Adobe demos Flash-to-HTML5 conversion tool

“Pre-Adobe, I made my living building rich, Flash-intensive sites for Gucci, Coca-Cola, Nike, and other big brands,” John Nack blogs for Adobe. “Doing that job today, I’d be in a jam: How could I create rich experiences that run on desktops (where Flash is the obvious, consistent (cross-browser/-platform) choice) and on iOS devices where Flash isn’t allowed? I’d have to create two versions of a everything–one Flash, and one HTML5. Good luck getting clients to double their budgets, though, and yet they don’t want richness cut in half.”

“So, the opportunity: Cut the cost of targeting multiple runtimes & we’ll deliver real wins: more richness for clients, and a competitive advantage for customers,” Nack writes. “Check out what engineer Rik Cabanier showed (just a tech demo, no promises, etc.) during MAX sneak peeks Tuesday night:”

“Are you surprised? Don’t be. As I’ve written many times, Adobe lives or dies by its ability to help customers solve real problems,” Nack writes. “That means putting pragmatism ahead of ideology. Flash is great for a lot of things, and this week’s demos showed it’s only improving. It’s not the only game in town, however, and Adobe makes its money selling tools, not giving away players.”

Full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: Capitulation.

To paraphrase Jesus Quintana (link audio NSFW):

“Nobody fscks with the Jobs.”

62 Comments

  1. I don’t think this is a capitulation on behalf of Adobe. What they did is more likely going to hurt Flash than help it, but for them, it doesn’t matter, as long as they keep selling tools.

    By deploying HTML5 content that can fall back on Flash (for over 30% of users whose browsers don’t properly support HTML5), Adobe is legitimising Flash-less devices. As long as it is reasonably easy to re-code/re-compile Flash projects into HTML5, most major developers will do it, in order to gain iOS crowd. By delivering HTML5 content, they’ll allow desktop folks (including all future Macs that now ship without pre-installed Flash) to not bother installing Flash anymore.

    In this battle, Jobs was stubborn, while Adobe was not. They surely earned a few points for this move.

  2. I don’t think this is a capitulation on behalf of Adobe. What they did is more likely going to hurt Flash than help it, but for them, it doesn’t matter, as long as they keep selling tools.

    By deploying HTML5 content that can fall back on Flash (for over 30% of users whose browsers don’t properly support HTML5), Adobe is legitimising Flash-less devices. As long as it is reasonably easy to re-code/re-compile Flash projects into HTML5, most major developers will do it, in order to gain iOS crowd. By delivering HTML5 content, they’ll allow desktop folks (including all future Macs that now ship without pre-installed Flash) to not bother installing Flash anymore.

    In this battle, Jobs was stubborn, while Adobe was not. They surely earned a few points for this move.

  3. Interesting concept.

    But, I think the better approach is to develop in HTML5, then have a tool automatically generate flash (for backwards compatibility).

    That way the developer is writing and maintaining modern code, instead of nearly-obsolete flash code.

  4. Interesting concept.

    But, I think the better approach is to develop in HTML5, then have a tool automatically generate flash (for backwards compatibility).

    That way the developer is writing and maintaining modern code, instead of nearly-obsolete flash code.

  5. Why are the class names beginning with “adbe_” instead of “adobe_”, “adb_”, “a_”, snidley_whiplash_and_his_snickering_sidekick_dog_make_me_lauch_”, “this_class_was_generated_by_adobe_software_inc_and_our_annoying_ceo_is_jealous_of_steve_jobs_but_who_isn’t” or so on???

    P.S. This post was made whilst the Shut Up and AdBlock Safari Extensions is preventing me from reading the inane comments and waiting forever for annoying ads to load… I hope that SteveJack isn’t getting any moola either… I also assume this post will be deleted within 30 seconds…

    30, 29, 28…

  6. Why are the class names beginning with “adbe_” instead of “adobe_”, “adb_”, “a_”, snidley_whiplash_and_his_snickering_sidekick_dog_make_me_lauch_”, “this_class_was_generated_by_adobe_software_inc_and_our_annoying_ceo_is_jealous_of_steve_jobs_but_who_isn’t” or so on???

    P.S. This post was made whilst the Shut Up and AdBlock Safari Extensions is preventing me from reading the inane comments and waiting forever for annoying ads to load… I hope that SteveJack isn’t getting any moola either… I also assume this post will be deleted within 30 seconds…

    30, 29, 28…

  7. Flash as a web format may become a shadow of it’s former self, but point is they now have an army or flash developers that can now build HTML 5 sites using their flash knowledge. This is great news!

    Having the site in flash might be more flexible and also allows you to use parts in the adobe air platform.

  8. Flash as a web format may become a shadow of it’s former self, but point is they now have an army or flash developers that can now build HTML 5 sites using their flash knowledge. This is great news!

    Having the site in flash might be more flexible and also allows you to use parts in the adobe air platform.

Reader Feedback

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.