely used, there’s no denying that.

By: Kev

Kev — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 21:22:55 +0000

His last statement suggested that HTML5 is a plug-in. FAIL.

Another point he failed to mention is that HTML5 is standardized and validation tests are available for it always. If your page does not validate, it must be fixed or the user experience will suffer. Flash has no way to maintain such a standard and provide validation.

Finally, the 99% statistic is only for ‘mature’ markets (i.e. less than 1/6 of the world’s population). All he did was go to Adobe’s site and look at the pretty graph. He should have done more research before regurgitating such a statistic.

I like Flash and feel it certainly has its place in the community; however, I feel HTML5 will have a wider reach and audience in the long run.

By: Weekly round-up: 15 must read development, design and blogging articles - Web Development Blog

Mon, 22 Mar 2010 05:47:27 +0000

[...] Why Flash is Here to Stay There’s a huge debate stirring around the internet about the capabilities of HTML5 and it’s threat to Adobe Flash, Microsoft Silverlight and other rich internet application (RIA) technologies. The amount of support behind HTML5 is encouraging and great to see, as it will only help it’s adoption by both browsers and users, however it is important to understand it’s capabilities and limitations. [...]

By: Darren

Darren — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 01:09:49 +0000

If all the features of HTML5 are realised, that still only represents where Flash was at least five years ago. By the time HTML5 is ratified, Flash will be at version 12-14 with features not even dreamt of today. Adobe/Flash will always be able to innovate at many times the speed of a slow-moving standards body like W3C/WhatWG. Honestly, I can’t see anything in the HTML5 standard that hasn’t been possible on the web for the last five years (with Flash). Can you? If you’re idea of the web is what existed in the early part of the century, then yes, there’ll be no need for Flash. If you like to see the web change and grow, then there’ll be a place for Flash/Silverlight/JavaFX/Unity for many years to come.