Adobe is on a roll! MAX, RTMP, Flash Player 10 for mobile, Acrobat.com and 200m AIR installs
Wow… Where do I start? First of all, you may have noticed that the activity on my blog has been rather low the last couple of weeks. June is a pretty hectic month and it’s not always easy to finish a blog post (I have several sitting in my draft folder now) while traveling.
This week, Adobe announced so much cool stuff that I have to catch up with all the news. So here we go…
MAX
Registrations for MAX are now open. Registrations for MAX are now open. Registrations for MAX are now open. Registrations for MAX are now open. This year, MAX offers more than 200 sessions and 100 hands-on labs. If you register before August 31st, you get $200 off the regular price of a full conference pass!
RTMP
As promised/announced back in January, Adobe now published the specs for RTMP. RTMP was designed for high-performance transmission of audio, video, and data between Adobe Flash Platform technologies. RTMP is now available as an open specification to create products and technology that enable delivery of video, audio, and data in the open AMF, SWF, FLV, and F4V formats compatible with Adobe Flash Player.
Flash Player 10 for smart phones
Just last night, Adobe’s CEO Shantanu Narayen announced that we will have a public beta for Flash Player 10 for smart phones at MAX. He also said that we will be initially targeting Android, Windows Mobile, Symbian and Palm webOS devices and that early builds have already been shipped to manufacturers.
Acrobat.com
Acrobat.com now becomes a full online office suite. Recently the team added Presentations to the offering and just this week Tables saw the light of day. Both apps can be found on http://labs.acrobat.com.
AIR
The AIR runtime is now installed on more than 200 million desktop computers worldwide. That’s 200 million in just 16 months. Obviously this is thanks to all the AIR developers out there that actually build applications using the technology. So big kudos to you!
Adobe versus the ‘Open Web’
Lately, I’ve read and heard a lot of conversations about how “HTML 5 is going to kill Flash” and how Adobe is bad for “breaking the open web” with the “proprietary” Flash Player.
So… Let’s think about this for a second. People have been talking about HTML 5 for quite some time now and it seems that it will be just that for still quite some time more. The release for HTML 5 is scheduled for 2012. Sure… Internet Explorer 8 already has some HTML 5 features enabled but the full blown “Flash killer” is not going to be available until 2012… and even that is an optimistic schedule. If I look at what HTML 5 is going to bring to the table, it seems that its features can be compared to a smaller feature set of Flash Player 7. That version of the Flash Player was released in September 2003… So those features have been available for at least 6 years now. Sure, HTML 5 will still evolve but so will the Flash Player. Every 12 months or so, a new version of the Flash Player is released bringing new features to the web. People have been installing updates faster and faster and within just a few months developers can use those new features in their sites/applications. So by the time HTML 5 gets to critical mass, the Flash Player will be at version 12 or 13 with even more functionality and exciting features that will not be available in standard browsers.
So why is Flash evil? The “skip intro” era is already far behind us and it’s not just about advertising. These days developers are also using the power of the Flash Platform for full blown online/offline applications. Just have a look at Picnik, Sumo Paint or Hobnox. Even organizations like NATO for instance use the Flash Platform in ways that you would not be able to do with HTML 5.
Flash has also greatly improved the video experience on the web. Remember the old days where you had to choose between Windows Media Player, Real Player and Quicktime? And when you made your selection, you still had to pick your connection speed. And when you finally got through all your selections, chances were you still didn’t have the right codec and you still wouldn’t see the video. With Flash, ‘play video’ actually means ‘play video’ and today over 85% of all the video on the web is viewed using Flash Player. YouTube, CNN, Vimeo, NY Times, Flickr, Last.fm, Facebook and many many more all use Flash.
Now don’t get me wrong. I am not saying the Open Web is a bad thing. I welcome all forms of innovation but Open Web supporters also need to open their eyes and see that Adobe is not as bad as they think.
So why don’t we open source the Flash Player? Well… First of all… I’m not sure what good that would do? That said, Adobe doesn’t own the rights to every single bit in the Flash Player. We don’t own the rights for the video and graphics codecs for example. It also seems that not many people know that we opened up the specs for the SWF and FLV file formats as part of the Open Screen Project. We also published the specs for AMF (the binary format for exchanging data used by the Flash Player) and announced that we’ll also publish the specs for RTMP. We also have a bunch of Open Source projects within Adobe. The Flex SDK being one of them. On top of having our own Open Source projects we also support and contribute to existing Open Source projects like WebKit, the Mozilla Foundation and Eclipse.
I know… Adobe pays my paycheck but I honestly think that we are trying our very best to be a good web citizen. However, I also think we don’t get much credit for it. Hopefully this blog post can change your mind a little bit. Feel free to comment.
UPDATE: Ryan Stewart just posted a list of HTML 5 features and when similar features were introduced in the Flash Player.
Flash on TVs, Set-Top Boxes and Blu-Ray Players
If you switch on your satellite or cable box today, chances are you are not very impressed with the user experience. I know I’m not. Even though these boxes are connected to the Internet, they often don’t use it to its full potential.
When I browse through the on demand library on my cable provider’s (Telenet in Belgium) set-top box, the only info I get is a short description. I’m lucky if it even shows the movie poster or a list of actors. Even more lucky if they have a trailer available. Those are just my minimum requirements. ;-) What I really want to see is recommendations from my friends on Twitter or Facebook. Reviews from IMDB or Rotten Tomatoes. Trailers or clips from YouTube. All this information is out there and no one seems to be using it on these devices. Why? Good question… Before I joined Adobe, I worked for a large Belgian media company. My last year there (is that really already 5 years ago?), I investigated the digital TV platform (MHP) the cable provider set out to use. So I do know quite a bit about this technology. Sadly, I also found that this platform and many other like it have a very limited graphical and functional feature set. Programming for these platforms is definitely not as straightforward as it should be. In this world, there are no APIs to talk to Facebook or YouTube so you basically have nothing to start from… and it shows…
Now what if TVs and set-top boxes would have a Flash player on board? That would certainly make this a whole lot easier! That is exactly what Adobe is announcing today. We’re also showing a demo on a set-top box at NAB in Las Vegas this week.
This may sound a little bit strange, but this is exactly what I’ve been dreaming about for a long long time and I hope that cable/satellite providers everywhere will soon start building their UIs and apps on set-top boxes and TVs that support it. I’d love to see them use the full potential of the Flash Platform and the information available on the Internet. Are you listening, Telenet? ;-)
Palm showing off 3rd party Pre apps in Las Vegas
Palm is showing off 3rd party applications running on the Pre. I have to say, the more I see this phone, the more I want it. The iPhone has changed the mobile game but I’m sure Palm can shake things up again with the Pre!
Developers can build applications for the Pre using nothing but web technologies like HTML and Javascript. You also get complete access to all the APIs. So all Pre developers will have access to the same functionality as Palm does. Oh and… You may have missed this announcement but Palm is also a partner in the Open Screen Project. And since all OSP partners only have one goal, that can only mean one thing……..
“Flash Player 10 will be the perfect extension to Palm webOS,” said Pam Deziel, vice president, software product management, Palm, Inc. “With this next-generation platform, people expect the same engaging experiences on their phone that they’re used to on their desktops. Together Palm and Adobe are dramatically changing the mobile web, providing the richest experience on the most web-connected platform available.”
CrunchGear.com recorded a bunch of 3rd party app demos.
Man… I really can’t wait to get my hands on one of those.
Adobe opening “Flash City” stores around the world
Today, Adobe announced a partnership with Media Markt for Europe, Dixons for the UK and Best Buy for the US to launch the Adobe Flash City stores. All three chains are opening up stores in 68 cities all over the world today. Adobe has started production of a “Flash City” branded consumer electronics line that ranges from mobile phones to set-top boxes and from refrigerators to toasters.
“We are doing this with our Open Screen partners. It made sense to not only work together on getting Flash on to these devices but also combine our marketing power to build a new world wide brand,” Adobe’s recently hired Itsa Notru (VP of Consumer Enablement) said. She continued: “This is just the beginning. While we are releasing consumer electronics today, we are also looking at creating more advanced applications of our technology. You will soon see Flash enabled X-ray machines and even Flash enabled airport security scanners.“.
The BBC has already announced the availability of the iPlayer to run on the Flash City toasters. The BBC’s Anthony Rose said: “Our marketing team identified breakfast television as an emerging market segment for on-demand viewing and asked the iPlayer team to see if we could come up with something new in this space. Developing the iPlayer Toaster Edition has been hot and demanding work and our test team is glad it’s done – frankly they’ve had it eating burnt toast, even though they did manage to catch up on the entire MasterChef series.“.
I’m still in the process of getting the complete list of stores that are opening today and will update this post when I get that. Meanwhile, don’t hesitate to go to your local Media Markt, Dixons or Best Buy and ask them about the Flash City stores and products.
I’ll be visiting the Flash City store in Antwerp later today. Hope to see you there.
Open Screen update: RTMP specification to be published soon
This is incredibly exciting news and something the community has been asking for since we published the specs for the SWF file format, FLV/F4V, AMF, and the Mobile Content Delivery Protocol. In the first half of this year, Adobe will publish the specification for RTMP (Real Time Messaging Protocol).
Kevin Lynch, Adobe’s CTO, said:
With the RTMP specification, developers and companies will be able to provide users with optimized audio, video and data streaming, no matter what kind of device the user is on or where the content is coming from. Our ongoing commitment to openness is accelerating adoption of the Flash Platform by developers and resulting in a new generation of Web applications, content and video experiences that run reliably across operating systems and devices.
The RTMP specification is expected to be posted on the Adobe Developer Connection (www.adobe.com/devnet/rtmp ) in the first half of 2009.
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