Assessing Tablets How limited tablets are without Flash/Plug-ins..

What tablets without Flash mean to advanced tooling for animation

Flash is the most popular animation tool in the world… It started life as something called FutureSplash Animator by FutureWave software. Back in the days of Windows 95 and Internet Explorer 4.. It was cutting edge because it brought Vector based animation to the Web for the first time..

It looks like this..

When I last used Flash it had grew into this awesome product.. I have done a lot of past work with flash in the early days of the web and preferred it to DOM based HTML animation which I could do as easily with a timeline back in 1998 when I was a broadband content webmaster for MediaOne Express for three markets including Detroit, Ann Arbor, Plymouth, and Cleveland. I created content with this on a daily basis and we all knew that Flash was being used because it was superior.. 

If you are curious about some of those projects that I have been involved with over the years with Flash check this out…From a no longer existing start-up  harmonycom.zip

Recently I got a look at Adobe’s Edge HTML 5 toolset and realized that they were going back to version 1.0 of flash with their tools..

None of the goodness I have experienced in the 10 versions of Flash that have improved the product and caused and entire industry to be built around it..  Is HTML 5 with the canvas really worth this all just to get away from a plug-in ? Why is this all happening ?? Two Words: Steve Jobs (God rest his soul)..  He denied Flash on the iPad and iPhone..Mostly because he was afraid of AIR apps taking over their platform as the way to do iPad apps. Still today with Flash Builder you can do apps with Flash though no plugins are support..

The reality is though Flash works fine on the iPad, here’s a sample of it running.. (Are you listening Apple ??)

If you look really close at the two pictures you will notice that HTML 5 and this tools feature set is almost on par one-to-one with the FutureSplash  Animation Tool from 1995-96..
Why bother starting from scratch just to support HTML 5.. The disadvantage I see is that graphics elements even with canvas and JavaScript aren’t really reusable.. The PC does lush animation because it can RE-USE elements.. Resources will be bloated and less manageable just because of the way CANVAS works..

Here’s a Google Android Tablet With Flash running and Built-in.. You can pick up a tablet with full Nvidia Tegra graphics with this built in for around $400 today that’s very fast and capable..

http://youtu.be/DustL9a9oKc

Flash to HTML 5 Conversion Does it work well ?
Do we know for sure  that it works well ?  Only time will tell with Adobe’s Wallaby technologies..

It’s so sad that our much improved and invested in tools are being rethought and losing about ten years of progress just because someone has something against plug-ins. There are even some browsers that have built-in Flash to their install.. Thank God it’s only Microsoft and Apple thinking this way. Google’s product has no PROBLEM running Flash and is allied with Adobe..

Here is Flash today..

It’s sad that we are suffering on Apple iOS devices and now Windows 8 devices without Flash support, because as a web based tablet platform Google Android tablets seem to be the best of both worlds with none of the compromises the lack of Flash has. Android tablets even though they have lower market share have multiple app stores including one from Amazon.. I have kind of avoided the Android platform but have made an effort to recently included it. I can also install things on the device like an Amiga Emulator that Apple and Microsoft devices when they have an app store will probably never let me install from their own “app” stores..

Not allowing plug-ins is a huge mistake and locking down non phone devices to on “app” store to install apps is a really totalitarian thing. Why not just build Flash and Silverlight (or at least make the player source public) and let browser makers include it  as build-ins with their web browsers.. I am just going to say this is a huge industry debacle.. Android got the tablet thing right with their openness and not locking folks out. I really hope that Microsoft doesn’t make side loading impossible on devices that aren’t legacy desktop apps..

You can see the advantage of the decision not to DISCLUDE Flash when you pick up an Android Tablet.. This one is going for around $400 right now..

While I love Windows, I bought this to be familiar with design on Android (because they own about 20 percent of the tablet market right now), and if you want to develop for Flash or Flash Builder/Flex apps on a tablet Android is the way to go. This also has a fast NVIDIA CPU in it as well.

Adobe Edge Versus Expression Blend for HTML 5
Honestly I have to say both are lacking functionality and some of the frame-by-frame animation tweening and image swap capabilities seem to be missing from Adobe Edge versus Flash. These are things that Expression Blend even with XAML never really duplicated. So things Disney type frame by frame animators would appreciate don’t seem to be present in either product..

Expression Blend for HTML 5

Adobe Edge for HTML 5

What can I say, the both seem to have very basic animation tools and designed for simple website based design needs. These aren’t products that are not design for professional animation tools and more about packaging animation for web site tasks (such as banners).. These aren’t really amazing tools like we used to have. They probably don’t even live up to what we could do with animation in the 1980s with Deluxe Paint.. With tweening etc. or a tool like this..



Both products need to stop being just UI design assembly tools and now need to become good animation tools as well..