back to article Adobe enlists tablet and cake makers to rally Flash

Adobe Systems is fighting back against Steve Jobs' claims that its beloved Flash is sliding into inevitable irrelevance against HTML5 on the web. Adobe's chief technology officer Kevin Lynch previewed a bevy of Flash-friendly tablets from Samsung, Malata, and Research in Motion, and innovations in and around Flash targeting …

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  1. Matthew Barker
    Paris Hilton

    God save us all

    [El Reg: Can't you add an Adobe logo with horns? This because all of Adobe's execs are non recognizable]

    Maybe the driving force behind SCO's walking death can come work for Adobe's flash division.

    [I just love those ads.]

    No matter what Adobe say, 99% of the flash content running on my household computers on any given day is adverts. Not games. Not magazines. Not compelling, life-changing, or indispensable web content.

    At least Jobs recognizes this. I wish someone would explain this to Martha.

    Perhaps Apple can stamp their devices with an Adobe logo with a circle and line to indicate they're flash free?

    1. Paul M 1

      So...

      are you seriously suggesting that Jobs has banned Flash from iDevices to save us all from adverts?!?

      1. Matthew Barker

        Nope

        Not suggesting it at all. I was suggesting that Jobs seemed to be aware that Flash is not a critical web technology.

    2. Tom Chiverton 1

      Ummm

      Umm, if you don' like ads, Flash based or not, install AdBlock. Everyone I know does. Problem solved.

      1. Matthew Barker

        Not looking for a solution

        I know how to block flash. I'm not looking for a solution. I'm addressing the arguments that flash is critical and Jobs is the devil just because he doesn't accept that people *must* be able to run flash.

        I shudder to think at what would happen to my battery life on any of my portable devices were I to allow Flash on them myself.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Forget the tablets - make it work on the desktop!

    I only keep Flash for the odd web page that is entirely Flash content, i.e. a browser without Flash sees nothing at all, and I block Flash content by default because 95% of it is junk. And when I do use it... what a pain in the neck! The settings panel looks like something from the last century and the global settings still refer to a site belonging to 'macromedia'. I can't even be sure whether it will work or not, e.g. no video will play from the BBC News site despite using all the advice from their tech support. So I end up funding a news site I can't watch. And if I don't like Adobe's offering, where can I turn to?

    Flash once had potential, but it has become a run-down, unreliable, pointless piece of technology. Leaving it in that state on the desktop and running around shouting about how great it is on tablets just adds insult to injury. And the state of mobile Flash? Some excellent, some mediocre, mostly awful. Give it up Adobe - go with open web standards.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      @Ralph5

      >no video will play from the BBC News site despite using all the advice from their tech support.

      If you need tech support to use the BBC website, its probably time to consider a radical career change - assuming you work in IT.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Which only proves the point

        If off-the-shelf desktop machines with a fresh installation of Flash don't play the video, and nobody has any idea why, then it only demonstrates that Flash isn't suitable for the Web (and backs up Apple's rejection of Flash too). Why should I - or anyone else - spend any time delving into technology that should just work? I have better (and more profitable) things to do with my time.

  3. Tom 38
    WTF?

    Bit confused

    Adobe are trying to show how necessary Flash is, by releasing a design/dev suite that allows you to compile to an iOS/Webkit/HTML 5 backend to run on the iPad.

    If I can do it all in HTML 5, why do I need Adobe?

    1. Tom Chiverton 1
      Stop

      You can draw

      You can draw pixel by pixel on the HTML5 Canvas tag, so why do you need Photoshop ?

  4. optimusfisher

    @Tom 38

    Actually, the iOS packager is just one piece of the equation here. Adobe is trying to set themselves up as a solid option for mobile developers that want to target multiple platforms. Jobs would of course love for all developers to code in objective C only and target only his platform which is why he is so stubborn about doing anything that plays well into letting developers target multiple platforms. On every platform other than Apple apps built in Adobe Flash will be able to use the Air runtime. Android already has air, Windows Phone 7 will have it early next year, and blackberry's playbook is basically being planned around it. The only reason that Flash is packaging to native on iOS devices is because Jobs won't allow air on his devices. Adobe could be like Jobs and just try to say if you don't want to play with our Air we don't want to play with you either, but I think they are trying to do well by their developers and give them an avenue to still target iOS. Of course Jobs also initially blocked even the packager saying you could only code in objective C and nothing else. He had to backpeddle on that because the EU was going to smack him silly for anti-trust issues.

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