The Future For Flash

Future For Flash Earlier today, I received a link to the Flash Plugin roadmap. A lot of elearning content today was designed and developed using Flash and that will continue in the foreseeable future. The roadmap was interesting because it points to some items that could possibly impact how we use Flash for delivering eLearning. Mainly, the roadmap states quite clearly that Gaming and Video are two areas Adobe will increasingly focus on. This possibly implies that the platform will move away from catering to the authoring/publishing developers. Also, given the onslaught from HTML5 in the authoring area, it makes sense for Adobe to focus on gaming and DRM video. Few changes planned to further the game development cause include support for keyboard input, middle/right buttons, faster script and plugin performance. So for learning designers, Flash will continue to make sense for games on the desktop or if you are delivering video in some form. But what about the increasing number of mobile devices that we’d like to deliver learning to? Not much from Flash there, Adobe is abandoning supporting mobile browsers altogether; we wrote about this last year.

Lastly, most desktops will see (perhaps) a gradual migration to Windows 8; the roadmap states “Adobe is currently working closely with Microsoft to finalize details around supported configurations for Flash Player and Adobe AIR on Windows 8.” That sounds quite strange, given that the Metro Touch version of IE will not support the Flash plugin. Given its memory intensive nature it isn’t surprising that Tablet OS developers aren’t keen on having it; iOS made that choice a long time ago.

I’d hazard a guess Android will be abandoning Flash mobile too.

So where are we going with Flash? And will it remain the authoring/development environment of choice for eLearning developers/designers? It’s a tough question to answer. I want to be able to develop once and run on both desktop, mobile and ‘in-between’ devices. Without a stable and feature-rich HTML5 development environment that matches the depth of Flash, eLearning developers are faced with a dual development approach – develop with full media rich functionality (easily) using Flash for desktop delivery, and a more technically intensive HTML5 approach for devices. Who knows, in the future maybe workplace learning will ONLY be driven by mobile devices, with desktop based elearning turning into an archaic remnant of a bygone age.

Comments ( 7 comments )

Chere February 23, 2012 at 10:08 pm

I have been creating eLearning with Flash and Captivate for several years. I am now taking a serious look at HTML5. My reason is that I believe touch screens are the future so we must develop our content for them. HTML5 (with Javascript) considers touchscreens and Flash has not been successful in this area. It grieves me to step away from a wonderful development platform and to not have another one as excellent to replace it. But I believe someone will fill this need before we know it!
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Nuno Cardoso February 25, 2012 at 10:13 pm

I´m a developer of e-learning content using Flash(AS3.0) + Captivate and i believe that Adobe won´t let us without alternative. HTML5 is the future because all platforms can “read” it and if we want to share our content with as much users as we can, than Flash isn´t the right choice.
Adobe is developing Adobe Edge, that combines Flash+HTML5.
http://ncm.informatic.com.pt/?p=579
Help is on the way! 🙂
Nishant February 27, 2012 at 11:04 pm

We can see that people want to deliver the content on mobile devices, flash is not that much in demand now. People using different JS libraries (e.g. Jquery, kineticJS etc.) for developing rich content in HTML5, still we can see that it is not easy as Flash. I want to know, what should be the right approach to present the content in HTML5 as per an ID point of view?
Sushil March 15, 2012 at 10:44 am

Vector based graphics and efficient and easy timeline animations is the strongest feature that led elearning and web advertising depend on Flash. Rather than adding n-number of features to the Flash player and the ever creepy Flash authoring tool, adobe would have focused on developing those basic feature to run efficiently on mobile platforms. Now they finding it difficult to provide support to each chipsets and devices. Lets how Adobe Edge or Google Swiffy can come to help us….
Chere March 22, 2012 at 10:42 pm

I just downloaded Adobe Edge Preview 5 and watched the “edge first look” course on Lynda.com. I am very encouraged that we have a fun future ahead of us!
ray() April 25, 2012 at 12:58 pm

I’ve had a look at Adobe Edge and Sencha Animator besides a lot of other tools. Both are very encouraging for
a) designing an interactive timeline (sound is still to be added manually)
b) adapting a production process by scripting (incl. SCORM) – this has to be done manually)
The Problem is: you cannot play your content using older browsers, which is a show stopper for my clients.

The Future For Flash

Abhijit Kadle | February 23, 2012 | Future Learning, Future Technology