01 May 2010

Did Adobe miss something in 2007 ?

I first would like to be clear:
I know you can see my posts like rockets against Apple.
Yes, a lot of things make me upset against Apple.
Yes, iPhone has a very great UI, so much that I was about to buy an iPhone for my wife...but I canceled it yesterday (boycott mode on)
But NO, I'm not a PRO Adobe, I'm just trying to choose the best path, as a developper, I must follow in the coming months/years.

For what could be seen as my own moral, I can't follow Apple path, sorry.
But, at the same times, I'm really asking myself if Flash is the future.
If you read some of my other posts, you'll see how much I hate to fight with bugs on Flash Lite, how much I dislike to be unable to talk with the OS and how I'm afraid when Adobe drops the low phones market to focus on smartphones only. (And I won't talk about the heavy AIR for mobile).
I already said "flash on every screen" was a dream. It recently became "develop one, release to many" which is also a dream, from my point of view (close to Steve Jobs' point of view about optimized code I think).

And so I read this post on Wired : did Adobe really miss the iPhone train 3 years ago ?
Like every post on the web recently, it's not neutral since Corona competes with Flash. But it should be something I must be aware of.
If I focus on Flash technology, I must know if Adobe decisions are good or not.
It's not the first time someone critizes the Adobe strategy about mobiles.

I personnaly like Flash for its ability to make something great really fast.
But I personnaly think Android is the future. Flash will be soon on Android so we'll see how it works, even if I already started to develop on Java for Android.

So, finally, will Flash become a prototype tool ? If so, I really think Adobe should start to think about code export (Flash to Java, Flash to ObjC...) but I read a post on an Adobe blog (sorry, can't find the link) it isn't an option.

2 years ago, I was waiting for Adobe to make an useful Flash mobile solution. Flash Lite 3 was near to succeed...
I don't know what is Flash Lite 4 (apart to be AS3 based, at last) and I know Flash 10 won't be a solution for my main target : phones, not smartphones.
Perhaps Adobe is right : smartphones are the future. But, for now, I'm making money from Europe and India's gamers, on standard phones.

So, again, wait and see.

1 comment:

Alessandro said...

Ciao William,

you make some good points.
Just remember that phones do not disappear as new version of FL comes out. There are millions of phones out there that are part of the market and will be there for several years. This is something that many forget to follow the latest and greatest bits !

Alessandro