Rob Ford: “Will iDevices be left in a wilderness and possibly be the only devices not to support Flash?”
Rob Ford (the man behind the one of the industry’s most coveted web awards site TheFWA.com) started an interesting discussion on LinkedIn this morning. With all the exciting announcements coming out of CES (blog post with my favorites coming later today) he asks if the iPhone and iPad will be left in a wilderness and possibly be the only devices not to support Flash?
Rob Ford: “Tablets look set to hog the headlines at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Industry watchers expect 100 or more of the portable gadgets to be shown off at the four-day technology extravaganza.”
It seems that one key feature people look for with a new tablet is the ability to run Flash, I know I certainly do.
It also seems that every tablet coming to the market does.
So, will the iPhone and iPad be left in a wilderness and possibly be the only devices not to support Flash?
Flash on mobile is still incredibly new and we are still waiting to see exciting new mobile optimised content. We are pretty much back at Flash 2/3 in terms of the web. To illustrate that point, look at these old Flash sites on your Flash enabled smartphone or tablet, they all work perfectly:
Gabocorp http://www.thefwa.com/flash10/1996_7.html 1997
EYE4U http://www.eye4u.com/home/ 1998
NRG.be http://www.nrg.be/archived/flash.php 1998
Matinee http://www.matinee.co.uk/site2/fr_nmd.htm 1998
Who’s We Studios http://www.whoswestudios.com/flashsite.html 2002
tokyoplastic http://www.tokyoplastic.com/tokyoplastic1.swf 2003
Agencies are definitely working with Flash and AIR for mobile as we speak.
The iPhone is my most used device but I miss the lack of Flash. A friend of mine who is outside of this industry recently told me the only time he fires up his laptop is when he tries to access a site on his iPhone that requires Flash.
I am still looking at tablets but will only buy one that does support Flash.
I also feel the app store is a “boys club” network, especially after publishing an iPhone app for FWA Photo. It was a long and painful process and aftersales was useless. I prefer the freedom the web gave us and hate to see it taken away.
I believe that 2011 will see many of us moving away from the need for Flash on Apple’s devices. All that energy wasted on trying to change Apple’s stance is better focused on getting creative on devices that work.
I don’t want to hijack Rob’s discussion so I closed the comments on this post. You can share your thoughts on Rob’s LinkedIn discussion thread.
Great news for developers
It’s always nice to wake up to great news!
Apple’s announcement today that it has lifted restrictions on its third-party developer guidelines has direct implications for Adobe’s Packager for iPhone, a feature in the Flash Professional CS5 authoring tool. This feature was created to enable Flash developers to quickly and easily deliver applications for iOS devices. The feature is available for developers to use today in Flash Professional CS5, and we will now resume development work on this feature for future releases.
This is great news for developers and we’re hearing from our developer community that Packager apps are already being approved for the App Store. We do want to point out that Apple’s restriction on Flash content running in the browser on iOS devices remains in place.
Adobe will continue to work to bring full web browsing with Flash Player 10.1 as well as standalone applications on AIR to a broad range of devices, working with key industry partners including Google, HTC, Microsoft, Motorola, Nokia, Palm/HP, RIM, Samsung and others.
From http://blogs.adobe.com/conversations/2010/09/great-news-for-developers.html
Android week: On switching to Android
When I first saw the iPhone I immediately fell in love with it. After walking around with an iPod, a PDA and a mobile phone I could finally have all of these things in one device. I was worried that when I switched to Android I would need to go back to using 2 devices instead of one. I was worried that the Nexus One wouldn’t play nice with iTunes and that I’d have to go back to using a separate device for listening to my music. But I was wrong…
doubleTwist as an iTunes alternative
doubleTwist is to my Nexus One what iTunes is to an iPhone. I just plug in the USB cable, open up doubleTwist and start syncing. doubleTwist taps in to your iTunes library and can sync all your music (if it’s not protected with the iTunes DRM) to your Android device (and not just Android devices). doubleTwist will also sync your photos (the Nexus One’s camera is amazing) with your iPhoto library and your movies if you want to. As an added bonus you can also purchase new music from the Amazon MP3 store right within the application. The most recent release of doubleTwist also includes the Android Market. You simply browse the Android Market or search for your favorite apps. You can read the reviews, take a look at the screenshots and if you want to install the app you just point your camera at it and take a photo of the QR barcode.
Android Market
This is also where you potentially get stuck. The Android Market is only available in a couple of countries and even then chances are that the app you want to buy is not available in your country. In Google’s defense: This was the same in the early days of the App Store and while the App Store is currently available in more countries than the Android Market some countries still don’t have access to it. Heck… You still can’t buy movies or TV shows on iTunes in Belgium. That said, this is seriously annoying. There is no technical reason why this wouldn’t work but I guess it has to do with different laws in different countries etc… There are ways to enable the Android Market on your device but I’m not sure on the legality of doing that. It’s a little bit insane that you have to “break the law” (and potentially void your warranty) in order to be able to buy an app in the Android Market. Luckily there are a ton of free apps in the Android Market and some developers even allow you to purchase a license on their site and then upgrade the free version. It’s definitely not ideal and I hope this changes soon…
Apps.. Apps… and more apps…
With 65000 59430 (UPDATE: I thought I read that number somewhere but AndroLib is currently reporting 59430 apps. H/T Thomas) apps currently in the Android Market it’s definitely not as big as the App Store. That said… I think that in both stores the quality of the apps varies a lot. Most of the apps I regularly used on my iPhone are also available on Android. Apps like TripIt, Twitter, Dropbox, Facebook, Evernote and WordPress are also available on Android. Like I already mentioned yesterday, I feel that some of these apps look/feel better on Android. The official Twitter for Android app is just beautiful and very easy to use. The WordPress app allows you to get notified when new comments arrive. There always seems to be that little extra in the Android versions of these apps. I also like that these apps can also “plug in” to the operating system. When I’m in my photo gallery on my Nexus One and press the “share” button I can immediately send that photo to Twitter, Evernote or WordPress in exactly the same way as I would send it using email. When I’m in my Twitter app and click on contact I immediately see this user’s Twitter info but if that user is also in my contacts (as shown in the image on the right), I can directly call him or send a text message right from within the Twitter app. This type of cross-application operating system integration just makes Android feel very slick and fun/easy to use. And as Android already has multi-tasking, switching from one app to the other is just a breeze.
Flash Player 10.1
: The cherry on top
I’m sure that by now you know that Flash Player 10.1 is coming to mobile devices. Android is one of the first mobile OSes that will get Flash Player 10.1. I’ve used the iPhone for a good 2.5 years and, in all honesty, I had become used to seeing the blue legos. On numerous occasions I thought “Aah yes… That won’t work on my phone. I’ll watch that later.” and ended up not using the mobile browser and forgetting about that link to that video. Now that I have FP10.1 on my mobile device, I catch myself using the mobile browser a lot more. As a news junkie I want to stay up to date with the latest news wherever I am. The first sites I visit in the morning are the local news sites, the BBC News site and then I open up Google Reader. While writing this I realized that I’ve probably used my mobile browser with FP10.1 a lot more than I realize. When I open up a news site and want to watch a news clip, I can just do that now. I’ve also already used it to watch live newscasts streamed with Flash and also already played games when I was stuck in traffic or waiting in the airport. It’s very refreshing to have ALL the content you are used to having on your desktop right there in the palm of your hand!
Conclusion
My switch to Android hasn’t been as scary or hard as I thought it would be. Even though I’ve been using prerelease versions of the Android OS with the usual alpha/beta quirks, I’ve been very happy with it. I’m still using the same apps and I’ve been able to sync my iTunes/iPhoto library in almost exactly the same way as I was used to. Having Flash Player 10.1 and AIR 2 on it are just the cherries on top of an already delicious “frozen yoghurt”.
PS: Don’t forget to sign up to be notified when the public beta for Flash Player 10.1 for Android is available and sign up to be notified when the beta release of AIR for Android is available.
PS2: Did I already mention that I am giving away a Google Nexus One on my blog this week? ;-)
Declaring this week “Android week”
February 9th 2010: The last day I used my iPhone. Or: The day I discovered Android. Or: The day I switched to the Google Nexus One. Well… You get the idea.
I was an iPhone user from the moment it came out. Before I continue this post, I want to repeat what I’ve been saying all along: Apple has done a fantastic job with the iPhone. I was very happy with my iPhone and never thought I would last more than a few days without it. Especially since I was so accustomed to having all my apps and my music there. But you know what…? Most of the apps I often used are also available on Android. And in all honesty… some of those apps look better on Android than they do on the iPhone.
Take Tripit for instance. If you are a frequent traveller, Tripit is your best friend. It was the first application I installed and when I first launched it, I immediately noticed how sexy the UI was. Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that the iPhone UI isn’t sexy. Trouble is that every app that uses the iPhone design guidelines looks just like the next one. It’s refreshing to see application designers/developer being creative with their UIs again. (And yes, I do know that there are some very creative UIs on iPhone apps as well). In this particular case, the app even becomes easier to use. The icons, dates and times are a lot clearer compared to the iPhone version.
Even though I (and some of my colleagues) thought I wouldn’t last longer than a few days without my iPhone I am now entering my 14th week without it. But back to the title of this post… With Google I/O just a few days away and some really exciting announcements coming up, I officially declare this week “Android week”. I am going to blog about Android at least once a day and you can even win a Google Nexus One on my blog this week!
So… Happy Android week everybody!
Also read “Android week: On switching to Android“.
On sub-standard apps
Steve Jobs (via TechCrunch): Intermediate layers between the platform and the developer ultimately produces sub-standard apps and hinders the progress of the platform.
That’s the first thing I read this morning… I agree with Greg Slepak (CEO of TaoEffect) who wrote:
Crappy developers will make crappy apps regardless of how many layers there are.
That doesn’t mean that all developers using a specific layer will build crappy apps.
Chroma Circuit by Bowlerhat Games is a very good example. Chroma Circuit started out as a Flash based web game. It was one of the first apps that got packaged as an iPhone app using the Packager for iPhone. Apple didn’t seem to mind playing Chroma Circuit on their iDevices as they featured it as a staff pick on iTunes a while ago.
Fickleblox by BlueSkyNorth is another good example. This application started out as a Flash Lite game and is thereby available on a broad range of devices. It was also packaged using the Packager for iPhone and thus available in the app store.
Both applications (and there are dozens like this in the app store today) are fun to play, easy to use and perform well on the iDevice. You can hardly call that sub-standard! You can also hardly say that they hinder the progress of the platform. In fact… I think it is Apple who is now effectively hindering the progress of the iDevice platform. By allowing “intermediate layers” like Flash but also Unity, Titanium, MonoTouch, Corona, … the platform has become more open and appealing to non Obj-C/C/C++ developers. More developers (regardless of which technology they use) on the platform = more applications in the appstore. I wonder how many apps in the appstore today were built using one of these intermediate layers…
I’m with Adobe and all other intermediate layer providers, for that matter!
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