Everyone who actually programs in Flash knows that there is now full multi-touch and gesture support available. Unfortunately, some people still like to make claims to the contrary in an effort to make Flash appear behind the times. It is fortunately very easy to prove them wrong. Below is a great example built by StruckAxiom that showcases the new APIs that we have made available in Flash Player 10.1.
You can also read this great blog post that talks about some of the techniques used to create this touch experience.
Lee
Beautiful and poetic video. Amazing functionality.
Ironically, I cannot view the example because I got your tweet through my iTouch. Sigh.
You tell ‘em Lee!
They jumped to assuming Flash wouldn’t be able to make the move to new technologies and mobile devices, but BOY were they wrong, dead wrong!
That PepsiCo thing was absolutely beautiful!
And truly shows off the power of Flash… I really want one of those in my room…
Thanks for posting this, Lee, hopefully Apple will re-think what they’ve been saying.
I’ll always stay true to Adobe and Flash.
Thanks again.
Amazing software. I am looking forward to seeing it available on android devices since apple thinks they are too good for it.
Nice video! I think it’s nothing worse than iPad/iPhone
Great video. Shows how some BIG ppl are ignorant and arrogant by making stupid comments on media without knowing about the technology. I love the above demo. Staying with Adobe always for sure.Thanks Lee.
Don’t the old Flash sites have to be re-written to take advantage of the new multi-touch features? I think that was the point a certain CEO made – if you have to re-write your content, why not re-write it on an open standard?
Great video. Looking forward to playing with stuff this on one of the upcoming Android tablets.
@ronin is there an open standard that supports multi-touch?
Too bad! your employers laziness and the flash’s closed system made this fun stuff short lived. All of this will be doable with a year in HTML5!
@Mohammad Abed wanna bet?
html5 won’t replace Flash, it will only replace unnecessary use of Flash for simple things. This will make us developers focus on more advance abilities of Flash and create much better apps with it.
@Abed: a year to wait? i want to play it right now since my client wants it
It is undeniable that we are getting used to the advantages of touch enabled mobile devices, but the market for touch enabled desktops systems isn’t exactly booming. The cry isn’t all too loud for touch inspired designs for desktop usage. Job’s company isn’t even pushing a touch enabled desktop yet.
We run Dell Studio One 19s here at the office. It’s rare that we touch those screens. The truth is that at our desks most users are still addicted to their mouse and keyboard.
Besides, most sites and applications in general are not touch friendly, html or otherwise.
Hi Lee very cool. Must say though (and I am 100% against what apple has done) try to learn from some of the things Apple are doing right. We are not creating content and apps for ourselves we are creating them for users. The whole Neilsen scenario a few years back made flash take a giant leap forward. We need to learn and move on. Having said that here are a few points: We need ui guidelines for applications so that we can also achieve the same elegant consistency in our flash app that apple does. This is what users want. We need package the flash platform in a way that makes developers warm and fuzzy. Looking through the apple docs to see what all the fuss is about, I noticed the language is the same whether apple speak to devs or speaks to end users. It’s all warm and fuzzy and I seem to get the same feeling when I first saw that apple hardware (fill in the blanks) and marveled when I am looking through the dev docs. I hate objective c but the experience of learning this new language must seem appealing just by the way they are packaging it. Lastly we as flash devs need to start pooling resources to come up with a consistent plan of attack (10 frameworks, and tween engines are not helping us in this respect though I appreciate the effort that has gone into them). If I want to start coding for ipad I get the impression that it’s all there it’s all consistent, mvc built in, data just works etc. etc. So what I might be saying is we need a tighter offering and a more consistent way to develop and design. We need more constraint. I don’t know if I am at all right about this but I am trying to find a better way forward as a flash dev. I would love to know everyones thoughts.
uh, why wait 1 year?
I think Steve Jobs had a fair point, to some extent, when he griped about multitouch and Flash. Even with 10.1 (which by the way isn’t shipping yet), programmers have to deal with the large number of devices out there that don’t support touch or multitouch. Jobs complained about the lowest common denominator–that Flash programmers can’t assume multitouch support if they’re employing a cross-platform programming strategy, so they won’t support multitouch in their applications. That said, it’s clear that multitouch is catching on and that programmers will employ it more in Flash, so I thought Jobs’ position was exaggerated.
Awesome video!
Thanks Lee
@10 Just stupid.
Lee, you’re being disingenuous here.
Just because Adobe introduced new APIs doesn’t mean that old Flash content will now suddenly work with touch. It won’t. It will have to be recoded to take advantage of those APIs.
All of that Flash out there currently designed for desktops and mice? Still going to be designed for desktops and mice, no matter what videos you post.
The question is, should designers and content providers revise their current Flash websites/web apps/etc to be touch compatible , or should they move to something different that will give them a wider audience if they’re going to have to do extra work anyway?
@Lee
It seems that also a former Flash Team member is saying that flash issn’t designed for the touch screens: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/04/adobe-flash-jobs/
“Flash was designed for the desktop world, for web and large screens, not the user experiences you want to create in these new devices with touch, accelerometers and GPS,†Luh said. “It wasn’t designed with that in mind at all.â€
You won’t disagree with the fact that when Flash was created, multitouch devices didn’t exist. So Flash can’t be designed and will never be designed for multitouch, it can only be adapted to multitouch, which is what you are showing us here.
Btw, I advice you a lot to read that interview. This former Flash team member seems to have very good ideas, it’s sad you didn’t listen to him while he was still a Flahs team member.
The implementation of Flash 10.1 on Android devices (and other touch devices) is just a patched version of Flash 10.1. It’s Flash 10.1 with some optimizations and with a layer for adding multitouch capabilities.
For me, this is the wrong direction. You should never had the idea to port Flash 10.1 to mobile multitouch platform. It wasn’t designed for them, and adding a multitouch layer won’t change this fact. You should have created a whole new product, that you could have based on Flash platform, but really designed for mobile multitouch devices.
Take Adobe AIR for example, it’s part of Flash platform, but it’s not Flahs 10.1 with a desktop layer. It’s a different project designed from the beginning for Desktop apps.
You should have taken the same path for multitouch mobile devices.
With just adding multitouch layer and optimization to Flash 10.1, you are going in the wrong direction. You should have created an independant project, even without full Flash compatibility. Full flash compatibility is not necessary on mobile multitouch devices, because they don’t have big screen, mouse and keyboard, so most of existing Flash content (other than videos) are not usable on such devices and need to be rewritten for them.
That’s why using Flash 10.1 and adding just optimizations and a multitouch layer to it is not the right way to go.
But I guess it’s too late, you won’t even pay attention to my comments. But I post it anyway, just in case it might be taken in account.
@lee
To complete what I said.
I’ve just realized that you are also porting Adobe AIR to mobile devices??? Are you mad? Adobe AIR was designed to create offline desktop app version of online web apps, not mobile apps!
You are going the same wrong way as Microsoft did with adding multitouch on Windows 7!
You are trying to make a product that can do it all. This never worked, and will never work. Look at history, Tablet PC for example. They were great idea, but where shipped with an OS that only had a touchscreen layer, and it was a tremendous failure.
Now tablet manufacturers are looking at real touchscreen designed OSes like Android or WebOS. HP just bought Palm and cancelled their Windows 7 + multitouch layer Slate for that very reason.
Each form factor needs technology totally thought and designed for them from the ground up, not just technology adapted to them, but technology CREATED FOR them!
Wanting a single technology to work on all form factors is a dream, never worked in the past and will never work. You’ll see it by yourself if you continue on the way you are today.
At least, I would have warned you.
Dear @Mohammad Abed
I remember lots of wannabe claim that Silverlight will replace Flash in a year when Ms announced it.
But it didn’t happen.
@Brendan
I hear what you are saying…
You know, Apple is all about centralised place, unified design, uniformed approaches etc… and most of it (if not all) can be accessed, one way or the other, via apple.com…
IMHO – Adobe needs ONE OFFICIAL central “meeting / resource point” on the web where all developers, designers, evangelists etc.. can meet up and share / learn the goodness – and this only for a starters!
Lee’s TheFlashBlog (together with gotoandlearn) – is decent example of this idea – Adobe should simply take it and build upon it making it OFFICIAL…
Another example, of an older version of Flash, FlashLite, doing just fine with touch…
…Chumby!
Sure it pre-multitouch, but it’s focused around Flash and touch and has been working great! Not to mention it doesn’t crash…
This is baaaaaad ass. Great stuff!
@ the dude that says this will be possible in HTML5 in 1 year… This will NEVER be possible in HTML5, 6, 8, 20. You are obviously ignant in the ways of the web. HTML5 is just a markup language. Maybe with a little JS & CSS3 magic it might work, eventually. As pointed by others the Flash community enjoys what you promise in [insert some BS timeline pulled from god knows where here], today! And we sell it to our clients now. And our audience is 90% to 95% of the web.
@Brendan: Flash is freedom. There are already plenty of write ups on how to optimize code. Good UI design can be applied to any platform and depends mostly on the delivery medium. You can choose to use existing APIs or write your own! It’s awesome. People come up with crazy things because of this freedom. Choice is key. Competition exists only if you have the freedom to choose. This is at the core of the divide between Apple and Adobe.
You can develop flash apps and deploy them online without giving Adobe a dime. There are tools to develop on and deploy on all 3 major OS.
There’s shit design and shit apps on the AppStore. There are plenty of crap outside of Flash online. Suck is in no way exclusive to Flash. And it’s about to hit hard now that the canvas is here… Let’s see these crash reports in a year
Apple forces you to develop on Mac, using xCode. They are the sole gate keepers of the delivery of your app and can kill it at will. In the process they get a 30% cut. As a developer, I want no part in this corporate fascism.
Here’s a quote from wikipedia: “strong leadership, singular collective identity, and the will and ability to commit violence and wage war in order to keep the nation strong”. Tell me that this doesn’t describe what Apple and their fanboys are doing to the Flash community? That’s fascism. So, like Lee, I think they can go screw themselves and their mobile platform. My next phone will run Android, or I’ll dual boot my iPhone!
Nice application.
I find it interesting to suggest that Flash is old because it was made for the desktop and a mouse. What about every website that you can visit on a multi touch device, have they been rewritten to support touch?
I can’t find anything to suggest that HTML 5 supports touch. So if most of the websites you visit on a multi touch device don’t support touch why is Flash being held to a higher standard?
I truly don’t get it. Must be an inside tech thing. What is so superior about touch? What’s next, scrolling invoked and controlled by your pupils or head movement?
there is now full multi-touch and gesture support available
Just not in the browser on Macs? How is that full?
I couldn’t see a lot of the current sites out there working like this. That demo was built from the ground up to be used in a multi-touch environment (much like a new Flash project from the iPhone packager), but the current state of the web does not support this.
Most games could work, but some Flash sites are too complex for mobile use.
There are too many sites with unique states that just frankly were built for using with a keyboard and mouse.
As @ronin said, these sites would still need a rebuild, be it with simplified Flash or standard HTML.
You don’t have to be snarky with the “multi-touch html5 standard” comment. Last time I checked, html5, javascript and css3 properties run very well on Mobile Safari.
… as follow up…
I am not saying that Flash doesn’t belong in the mobile space. I think it has promise.
I agree with Apple in it’s logic, but I believe the best course of action isn’t “nyaa nyaa I told you so” but actually releasing a good product. Prove them wrong.
Then maybe Flash developers would take it upon themselves to rewire their current sites for smaller screens and multi-touch input.
I think the “comments” that have been made were probable referring to all of the existing flash sites out there, rather than meaning that flash couldn’t be used for multitouch.
Its going to make for a lot of confused, not techie users, when flash loads on their mobile but they can’t do something core, like navigating, because it RELIED on a mouse over.
Of course, this is the way people have made things, not the way flash was designed, but it is what it is.
Looking forward to seeing how the overall experience of flash on android is, rather than just tech demos of specific executions.
Very nice demo. Gonna be bold here and say that I do agree with jobs on the idea that the sooner flash content is gone from the internet the better. I know he has a point on the html/css/javascript one.
But that doesn’t make it over for flash. You’ve got an amazing infrastructure with AIR, and as for games, well. . .
Seeing this tech only shows that Apple have made a mistake banning 3rd party cross compilers on the app store. There argument makes sense but Adobe doesn’t tend to be behind the times with this.
My two cents on the matter. Hopefully flash on mac can get better now apple have released access to their low level hardware api’s. I can hope.
I am working with a small arts college/gallery and we see this as having great potential for making it possible for us to include touch screen information panels in upcoming exhibitions. Affordable for a small institution, both on the hardware side and for software with in-house development using Flash.
I agree. This video demonstrates multi-touch, but doesn’t address Job’s complaint about older Flash content support.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that that I don’t think Apple and Adobe should be working together in 10.1…. I just don’t think this is an effective counter.
@ Adobe: the best revenge is living well. Demonstrate how Flash 10.1 kicks ass on mobile (and the mac desktop!), and THEN I think you’ll see an attitude change (driven by customer and developer demand, no doubt)
Simply awesome! Thanks Lee!
@Rolland… It’s interesting to hear that your folks are still using mice when they have a touch screen.
Touch screen is great for mobile and presentations, but I think it ends there. Although the Minority Report type interfaces look killer, it’s really impractical to move your entire arm or body when you can simply move your wrist.
Afterall… Don’t we innovate to make things easier?
On other other hand … here is what HTML5 can do on the iPad. You FLASH guys are out of JOBS!!!! Muwhaaahaa.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfmbZkqORX4
Fully doable in open-standard HTML5.
Well Lee, as I saw in that video as fast response input device you have as fast multi-touch flash apps run
oh… I forgot this.
Kevin Lynch MAX presentation of flash multi-touch capability:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vz6SCQbjd-k
Lee, but u seems to miss the point!
How many flash projects do not depends heavily on mouse over? say the video u use to showcase the tech demo. How do i pause the video, if there is no mouse over action on a touch device?
look at farmville. it is so heavily dependant on mouse over events. precisely why flash application is not designed for touch devices.
is not about the technology you have.
is about how well your the technology you have for people to adopt.
I think SJ’s point is, most of web sites with Flash presently are not touch aware. So making flash available on i-products doesn’t provide best user experience.
And, if you’re a web developer and you’re going to make your site as touch aware, you may be able to design it with HTML5. Why would you want to make your site touch aware with Flash when you know large majority of touch based devices can’t see it?
hot
ronin “Don’t the old Flash sites have to be re-written to take advantage of the new multi-touch features?”
The content does not have to be completely re-written. It takes just a few minutes to add touch events to exiting mouse events to Flash sites/games/applications.
That said, Mike Chambers also points out that mouse-over events actually get triggered on touch interface:
http://www.mikechambers.com/blog/2010/02/22/flash-player-content-mouse-events-and-touch-input/
Only apps that use the middle or right button or the mouse wheel run into problems.
Also note that plenty of HTML sites use mouse-overs via JavaScript, yet there hasn’t been any major problems in accessing existing websites, few which have been formated for touch devices.
“if you have to re-write your content, why not re-write it on an open standard?” Some Flash apps and games would have a very hard time if not impossible to have them rewritten for HTML and if targeting HTML5, the majority of users would still not be able to see your site, since there are so many users still using Internet Explorer with very little HTML5 support.
@brendan – well said. That was one of the most reasoned, level-headed responses to this whole thing I’ve seen so far.
And you can get this on what phone?
As a flash developer i would finally like to get my hands on 10.1 and get a test run. All this talk and no action is killing me. Let me play !!!
I have the phone, I have the skills but no 10.1 !!!
p.s. I love flash, though for whatever reason the performance is really bad on OSX. Is anything being done about that? I’ve always worked with macs but am recently thinking of making a change, it’s just that any time I try windows I get frustrated by wasting time with stupid issues(windows issues, not adobe).
Hello Lee! Can we use the new API with TUIO, via flosc connection? For now on I’m using mtouch classes(http://code.google.com/p/mtouch/) that are pretty cool!
Amazing!!!! I can’t wait to get my hands on this stuff!
@lee re: multitouch html5
http://touch.sproutcore.com/hedwig/
Where can i get an screen like that, because from what i know the hp touchsmart is pretty unresponsive but this one looks amazing, i want one =D
Some people are talking as if multitouch is the only thing we’ll have in a month or so. It’s just a niche. Large majority of the population uses mouse and keyboard and will continue to do so. We’ll just have to code complex flash sites/apps for mobile and desktop separately, as always, which if you ask me, is obvious and in that case most of the problems disappear.
The mouse-over effects being a problem for touch is also BS, it will take away some of the appeal of Flash navigation but all my apps/sites will work just fine, and as for the video player popup controls, it’s an extremely easy fix.
Mouse survived for so long because it’s the best way to translate precise motion commands to the screen with the least effort, this also still stands, even after multi touch. It’s physically more demanding to move your whole arm all the time and in no time you start feeling the strain. Not to talk about the scroll vs dragging your fingers over the screen which also is much more strain on the body.
Onscreen keyboard is also no match for the real physical keys.
I loved Apple while it was producing great hardware/software bundles that just worked, but this hype based company that it is becoming now is not in my taste. iPad has it’s place and it is the couch. You can’t blame Apple for trying to expand it’s market by marketing it as a solution to all your problems, but it shouldn’t piss on everyone as if it’s THE platform that everything has to confirm to. It’s based on “cool looking technology” that appeal to the not too critical masses, and not the best solutions to a given problem.
I feel kind of betrayed by Apple, something like if my girlfriend went from being an elegant beautiful and intelligent woman, to a well dressed whore.
@Craig
First I thought, you can’t be serious, then I lol’d
I wrote up a full review of Steve Jobs Thoughts On Flash letter at Apple:
http://enginpost.com/blogs/development/2010-may/apple-steve-jobs-letter-rebuttle
There are too many false statements that I felt obligated to share a hort-load of links to correct the misinformation.
Wait a second. What your using was just made possible in 10.1 which was just released. You just proved Apples arguement. If Apple relied on adobe as it’s main source of software it would of gained multitouch on it’s iPhone software in 2010? The iPhone was released in 2007! That’s three year wait for basic functionality.
@ franci
I should have worded my post differently. Apparently you are the only one that watched the video. Freaking funny poke at Mr. Jobs’ premature push for html5. I think his iPad came out about 5 years too early.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfmbZkqORX4&sns=em
Flash peeps. Watch this please. It will make you feel better. Please share.
I think the fact that Air Android is not released yet, says it all. I am critical of Jobs for a few lies but highly critical of Adobe for not adapting to the situation. Guys in ShiVa, Unity and Ansca Mobile, with much less resources are way ahead of Adobe when it comes to Andoird and other mobile devices.
I´m sorry but I can not risk my income and have already started making my transition.
Thanks everyone for the lively and respectful discussion everyone. The point of showing this example is to make sure it is clear that Flash is capable of creating touch-based interfaces. There is a much larger world outside of the “iDevices” and Flash developers will have an option to use multi-touch. Just want that to be clear.
Humm… good Point.
–
>ronin
>Don’t the old Flash sites have to be re-written to take advantage of the new multi-touch features? I think that was the point a certain CEO made – if you have to re-write your content, why not re-write it on an open standard?
Flash CS5 is FINALLY available for trial download !!
I wonder if I’m one of the first 1000 ppl. to know it … or maybe 10.000 ??
Try it out:
http://www.adobe.com/go/tryflash
@ Jo
Why should Apple rely on Adobe as it’s main source of software? Your argument is meaningless… Apple released a multitouch product, they provided the SDK, that’s it.
Adobe is trying to provide a platform for Flash developers that would extend to mobile devices. One has nothing to do with the other.
I’d say the problem is that Apple is rejecting Flash 10.1 right of the bat, with a couple of valid(but not insurmountable), but mostly dubious reasons.
@Mehdi
I would agree, but Adobe is not a mobile software specific company. It’s resources are spread through many extremely useful applications that for most part have no real rivals. If your income comes from mobile applications, you really shouldn’t rely on Adobe to begin with, since it’s seriously started to enter the arena just now. Otherwise if you develop web sites and applications, I see no reason to worry. Awsome web experiences(and these are on the rise) are still in the domain of Flash and HTML5 is nowhere near ready to take it’s place. The development of experience web sites would be way too complicated with the canvas(deadlines anyone?), and how the workflow would look is a total mystery to me(and I’m really trying to educate myself on HTML5 since it’s bound to be important sooner or later). Flash is a complete package that connects design, animation and development of interactivity in a meaningful way. For that, I am yet to see a better solution. If you show it to me I will be very happy.
@Franci
Good point about HTML5 not affecting our domain for at least for very long time. Problem is, I exactly think like you when it comes to unlimited capability in Flash and I want to see them in mobile devices. I think Adobe should have made the move much earlier. Android is hitting 2.2 and we are yet to see a public beta for Air.
I am a Flash game developer, love how easy it is to make games in Flash and really looking forward to port my games to Android. But I can not wait any longer for Adobe, and have been learning Lua for the past 2 months and now using Corona SDK. Do I miss Flash? Hell yes! But it really strikes me how two ex-Adobe engineers achieve something that the real guys we worship can’t. There are failures, and pointing the finger to others to blame, doesnt help us much.
The truth behind the attack on Flash: http://bit.ly/9PDLbJ
@Pedro Fardilha
No, they don’t have to be rewritten!
Why rewrite something which is not meant to be multi-touch capable. Does every application/site have to suddenly become multi-touch capable, just because apple put that technology into their devices ( and even if multi touch has nothing to add to the quality of your sites/applications, I mean man, listen to what you are saying ).
If you follow the debate, there is a case to be made that Flash is superior to the not yet finished and not yet widely supported HTML5(and since Flash 100% exists and has a 99% penetration, it is at the moment the only possible winner). So if multitouch is the only obvious and undisputed reason to rewrite stuff, then you’re just blinded by Apples shininess, and not motivated by additional functionality that it would provide. Apple has a right to skip on Flash, but so vehemently stating it’s almost childish hatred of Flash(implying it’s iDevices will never support it), supporting that with a lot of false accusations, gives me reason to believe that apple is mostly out to protect their app store revenue.
Anyhow, I’m getting into the debate now so much, because I’ve been reading people write about this subject so lightly and without much grounding for weeks now, and I really didn’t have either the time or energy to waste on irrational debates, but since I feel this is a place where rational arguments actually count I thought I’d join in.
Franci, the whole dispute started because Apple won’t allow flash on the iphone, ipod touch, and ipad.
The only way for the first two and the primary way for the latter to interact with each is via touch.
If Adobe are saying that you can do multi touch with flash then they must be saying that there is no technical reason not to allow it on the apple devices. If this is permitted then most flash sites would, without a re-write, still not work with the ipad/iphone/ipod touch so what has been gained?
I haven’t seen ONE flash application which can handle mouse interaction correctly and with snappy speed. I can _feel_ when something is flash. Even when you don’t have an indicator. There is Flash in Photoshop. From time to time some strange dialogs appear and I look at them and know that they are done in flash. The “CS Live” feature in CS5 in the menu bar is Flash, right? Even Adobe isn’t able to do it correctly on desktops. I guess it is not possible. But the point is: Why should it be so different on mobile devices? Why should Flash be suddenly fast, snappy and easy to use on mobile devices like the iPad. People can’t believe that.
Shift the Flash development over to HTML5 development. HTML5 tools from Adobe. I’d love to see some innovations there. Sadly it won’t happen. Or?
@slim jim
You, along with many others, are absolutely wrong. Existing Flash content will work perfectly fine on touch devices.
I’m currently uploading a video of myself using a new Gateway Windows 7 touchscreen device, browsing the most recent sites at FWA just fine.
This whole multitouch talk is killing me.
People, when Steve Jobs claims that Flash doesn’t support multitouch, he is patently wrong. at best he may mean that existing flash sites would lose their onHover style events. It doesn’t mean that if you click a button with your finger on a touch device that the onClick event doesn’t happen. Please, keep up.
So, let’s imagine that someone created a site that is dependent on the concept of hover. You are thinking that since you can’t hover on an ipad that you couldn’t interact. Wrong again. You simply click (in most cases) as opposed to hover and it will do what it did in hover. Now, if the site wasn’t written to trickle down hover to onClick then it may require a tiny bit of additional code. And so why in the WORLD would I start over in HTML5 if I can add a little code and have my site hopping on a touch oriented device. The fact is that I believe most flash web sites are oriented around click events, which is the same as touching a touch device. Sheesh!
Steve Jobs is crazily overreacting to the impact. Like someone else above said, I could write cross-browser sites in HTML+CSS+JavaScript today that use onHover style events that will not work on an iDevice. Why doesn’t Steve Jobs start raging against those standards-based developers!? In fact, I am certain there will be ways of building HTML5+CSS3+JavaScript that will not be optimized for touch devices either! In fact I don’t think Steve Jobs cares about HTML5 or CS5. I think he is banking on the fact that people will simply go on building apps. Pretending that HTML5 replaces Flash simply buys him time to get more iTunes App Store revenue.
I am so thankful we have CS5 now. I have finally stepped it up and invested in the Master Suite. I think this is one crazy innovative version of the creative suite and I am geeked to work with it and contribute to innovative discussion about the open web. I will be happily publishing iPhone apps from Flash and my apps will hopefully be in the next 100 apps built using Flash approved by the Apple for the App Store. The fact that 100 Flash iPhone apps have been approved by the store proves that this isn’t about Flash being evil… it is about Apple fighting competitors to their business model.
(Side Note: I develop on an iMac and Macbook Pro and I own an iPhone. I just updated to Snow Leopard so I could use all of the 64bit benefits of CS5. My next purchase… an Android phone and building AIR for Android. I am encouraging people to invest in the Google+Adobe relationship, the real winner in this situation!)
@ Michael Anthony, that pc is a full pc running windows 7 with some limited touch support.
Not what I am talking about.
I am talking about a device where the only way to interact is via touch.
I can’t believe all flash content will simply work (without modification or a re-write) if there was a way to run flash on an iphone or ipad.
Remember, all this debate and executive level arguing started because of the iphone and then the ipad not supporting flash. We are not talking about computers running Windows XP, Vista, 7 or Mac OSX here.
more flash multitouch in action… didn’t Apple just purchase their own mapping company? So they might not have this type of view in iDevices I suppose. So it isn’t going to be apples to apples:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLvURtka3TY
For anyone interested, please check out a video I’ve just posted showing Flash on a touchscreen, as well as poor JavaScript performance on an iPhone viewing Apple.com, and HTML5/Flash processor comparisons.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVjIsL8qwNw
@slim jim
steve mcdonald made a wonderful argument, so I’ll refer you to his post.
Not much Flash content revolves around hover as the only way to navigate. Sure, hovering may trigger an effect but the point is when you tap it translates to a CLICK which iPhone/Android/Windows7Touch/Whatever will fire the command in Flash.
@Michael actually you still get rollover events even on a touchscreen so there is generally no need to recode anything. Great video BTW!
@lee
Lee why do you think major tech sites do not have articles that cover this stuff?
Every article that I read just throws adobe into the dumpster
Mwahahahaha, people still saying that Flash will be killed by HTML 5. People doesn’t learn the past. When DHTML released people say “FLASH IS DEAD”. When AJAX released people say “FLASH IS DEAD”. Learn from past! that’s why God created past time so we can learn from it.
For the Flasher all around the world, Why bother to debate about iPad, the CEO word, HTML 5 and all people that say Flash will dead? Just create the cool stuff for user, improve more and more user experience with flash, and world will be silenced and amazed by Flash
About iPhone/iPad:
“Open your eyes people !!!”. I believe that many of the commentator here is American/British/other rich country. Open your eyes, many Asian doesn’t use iPhone, that’s why mobile device like Nokia, Sony Ericsson, HTC, Samsung is popular, because asian use it. iPhone and iPad isn’t booming like in America and Europe.
@lee
Awesome! and Thanks! CS5 so far has been incredible.. haven’t purchased it yet so I haven’t been doing any major work in it, but I love the code completion features.
How will exporting to AIR4Android be handled? I assume some export settings in the AIR dialog? I haven’t really tried, as I’m about a month and a half away for ditching the iPhone for an HTC Evo
@Craig awesome awesome awesome so so funny!!! Thanks! Every idiot iParrot that’s going around squawking HTML5 because Jobs said it needs to see this video.
slim jim, you obviously think the touch translates to some kind of touch event. It’s just click… and all web depends on click, including flash. Get your facts straight, and if you’re proven wrong, accept it and go on with your day.
Thank you Lee, another slap in the face of the \against-flash-fan\ !
@Thomas Maier
maybe you haven’t heard of a product called Dreamweaver from a company called Adobe … I heard it does HTML5 pretty well.
Great video Lee, The best part about jobs saying Flash does not support multi-touch is that I personally worked and published an open source AS3 multi-touch framework almost a full year before Apple released the iPhone.
So in reality Adobe Flash supported direct manipulation multi-touch even BEFORE Apple did. For proof you can visit touchlib.com (check the SVN dates) and watch a later shot demo here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOckVTgWBr4
So mr jobs… your “thoughts” are no more than Apple showcasing actual FEAR of a platform with a COUNTLESS creatives, advertisers and companies behind it, let alone one truly amazing community.
I wont rant to much on this topic as now I am really just waiting for Q3 this year in which the hardware markets will flatten and more tablets/phones will be available to replace horrible companies like Apple from causing such disruptions in tech.
I will state one more thought tho:
The irony of all this drama comes in the fact that Apple itself is a design company more than anything else. One which relies heavily on Adobe’s software direct or not. This being said they should really choose wisely when forcing a stalemate with the largest design company in the world which includes its customer base.
Long Live the Flash Community!
Sent from my iPwned
Unfortunately Lee, you seem to be the only voice out there really standing up for Adobe and what Flash is capable of. Though I have to say Adobe has way more class presenting their arguments than Jobs. Adobe should be screaming this from the mountain top. Jobs is getting major media coverage of all his anti-Flash b.s. Adobe needs to start chipping away at his claims, and bringing this example to the forefront is step one. This blog post needs to make it to Engadget, Gizmodo, Cnet, or Zdnet.
It is disingenuous of Jobs to claim that Flash isn’t designed for touch when companies and design agencies have been doing Flash touch screens for years now–most notably using touchlib and AS3.
#75 & #84 couldn’t agree more.
@Lee they are TOTALLY right, what’s up? I guess Adobe lacks a trendy iconic figurehead that can sway the masses. It’s troubling that Jobs is spreading all of these lies and the public will just gobble it up. It’s all over the net, people who are lucky enough to even be able to turn their computer on are echoing “Jobs is right! HTML5″, when it is clear they really do not have a clue what they are talking about. But hey, Jobs said it! I witness it first hand at my work. Got some major Apple fanboys with about zero technical background of any kind, but they really like their shiny new toys and Apple image and I hear them saying “did you hear HTML5 is replacing Flash.” It’s sickening.
I was just thinking about how often I use multi-touch on my phone(I don’t have an I phone, I have a Droid), and it is not very often, maybe I am not an average user, but really only use multi-touch when browsing the web, and that is just to zoom in/out. I haven’t come across any apps that require me to use multi-touch. I suppose on a larger device like a tablet it might be used more, but discounting Flash because it(we will say didn’t)support multi-touch is so trivial, petty even. In fact this whole “HTML 5 is the future of the web” discussion makes me puke in my mouth a little. Fine let it be the future of the web, but we are not in the future, we are in the present. All I can say is thank god for Android.
This comment was created with iRant.
@jakeZ
Unfortunately I don’t believe Adobe, as a company, is able to come out swinging defending it’s past features/achievements. It will immediately be spun by the media. Adobe’s only option is to drop a BOMB with FP10.1 and make everyone else eat their words.
I’m more excited than ever. When I first started reading about HTML5 “killing” Flash, I’ll admit I was a bit uneasy. However, after doing lots of research, the whole HTML5 thing is beginning to unravel just a little bit. It’s likely that HTML5 will take over online video at some point, but HTML5 as a whole is not a replacement for the interactivity of Flash. HTML5 sites perform HORRIBLY on Apple devices, and just a bit better on Android.
I’ve installed the beta of 10.1, and I have to say it’s absolutely incredible. My Macbook needs a fresh install of OS X, as it had many problems along with Flash being MUCH slower than the same spec Macbook of a friend. Once I installed the beta, it was a complete turnaround. I can stream HD YouTube fullscreen and still use only 25% total CPU.
Android is looking incredible, with the ability to view existing content. I’ve seen videos of old AS2 games performing completely smooth running in the Android browser.
Anyway, most people who have no idea the capabilities of Flash find it easy to think of HTML5 as a quick replacement. And I think the best thing Flash devs as a community can do is to push your work out as far as you can. Show the capabilities of the Flash platform.
Its all about the money
Geeze people dont you see that! Flash works just fine… And as seen in some of the above videos that ipad/ipod/iphone cant handle HTML5 canvas elements worth a poop! This is not a coincidence – Apple wants you to create apps, and sell them period… The more apps they can sell the more money they can make, and the more lock-in they can have on their customers!
Once phones support flash most apps for simple games etc are now useless, as there are MANY thousands of free flash games on the net, that have \paid\ iThing/android app counterparts.
Battery life is a non-issue. When playing GAMES on any mobile device the battery life just sucks…
And I am glad the iThings can play h264 video in HTML5, but interactive canvas elements is a no-go. Not to mention when HTML5 was thought of nobody was thinking about touch devices, almost all html5 canvas examples do not work at all on a touch interface.
Its all about the money… Apple wants the consumer lock-in , they want the app sales, and they want to control what content you can access, all along putting their own/partner best interests above any of their end users.
Yes. Yes. Yes. But this can also be done with other technologies.
Flash has never been about being able to do what other technologies can do. Adobe, because it is not Macromedia, forgets what Flash is all about.
When we started out 12 years ago, Flash was extraordinary because no one else could do that we did using Flash. A demo like this is nice but not enough. Let’s innovate people.
If this can be done on the iPhone, then what’s the point. Flash is not a me-too product.
And by the way only engineers compare specs. The audience at large, i.e. consumers, could not care less. If Apple or other companies can deliver the same experience, the consumers won’ t really miss Flash. This is the sad reality.
What I think is kinda funny at this point is that on the startpage of apple’s web site (http://www.apple.com/startpage/) they currently have a “Ready for the iPad” advertisement at the top right of the screen and the very last website in the graphic is the Major League Baseball web page. They are touting this web site as ready for the iPad yet MLB.com is one of the most heavily reliant on Flash web site I know of. Their home page has at least 3 sections running in the flash player. All MLB.com video content is Flash and the Gameday section of MLB.com is entirely flash based.
You do not need to write software in Flash for the specific purpose of taking advantage of a touchscreen.
That is moronic, a touch is just like a mouseclick, any fucktard knows that.
Tom,
MLB.com may be fully Flash when you visit it, but when visited with an iPad, videos are fully accessible with H.264. They can serve the same content, using whichever technology the browser has. Same goes for YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/html5) and other major sites.
will the new flash api’s give me multi touch on XP ?
I do not want to buy windows 7. I do not need the entire OS to be multi touch. Only the application I design.
Who cares about h.264 video – this is no the argument. Obviously if you can push a video format without another layer of abstraction then its all good. We are talking about interactive content. If you also want interactive video content – then you really have 1 option.
Everyone compares CPU usage with h.264 streams – and this means nothing… Compare simple SVG animation tasks with Flash counterparts.
I laughed when Jobs’ made this claim. I’ve now done 3 kiosk stations for Telus Mobility that all use touch.
@ lolcat:
“You do not need to write software in Flash for the specific purpose of taking advantage of a touchscreen.
That is moronic, a touch is just like a mouseclick, any fucktard knows that.”
Enough said.
Hi Lee, I just had an interesting thought while scrolling down these comments – on my laptop.
I was thinking about how I was navigating the site – and specifically the difference between my desktop, my laptop and my phone. And then it struck me:
how i navigate with my laptop is almost identical to how I navigate on a touchscreen phone.
Let me explain. All of this talk about multi touch, rollover events and so on not working with flash on a touchscreen device, well i don’t buy it. Think about how one navigates on a laptop. The touch pad is indeed a mufti touch device. I place my finger on the track pad, and i can use a circular motion to scroll(or two fingers). I can roll over items my moving my finger around the pad. Using some acceleration tests i could even perform inertia scrolling that way. And of course, when i tap – it clicks.
The point is, my laptop track pad has been smart enough to differentiate between all of these input motions for such a long time, and i did not have to code my apps differently – i wonder why certain fruit sellers seem to think otherwise.
@Beans
Think again. The differences are because of the choices made for touch interfaces, which make the usage easier at the same time but with less events possibilities.
On trackpad, to scroll a page, either you have a specific zone to do it, or you have a gesture (two fingers on some trackpads), or you have to click+drag the scrollbar.
On a touchscreen device, it has been chosen to have three basic rules:
- Scrolling is automatic even with only one finger. So when you move your finger on the screen, it scrolls it
- There is no graphical pointer
- There is no physical click button.
This remove, by consequence, differences between events like “move” and “click+drag” or “click” and “mouse over” because you always scroll whenever you move, so you can’t differentiate accurately a “move” from a “click+drag” (as there is no physical click button, the click+drag event can’t exists).
For example, on the iPhone, to reorganize you icons on the Springboard, you can’t simply click+drag as you would do if you had a mouse. You have first to long press to enter the icon reorganization mode, then you can drag. So as you can see, the UI had to be rethought to workaround the fact the “click+drag” event is impossible in touchscreens, while it would have been the natural event with a mouse a “click+drag”.
And because there is no graphical pointer, the concept of “mouse over” is incoherent with the pointing device, as the “mouse over” means “the graphical mouse pointer is over”, and because you can’t move such a graphical pointer as it doesn’t exist and finder movement is a “scroll” event in touchscreen devices, you can’t have mouse over.
That being said, you can’t simulate some situations or gestures to trigger these events. But that would be unnatural because there is no graphical and physical interfaces that can represent them intuitively (no mouse pointer, no physical click).
So if after that small explanation you still can’t see the huge differences between your trackpad laptop and a capacitive touchscreen device without physical click and mouse pointer, than I should advice you to not try to work in UI ergonomy and intuitivity field.
Sorry I meant ‘You CAN simulate some situation or gestures to trigger these events’
As a flash developer i would finally like to get my hands on 10.1 and get a test run. All this talk and no action is killing me. Let me play !!!
I have the phone, I have the skills but no 10.1 !!!
p.s. I love flash, though for whatever reason the performance is really bad on OSX. Is anything being done about that? I’ve always worked with macs but am recently thinking of making a change, it’s just that any time I try windows I get frustrated by wasting time with stupid issues(windows issues, not adobe).
Another example, I recently worked on. A 55 inches multiTouch application. Obviously made with Flash…
See a little demo here (more videos soon available):
http://experience-fontevraud.com/apercu-exclusif-de-lapplication-mutlitouch/
Flash is a sinking ship, get of it or go down with it.
If i remember right, jobs entire argument was over power usage and that flash was a power monster. Also, it seems to me that jobs insinuated that the pc and the mouse was old school and that touch was the future….. but for jobs to make war with adobe, he is making war with many of his customer base which use adobe products… not wise.
What apple said is true.. Almost all of the flash based sites are made for users with mice.. They didn’t claim that Flash does not support touch APIs!
But the vid was actually rather onetouch. but of course. flash can do multitouch.
@iFrodo i agree with some of the things that you have written. But I do feel in your haste to post, and of course state that i have no place designing UI – that you have missed the some of what i was trying to point out.
click and drag – do you mind telling me where this method resides in flash? because last time i checked, click and drag didnt exist. Sure you could employ startDrag, but other than that you are using combinations of MOUSE_DOWN, MOUSE_UP, MOUSE_MOVE events, along with event.targets, currentTargets and bubbling. The fact that you have to press the home button on the iphone to enables the icons to be arranged, doesnt not imply that click and drag cannot be achieved
Dont confuse limitations with bad bad programming for gesture recognition.
‘So as you can see, the UI had to be rethought to workaround the fact the “click+drag†event is impossible in touchscreens’
If click and drag is impossible, explain how you move the icons around the screen then… It’s not impossible – apple merely decided that was the best way to handle the main interface of the phone.
The could have decided to create an event to register for the duration of the click before implementing the drag feature – similar to how the copy/paste has a delay before it pops up on screen.
You also mention: ‘because there is no graphical pointer, the concept of “mouse over†is incoherent’
Which is totally true. The fact that a mouse over event wont work on a touch screen is irrelavant. The fact that the same button can still register a click/tap event is the point.
I wouldnt be so quick to start giving advice on who is and isn’t qualified to work in the UI field if you make such claims as ‘“click+drag†event is impossible in touchscreens’
nice work StruckAxiom
thanks again Lee your ‘re the best
nice to have multitouch News and show that flash can deal with multitouch
i’ve just finish the development of multitouch api too. it shows our work of our collective
it’s called Farik Bokeh and use a device we build named Taluko (42″ lcd multitouch screen)
check it out here
english:
http://www.nomari.fr/?p=25
french:
http://www.audio-performers.com/WP/?p=15
When Ryan Stewart, a Platform Evangelist for Adobe, says this:
“However because there is such a variety of Flash content out on the web, it’s important to understand that not all of it is going to run on devices like the Nexus One, both because of lower hardware capabilities of devices and because of user interface design”
what do you think he means?
http://blog.digitalbackcountry.com/2010/05/examples-of-flash-content-running-on-android/
@means I think he means that the hardware is not as powerful and that some sites will have UI that too small on a mobile device, just like countless sites that are not Flash. That is an entirely different issue than Flash sites not being touch-friendly. I will be posting a video later showing that that is not the case.
Hi,
when you stop at 0:36 you can see on the right side a menu and the background of it is blurred. Does anyone know how this is made with flash? (best would be with flex 4 because iam working with it)
Thank you
Harald
ps. sry my english is not the best.
Hi,
in the video you can see on 0:36 you can see on the right side of the application an menu with an blur filter of whats behind the menu how can i create something like that in flash or flex ?
greeting
Harald
ps. sry my english is not the best
I don´t see this. Harald please explain again. Or is this the finger-point it second 35? It looks like a water drop in water. nice object.