Flash is Dead, Silverlight is Dead: HTML5 To Rule Them All
Ok so proprietary isn’t working out too well. Adobe released a statement to ZDNet that they are ceasing Flash for mobiles.
Our future work with Flash on mobile devices will be focused on enabling Flash developers to package native apps with Adobe AIR for all the major app stores. We will no longer adapt Flash Player for mobile devices to new browser, OS version or device configurations. Some of our source code licensees may opt to continue working on and releasing their own implementations. We will continue to support the current Android and PlayBook configurations with critical bug fixes and security updates.
Flash is nice because it gives you the full desktop experience wherever you are but it’s also laggy, crashes and drains batteries. Yeah so what about Silverlight? RIP Silverlight. ZDNet again:
Several of my customer and partner contacts have told me they have heard from their own Microsoft sources over the past couple of weeks that Silverlight 5 is the last version of Silverlight that Microsoft will release. They said they are unsure whether there will be any service packs for it, and they are also not clear on how long Silverlight 5 will be supported by Microsoft.
So HTML5 is going to be the ubiquitous plasma to the blood that runs all operating systems. Well at least we can stop talking about how good/bad Flash is and move back to software companies providing the best tools and optimizing users experiences. And yes, this is mobile Flash but as the mobile world continues to pick up steam it’s hard to imagine that developers continue to embrace it as it’s a shrinking audience so this marks the beginning of the end of Flash.
This also aligns with Microsoft’s movements in Windows 8 where Flash will not work in the Metro/tablet Internet Explorer to optimize battery life and performance…
Anyway, your thoughts?
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Flash is not nice. It’s clunky, sl
Flash is not nice. It’s clunky, slow, and unresponsive in a mobile browser. It was never meant to be TOUCHED. HTML5 supports touch extremely well and is fast, lean and allows for great device interaction. Silver light was doomed before they even launched it in browser plugin form.
I say thank you to adobe and ms for ditching these formats.
Silverlight is more than just a technology for the web. It’s the official way to develop apps for Windows Phone (which no one doubts MS is heavily invested in) and it’s a first class toolset for windows 8. (that makes it more integrated in Windows 8 than it is in Windows 7) There is a ton of technology built for business apps in Silverlight and consequently a ton of business apps. I say we don’t throw our hopes away just yet. Silverlight is one word by the way.
I don’t think that Silverlight is going to last very long to be honest – and I liked it a lot when they first released it – have written a few applications with it too – MAYBE it’ll stick around as a dev option on the phones, but I don’t see it getting much more market penetration on browsers than it already has.
Flash lasted much longer than it should have though.
HTML5 and other similar open standards will prevail. There will always be someone touting a plugin that gets around whatever shortcoming that may be inherent to these open standards (think apps for phones, but in browser context), but as is the case with most Operating systems (which the browser has essentially become), the trend is going away from client side applications and pure web presence to using a simple browser to experience everything. And doing everything without having to rely on plugins to accomplish these things.
“Silver light” = auto correct since it’s not a real word, but a name.
I’m probably greatly exaggerating the demise of silverlight here, but it’s what I would do.. then again, I’d also ditch Windows’ current setup, nuke the registry and tell legacy apps to pound sand.