Okay this is a slightly controversial post but it’s something that’s been nagging at me for a good few months now so I thought I’d put it out there and see what people think.

Will Adobe’s mobile vision for Flash restrict future features?

“Why would it?” you might ask. Well the whole point of Flash Player 10.1 for mobile is to deliver the exact same desktop web experience to our mobile devices. Considering the performance gap between desktop and mobile it surely wouldn’t make sense for Adobe to add any new features to Flash that were CPU intensive or memory hungry. Such a strategy would risk producing content that performs poorly on mobile and gives Flash a bad name. Unfortunately the really cool features are often the ones that require fast CPUs and bags of RAM.

Adobe has committed considerable time and effort educating developers about mobile and encouraging them to optimise their existing Flash content – Take a look at the Ads Optimizations and Optimizing Performance for the Flash Platform white papers. It’s clear they’re desperate to ensure that web-based Flash content runs well on mobile and shows Flash in a good light, so I seriously doubt they’ll want to introduce any new features to the player that might cause problems on mobile.

You could argue that Adobe should just keep adding great new features regardless of how well they might run on mobile and leave developers to decide whether or not to use them. The problem with this approach however is that they risk fragmenting the web with great content that runs brilliantly on desktop but poorly on mobile, which is exactly what they’re trying to prevent at the moment.

Sure, as time goes on, mobile devices will get faster and faster but there is always going to be a gulf between the power of mobile handsets and desktops. My guess, and my hope is that Adobe let their mobile strategy dictate, to a certain extent, the future of Flash and the features that we’ll see in upcoming releases.

In the short term I think it’s very important we start to see some performance parity between mobile and desktop Flash content. Much of it is down to the developers producing the content but I think Adobe can help by ensuring that any new features aren’t likely to melt our mobile phones.

So here it is: Apple’s latest technical marvel.

No wait a minute, that’s not it! Ah here it is.

Sorry my mistake, but it’s an easy one to make I suppose. After all both are quite large, touch-sensitive, and extremely shiny. Any other similarities? Oh yeah, and neither support Flash, although at least the Monolith’s creators have an excuse seeing as Flash wasn’t around a billion years ago when the Monolith was actually built.

It’s clear Apple hate Flash. It’s clear Apple really want to kill Flash. And it’s clear they have a plan. If their devices can gain enough penetration then the need for Flash will diminish as more sites ditch it to ensure a better experience across Apple’s products.

I’d asked in my previous post whether HTML5 would kill Flash. I think Apple are more of a threat to Flash than any single web standard, and I still firmly believe that Flash’s future lies in its success on mobile.

As a Flash developer I must admit to being curious at YouTube’s HTML5 trial support, removing the need for the Flash player for video playback. Video-centric social networking site Vimeo has also followed suit with its own HTML5 video player beta.

To be honest, until recently I’d been fairly dismissive of HTML5′s chances of ousting Flash from the browser but the reaction from several colleagues has got me a little nervous. “It’s the beginning of the end” said one, whereas another more-or-less implied we should just all give up and go home.

Let’s face it though, Flash does a hell of a lot more than just video so why should I even feel threatened by this? Well theoretically HTML5 should allow more than just video too. In fact, if you believe the hype then anything that can be done in Flash should be do-able directly in the browser.

But let’s address video first. I think it’s fair to say that video is a large part of the web these days. I personally watch several videos each day be it on the BBC website, some interesting links from YouTube, or a tutorial on something like gotoAndLearn. Video is everywhere and for that reason so is Flash.

And if you’ve been keeping up with the progress of the Flash 10.1 player for mobile you would have noticed that Adobe are pushing video playback as a major advantage for having Flash on mobile devices. But what if phone browsers suddenly started supporting HTML5? Would there be such a push from OEMs to have Flash on their handsets? I suppose that depends on the number of sites that eventually embrace HTML5 and that itself really depends on the success of HTML5 across a wide range of browsers.

You just need to quickly scan through the list of caveats posted by both YouTube and Vimeo regarding their HTML5 video players. Anyone using IE or Firefox (and that’s a lot of people) are currently excluded. Vimeo has stated that this means the beta will only work for 25% of it’s users! Full-screen support is also out for both sites, with Vimeo stating that it’s unfortunately a limitation of the browsers right now. Oh and you’ll need to return to using Flash for embed codes.

So far from ideal but hey, it’s early days.

But what if the tide does change? As I said, it’s only video and Flash can do so much more. True but maybe video support on mobile is enough for the time being. After all, not being able to view Flash content on the iPhone has hardly dented Apple’s sales figures has it. I guess there’s a huge amount of content out there that people can do without and with video eventually being available via HTML5, maybe there really isn’t a need for Flash on mobile. Now this could be critical since getting video support onto mobile devices via the Flash 10.1 player would certainly help to stave off HTML5 in the short term.

And if HTML5 becomes the de facto standard for video playback then what next? With its support for canvas drawing there is also no need to use Flash for interactive pictures, charts and graphics; things that we’ve relied on Flash for years now. The simple fact is that the modern web browser is narrowing the gap between what you expect from a standard HTML page and what can be achieved using Flash.

Again though, I think mobile will come into the equation. With more and more people accessing the web on their phones it might boil down to what runs better on a device – apps written using HTML5 and its scripting API or apps written in Flash? It’s clear that Adobe have put a lot of effort into optimising Flash for mobile, but what about the browsers themselves? Content will have to run well on a device or users just won’t bother and the content providers/creators will be accutely aware of this. There’s no point writing for a particular technology if it’s just not going to run well on mobile, and that goes for both Flash 10.1 and HTML5.

Essentially performance and penetration are going to be huge factors, especially on mobile where more and more people are accessing the Internet. Plus more companies are eager to have consistency when viewing their sites across both desktop and mobile.

To be perfectly honest though, I’m not even sure it will come down to the technology. There are so many creative agencies and development teams out there that use Flash daily and are comfortable using the Flash and Flex IDEs. They’ve invested a lot of time and money on these products and may find it hard to give them up for new emerging technologies. There has to be a collective will in order for a shift to take place. Look at Silverlight for example. It’s an impressive web application framework that many confidently predicted would kill off Flash, but over the last few years that will to change just didn’t seem to be there. Will the same happen with HTML5?

So am I worried? To be honest, at the moment, not really. If HTML5  does eventually force Flash out of the picture then it’s not going to happen overnight. The HTML5 specification will still take some time to solidify and its overall success really does rely on a fairly consitent implementation of it appearing across several desktop and mobile browsers. Just take a look at this article regarding a spat between Mozilla and YouTube to see what I mean. It seems that even agreeing on a video codec is too much. Who knows how long it will take for HTML5 video to appear on a wide range of mobile browsers.

What about Adobe? I seem to remember Nokia, to their cost, dismissing Android when it was announced. Let’s hope Adobe don’t make the same mistakes with HTML5 and that it helps drive their business strategy and innovative thinking. For me I think they’re doing the right thing at the moment, which is getting Flash Player 10.1 on as many mobile devices as possible. The sooner they manage that the more chance Flash has of remaining the de facto standard for video playback on the web. And if that’s the case then it will also probably remain the de facto standard for rich Internet applications too.

I’ll leave you with a few quotes I found. The first is taken from the blog of Adobe’s John Dowdell who posted about HTML5 last year.

this whole “HTML5″ campaign will likely benefit Flash, because few remain who oppose the idea that “experience matters”. Things are quite a bit different than five years ago. Silverlight’s launch helped boost the popularity of Flash… iPhone helped to radically increase the number of phones with Flash support… the “HTML5″ publicity helps marginalize those few who still argue that images, animation, audio/video and rich interactivity have no place on the web. Flash will be able to deliver on those heightened expectations, regardless of what each separate browser engine does.

The other was posted by Lee Brimelow on his blog this morning and suggests that both technologies can quite happily coexist.

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.

Just for fun I decided to port my audio cassette music player to mobile. A really strange thing happened though when I actually got it onto my Nokia 5800. As soon as I saw it on the phone’s screen a long forgotten memory from my childhood came back to me of something I hadn’t thought about since the day it happened.

I was playing in my room, and must have been no more than 9 years old. I was suddenly aware of another person being in the room and looked up to find a man who looked strangely familiar standing in front of me. Although I had no idea who he was I was certain he knew me. There seemed to be a bond between the two of us.

For several minutes he just stood there looking at me, seemingly fascinated. I wasn’t affraid but I was growing a tad impatient – I really wanted him to go away so I could play Super Pipeline on my Commodore 64.

Eventually he knelt down beside me and produced what looked like a thin sheet of glass with a cassette trapped behind it. The cassette’s wheels were somehow spinning and I could hear music.

He asked me what I thought. To be honest it kinda spooked me a little and I turned to shout on my Mum. When I looked back he was gone.

Recalling all this, I instantly felt quite bad for not telling the man what I thought. I think I was probably just a little too young to effectively communicate how I felt. But it has got me thinking. What would someone from the eighties think about my Flash Lite demo? Would they like it or be thoroughly unimpressed?

If I ever manage to master the art of time travel (I’m definately close) then I’m gonna make a point of going back to the eighties and asking some dudes what they think.

For anyone who’s interested, the port to Flash Lite 3 was fairly straightforward. It took around two hours and required few modifications to the actual visuals – I scaled down a handful of the clips in the library, converted some stuff to pngs, and flattened the structure somewhat to remove embedded movie clip depth. The biggest task was rewriting the code in ActionScript 2, although again, it was hardly a problem. I tend to find ActionScript 2 a fairly good prototyping language that allows you to get things done relatively quickly, which was the case with this port.

Now if I do manage to go back in time who should I show the demo to first?

We’ve seen Flash Player 10.1 running on the Google Nexus and now Adobe have released some more videos showing Flash on a few more handsets. First up is another Android phone – the Motorola Droid. Again performance looks pretty good and Adobe have also chosen to demonstrate Flash running on a few different websites, including www.bbc.com which I visit daily.

The Palm Pre is also getting the Flash 10.1 treatment with the video below showing some Flash-based web games being played. Flash on the Pre was first seen at MAX and since then Adobe have been hard at work tidying certain features, adding hardware acceleration for video support and providing full-screen for games.

It’s not quite ready for release yet but Palm have indicated that it will be available “soon” and will ship as part of an OS update or via their App Store for those who already have the most up-to-date firmware.

Well it is if you believe what Aral Balkan had to say recently. His post sparked some intense and much welcomed debate within the community regarding Adobe’s mobile strategy. In particular both Scott Janousek and Mark Doherty posted excellent responses and I think all three posts are definitely worth a read.

Flash Lite in particular took a bit of a bashing from Aral and it’s something I’d like to talk about here. Firstly I’d like to point out that I agree with many of Aral’s points. I don’t personally know him but he’s highly respected and very influential within the Flash community, and his blog is something I make a point of checking out from time to time.

I’ve been writing Flash-based mobile apps before Macromedia released Flash Lite and although my Flash Lite work these days is restricted to personal projects I’ve been following its evolution since day one, so feel I’m well positioned to comment.

So was Flash Lite a failure? I’d say not. It certainly didn’t achieve what Macromedia and later Adobe had no doubt hoped for it but I feel many great things have and will come from Flash Lite. It demonstrated that Flash is a perfectly acceptable environment to use when developing mobile content reasonably quickly, and in the hands of the right developers/designers, some pretty amazing content can already be written.

The effort gone into optimizing Flash Lite won’t go to waste. Without the hard work from Adobe over the years the Flash 10 player for mobile just wouldn’t be possible. And although the upcoming Flash Lite 4 player will only work as a browser plug-in, I feel that AIR on mobile is essentially the next evolutionary step for standalone Flash Lite application support.

Over the years I’d say I’ve had a love-hate relationship with Flash Lite. There would be days when it would impresses the hell out of me, and then others when I’d be so hacked off by the whole ecosystem that I’d just want to give up with Flash and go native. One thing however is, that over time I’ve come to realise that my frustrations weren’t necessarily with Macromedia/Adobe but with the OEMs they were working with and their inability to strive towards consistency, not only between themselves, but even across their own range of handsets.

Fragmentation was for me the biggest frustration with Flash Lite and the main reason why it never took off in the way that many (myself included) expected and hoped. Again the handset manufacturers didn’t help themselves.

Take Nokia for example. I seriously applaud their efforts and if there was one manufacturer who came closest to getting it all working it was, in my opinion, them. They continually pushed to deploy Flash Lite across their range of handsets, but for all the hard work there was always one bad decision that would scupper things for the Flash Lite developers.

Upgrading the Flash Lite player from FL 2 to FL 3 within firmware updates was a really bad idea. Although it brought many benefits – streaming video within FL3 being one – it further compounded the compatibility issues, with fragmentation suddenly existing across the same device! There was just no guarantee that a large number of users would upgrade their firmware. Up until that point you knew exactly what version of Flash Lite to expect on individual devices. After that it just got harder, more frustrating and quite depressing.

The signing process for S60 devices was always a major issue and something that never really got addressed adequately. It was always too expensive, time consuming and cumbersome, preventing those wishing to release freeware apps (and working to a tight budget) from doing so. It just didn’t really encourage the community to produce great content and get it out there. And it was all the more annoying that you could wrap up Series 40 versions of your Flash Lite content in a nice little NFL file without the need for signing while the exact same content for S60 had to be signed.

I guess ultimately the problem was that the operating systems that were written for mobile devices were never developed with something like Flash in mind. Seamlessly updating the player on the device wasn’t something that could be done easily and unfortunately the distributable player solution came too late in the day.

This may make for depressing reading but I honestly believe there is light at the end of the tunnel. The introduction of the iPhone has been a wake-up call for the rest of the industry and Apple has shown the rest of the world what the mobile experience should be like. While there has been a lot of talk about in-browser Flash support for mobile devices, the success of the app store has shown that there is also a need for standalone applications with web connectivity.

For me standalone Flash application support is probably just as important as browser support for the very simple reason that it’s much easier to tailor the experience for individual handsets that way. A mobile phone is not a desktop PC and  considering the wide range of device configurations and means of interaction you’re never going to get the same experience consistently across all devices. Many existing web based games for example will never work properly on a Flash enabled mobile phone simply because certain devices won’t have a comfortable screen resolution or the game may not translate over to a particular handset’s input mode – A keyboard driven game just won’t work on a touch-only device.

But I don’t think total coverage across all mobile devices is really necessary, and to be honest is impossible. Developers have always targetted the most popular devices and the same will be true for mobile Flash. If Adobe can get it working on a reasonable percentage of popular devices then that should be enough. But one thing they desperately need to avoid this time round is the terrible fragmentation that existed with Flash Lite. When future upgrades to the Flash 10.1 player are ready, there needs to be a way to ensure handset owners can easily, seamlessly and quickly update.

A Flash-based app will never outperform a native app, but as mobile phone’s grow in power this will become less of an issue, and if Adobe can solve the fragmentation problems that have blighted their past attempts then Flash will become a very viable platform for developing content across a wide range of handsets.

Even in its current state, those developing with Flash Lite can target a significant number of handsets, with approximately 700 million having been shipped in 2009 alone. Targeting Flash Lite 2.0, there is nothing stopping a developer releasing games and applications of the highest quality and at the same time taking advantage of the strong development environment provided by Flash and Device Central. If you know what you’re doing you really can create something in Flash Lite in a matter of weeks that runs across millions of devices.

2010 is going to be the make or break year for Flash on mobile. Will Adobe be able to jump the chasm? I certainly hope so.