The iPhone, Flash, and Silverlight – Some Thoughts

Posted by Jay Harley on March 6, 2008 * Comments(0)

Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ recent comments regarding the possibility of Flash on the iPhone (summation: Flash Lite is not ready, and the Flash Player is too power-intensive), seems to have really ruffled some feathers over at Adobe. Although the two companies seem to be drifting farther and farther apart, I have to think that Adobe needs to really evaluate his statements.

In my mind, Steve has some valid points. Simply bringing the current Flash plug-in into Safari might really open a “can of worms” from a user-experience standpoint, and could actually be worse for the Flash camp. Below are some thoughts that come to mind.

Existing Flash Content Doesn’t Necessarily Translate to the iPhone

Whenever I read an on-line article (or press release) about Flash (or Flash Lite) and the iPhone, it is inevitably followed by comments from users (non-Flash evangelists) lamenting the current state of much of the Flash content on the web (annoying banners, processor-hogging transitions and overlays, distracting animations, etc). On a desktop screen with lots of available real estate, and within the scope of an informative web page, these types of elements are certainly tolerable – but on the smaller screens of personal media devices, they just seem invasive. Adobe is jonesing to get their player onto every phone possible, and marketing people see the mobile web as the next frontier for personalized advertising. However, it might be a disservice to users (remember them?) for Apple to give salivating web merchants such an immediate, direct window onto our phones without seeing some real examples of the Flash Player adding value to the user experience, and not distracting from it. I have to say I’m with Jobs on this one. I know the Adobe exchange has examples of Flash Lite that are impressive, but the iPhone is a different animal than a Nokia 60 series phone, and Jobs is smart to wait until content development evolves somewhat.

Flash Developers (and Adobe) Think the iPhone Needs Them, No One Else Does

Why is Adobe in such a hurry to get Flash Lite onto so many devices (about 450 million now, 1 billion in the future, they say)? We would think the main reason would be market share, of course. But perhaps the bigger reason for the insistence on ‘Flash Now!’ is simply the reality that looms: ‘Silverlight Later!’ Microsoft is quietly dumping a substantial amount of R&D time and money into their rich internet app platform, and we are already hearing (and seeing) reports that Silverlight is a success with developers and media providers, mainly because, as Bill Gates says, its made for todays’ Internet’. All this while Adobe is busy arguing that the iPhone needs Flash because of You Tube. You Tube? Really? The iPhone needs Flash for a port of a video playing and social networking platform? This rings pretty hollow to my ears. Videos can be played in a multitude of formats and You Tube can simply push its content in other formats, eventually if not right away, and XHTML is quite fine (and fast) in your average social-networking app. There is nothing truly essential about Flash’s use on You Tube. As my friend Jason Sangster would say, it’s time for a dose of ‘Let’s be honest with ourselves here’.

From a business standpoint, Adobe (and Flash developers) have to really showcase applications that people want to use. Why not take a page out of Microsoft’s Silverlight book, spend more time designing, researching, and developing a Flash player for the iPhone that is made from the ground up, for the modern-day Internet. If Flash is really ready to be the superstar platform that we all know it can be, why not give Jobs what he wants, and give developers something to really compete with Silverlight?

Adobe May Be Alienating Designers while Welcoming Java Developers into the Fold

I really enjoy working in Flash CS3, as well as ActionScript 3.0 As a visual person, and someone who has trained visual designers to use Flash, I enjoy working within an authoring environment with instant gratification, where I can work with symbols, as well as a stage and tools for manipulation. The analogies work, and I am used to them. Although I do most of my production with ActionScript and OOP, I enjoy using Flash much more so than Flex (which I have also worked in, and can see the immense possibilities there). Whatever the case, I am glad that AS3 has become so powerful, and that Adobe is giving us so many new tools for creating truly interactive media.

However, when I talk to designers (web or graphic), who are beginning to move into Flash development, they are usually intimidated (with good reason) by the scripting side of Flash, now more than ever. So much of the new marketing material (and training) for Flash development is geared towards Java developers and technical minds, used to thinking in abstract terms. I wonder if Adobe isn’t alienating (what used to be) a big part of its core base of users – web and graphic designers, illustrators and self-starters, moving into interactive media from other fields (such as video, print, or even music)?

I know that Adobe is certainly courting Java developers for good reason – it needs Flash to become the Rich Media platform that it can be – and it needs this sooner than later, with Silverlight looming. But in the attempt to move Flash away from its roots in simple vector graphics and banner ads to Internet applications, let’s not throw out the baby with the bathwater. People still need to be able to use Flash in order to create things, and by people, I mean not just programmers using Flex “black and gray” components.

What does this have to do with the iPhone? Perhaps some of those same creatives who have given so much to multimedia over the last ten years will invent that killer iPhone app that we’re all waiting for. Hopefully the tools will still be available for them to do so. Adobe can do a lot to make it happen, but complaining about Apple is not going to get it done.

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Jay Harley is the CEO and web architect of Heaven Interactive. As a technologist, Jay specializes in creating business productivity software and offering clients high-level media consulting services. Before founding Heaven Interactive, Jay led a double life as a web consultant and MFA New Media instructor at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. At AAU, he enthusiastically developed several courses in web application design and scripting, and enjoyed daily interaction with design students, offering guidance, support, and camaraderie as a media professional. Jay is now squarely focused on providing Web 3.0 solutions to businesses in the form of collaboration and presentation software, by utilizing the power of the "Web as a Platform."



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