Now many of you are expecting this post to be about the lack of Flash on the iPad or about the future of HTML 5. While those issues are important, there are actually much larger issues facing the web development community. These issues are not necessarily negative, but they will change the way we all work.

My first real job in this industry was doing DHTML at AOL/Netscape. Now this was during the peak of browser-compatibility headaches. There was IE 5, Netscape 4.7 along with the new Netscape 6 (yes they skipped version 5 to catch up with IE) and Mozilla browsers. Adding to the madness was the AOL client application, which contained a modified version of IE 4. I credit this job for getting me interested in Flash. I was fed up of dealing with browsers and just wanted to create a single experience that would work everywhere. Well those days are quickly coming to an end, regardless of whether you use Flash or do HTML development. Below are some of reasons why things are shifting.

Mobile Flash is different than desktop Flash
You often hear people talking about the idea of developing once and deploying to every device. That sounds nice but it isn’t realistic. The real story is that you can create 80% of your application once, and then spend the remaining 20% of your time creating UIs that work well on the various devices. For instance, mobile devices obviously do not have as much horsepower as your quad-core tower. So once you get Flash Player 10.1 on your phone, don’t go to the FWA and expect those sites to run like they do on your desktop. Because of that you will need to do a lot of optimizations that you wouldn’t ordinarily worry about with desktop Flash. The UI of your application will also have to be optimized for smaller screens and will have to be touch-friendly, meaning not relying on things like roll over. Luckily Flash now has full support for multi-touch and gestures so you will be able to create some really innovative experiences. Adobe will also be disseminating some great resources about how you can best optimize content for mobile devices.

The app revolution
I always talk about how revolutionary I think the iPhone has been, but not necessarily because of the technology. After all, multi-touch has been around for a long time. But the concept of having apps for everything you do versus doing them in the browser is something that has caused a real shift in the way we interact with the web. Personally I love this approach for the iPhone, but I’m much less excited about that approach for the iPad. I buy apps for my iPhone like it’s a bodily function. I have never been convinced that having Flash on the iPhone would really cut into the app store business, although I think Apple strongly believes this. Browsing websites on a phone is never really a great experience unless sites have created mobile-optimized versions. But even then, they are usually a lackluster version of the full site with a subset of the content available. Android is also a very app-centric environment. So what does this mean for web developers? It means that in addition to your full website, you may be asked to create an iPhone application, an Android application, and a version for mobile browsers. This will be made slightly easier as tools like Flash CS5 will have the ability to export a single application for multiple devices.

Cutting edge browser plug-ins are here to stay
Over the past week I’m sure you’ve heard a lot of ridiculous statements about Flash being dead or that it will be replaced with HTML 5. That is pure nonsense to put it mildly. If those people actually read some of my earlier posts they would understand that I believe HTML 5 will eventually be able to fulfill certain roles on the web that Flash has traditionally been used for. But during the time it takes for that happen, Flash will continue innovating and pushing the envelope of what is possible on the web. Flash has always been the environment of choice for developers who want to create the experiences that will become the standards of the future. Open web standards are a great thing but they move at a very slow pace. The advantage of plug-ins is that they can rapidly add new features and innovate without the need for waiting for the browser manufacturers to get their act together. This is not just true for Flash, but also for other plug-ins like Unity3D and Silverlight. So there will always be a huge demand from companies for cutting-edge content as they attempt to differentiate themselves from their competitors. Just look at all the companies creating augmented reality applications now. This will create the need for some developers to create a cutting-edge experience site using Flash, a standards-based website using HTML 5 for devices like the iPad (assuming Apple doesn’t come to their senses), and standalone applications for devices like the iPhone and Android.

The explosion of web-connected devices
For me, the iPhone has literally transformed the way that I interact with the online world. I pay my bills, moderate my blog comments, track my workouts, and interact with social media from my phone now, rather than my laptop. Now of course I still need my laptop as well for countless things that aren’t appropriate for a mobile device. But in addition to that there will be a whole slew of other devices that will be coming like tablets, internet-connected TVs, set-top boxes, and gaming consoles. All of these devices will consume web content and may require using a host of different programming languages and graphics technologies.

If I had to give advice to young people who are thinking about getting into this field, I would warn them upfront that they will need to spend countless hours keeping up with all of the new technologies that will sprout up, seemingly overnight. To put it mildly, this is not a field for lazy people. The positive side of all of these changes is that none of us should have a problem finding jobs in the future, regardless of what technology you specialize in. Unless of course you do stupid things like posting screenshots of porn on your blog . As the internet permeates itself onto every surface imaginable, there will be an increasing need for developers who understand this certifiably insane industry in which we all work. So no matter what role you play in building the internet, things are about to get more and more challenging.

Lee

54 Comments

Now that the Flash/iPad issue has been done to death on this blog, I can now get back to simply talking about Flash. Adrian Ludwig recently released a video showing some of the newer applications that have been created for the iPhone using Flash CS5. The performance is getting better and better. On this one, Adobe, Apple, and developers all benefit.

Lee

47 Comments

Chuck Freedman has created a great auction on eBay where all of the proceeds go to charities that are helping people in Haiti. There are many cool Flash collectibles up there for you to grab and I have also donated a bunch of items for the cause. The items below won’t show up until Chuck updates the auction page but you can at least see what I donated.

Official Flash on the Beach Speaker Bag
This is an unused Timbuk2 messenger bag (sorry John). It even still has the tag on it.

Big Pile of Foreign Money
Collected over the last two years of evangelism travel. Includes money from Australia, Singapore, Mexico, Costa Rica, and more. Even includes some cool coins with holes in them. No idea of the total value and I’m too lazy to try to figure it out.

Raw DV Tapes from the OnAIR Tours
These tapes are filled with footage from the US and European OnAIR tours. Who knows what kind of material might be on these tapes.

Essa Porra! T-Shirt
It’s the phrase that is sweeping across Brasil. One of only two made by me on SpreadShirt. XL American Apparel shirt.

Two Official Dead Drop Coins
Too lazy to compete in an actual dead drop? Then this is the item for you. You get two coins. One to play with and the other to store for safe keeping.

My Old iPhone 3G
Used extensively during my first year on the evangelism job. I now use a 3GS. I have used this one to view countless blue legos. Jail break this puppy and have fun!

Flash Speaker Badge Collection
A huge stack of official speaker badges from conferences like Flash on the Beach, FITC, MAX, FlashPitt, and many more. All have cool lanyards including the one from MAX with the built-in USB key.

Big Ass Sticker Pack (BASP)
Large collection of stickers (more than is shown here). Includes the original stickers from the OnAIR tour, Lynda.com, Flickr, Yahoo, Wordpress, and other must haves.

Give generously so we can do our part for Haiti,
Lee

14 Comments

As I’m sure you have already heard, Steve Jobs confirmed that Flash will not be coming to the iPad. He called out both Google and Adobe. He said that we are lazy and basically said that Flash will never come to Apple devices. Personally I find this really sad, as I really enjoy using Apple products and I think Flash Player 10.1 would have been awesome on the iPad. Why not give people the option to have it is the question that I keep asking.

Even though I obviously disagree about Flash, I have to say that I actually admire Steve Jobs. He sticks to his guns and doesn’t waver. I respect that in a person, and that’s no joke.

At least now I can get back to some real work. Flash on!
Lee

0 Comments

Now before I even start this post let me make something clear. I am trying to do some research on HTML 5 video and have some questions that I’m hoping someone can help me with. I’m planning on doing some demos as I am genuinely interested in trying to build some players. Any comments that try to rekindle the flame war from the last post will be deleted. Let’s keep this one about the technology, not whether HTML 5 video is better than Flash, etc. OK so here are my questions. Any help would be much appreciated.

1. Is there a definitive reference for both the video tag and the JS API used to communicate with it?
2. My assumption is that each browser provides a default set of controls. Can these be modified or do you need to start from scratch?
3. How do you do true streaming with the video tag (i.e. not progressive download)?
4. Is it possible to provide some form of DRM protection for video in HTML 5?
5. Is there a tool that is optimal for encoding Ogg videos for Firefox?
6. I remember reading that you can seek to any part of a video even if it hasn’t been downloaded yet. Is that true and if so, how is that achieved?
7. Is there no hope for IE ever supporting the video tag?

Thanks in advance for the respectful commenting
Lee

44 Comments

Update: I feel I need to set something straight to stop the rampant misrepresentation of this post. Firstly, this is not the official Flash blog of Adobe. I am one of hundreds of employees that blog. Secondly, regarding the screenshot of the adult website, that was added by me in an attempt to be humorous. Not surprisingly Adobe did not find this humorous at all and that is why I removed it. So there is no official Adobe movement to “play the porn card” like some “news” outlets are reporting. It is only an individual employee who overlooked the fact that some people are offended by the idea of adult content on the web. As for the main idea of this post, Adobe believes that something that ignores a huge part of the web cannot be the ultimate browsing experience. Personally I love Apple products, especially my iPhone, and that is why I’m so passionate about all this.

543 Comments

Update: I mistakenly said that Firefox does not support HTML 5. They do through the Ogg codec.

There seems to be a lot of talk going on lately about this so I wanted to give my thoughts. This topic is actually quite a confusing one to think about. Let me first address the iPhone side of this so we can get to the real meat of the issue.

The iPhone does not support Flash video, or any other type of Flash for that matter, so you obviously need an alternative. In my last post I showed one approach for providing alternative videos for iPhone users. But this really doesn’t relate to HTML 5 at all. The iPhone plays video in its standalone player so you will not be able to view video embedded in the page. So for the iPhone, unless something changes, you need to provide an iPhone-compatible video file for your users to watch.

Now with the iPhone out of the way, we can now look at the real issue. YouTube released an HTML 5 demo of its player quite a while ago and are now testing this on their site. Vimeo, which is a lesser known video site, also launched a beta HTML 5 player as well. This should not come as a surprise to anyone as it is in their best interest to get ahead of the curve with HTML 5. If you are in a supported browser, HTML 5 video playback can be very smooth and less CPU-intensive than Flash. For basic video playback, I see HTML 5 as a great option down the road. Of course, the issue for me always comes down to browser compatibility.

The video tag works in Safari and Google Chrome. You can get it to work in IE if users install Chrome Frame. This is fine for developers, but the masses more than likely won’t be willing to do that just yet. So in reality, Firefox and IE both do not support HTML 5 video. Firefox seems to be doing its own thing, requiring you to use the Ogg video format, while Safari and Chrome support H.264. Go over an read this great write-up on HTML 5 video to see the splintering of the various video formats and browser support. If you want to deliver video to every browser without having to encode multiple video formats and creating alternative markup, then Flash is the way to go.

Now this is not to say that in the future, maybe they will all agree on an implementation. If that happens and it performs better than Flash, then that is how I will be delivering my videos as well. But another thing to point out is that Flash video is used for a lot of things beyond basic playback. Flash supports embedded cue points and alpha channels and is often used in ways beyond the traditional YouTube playback scenario. So while HTML 5 video looks promising, it is clearly way too early for people to be writing an eulogy for Flash video. Remember also that while the browsers get their acts together, Flash video will continue to evolve as well.

Lastly, I would like to dispel the notion that Adobe is somehow against HTML 5. On the contrary, we see it as an exciting development for the web and have our own plans for tooling surrounding it as well. I have always preached to people that they should only use Flash for things that are appropriate. Sites that overuse Flash and provide poor experiences are worse for us than sites that don’t use it at all. Of course there are plenty of JavaScript nightmare sites out there as well.

39 Comments