These days, even a slight comparison between HTML5 and Flash gets designers excited. There is always someone who joins in with the question: “Will Flash survive?” I’ve heard this being asked so many times now that I prefer to remain silent. “Let them argue,” I think to myself as my friends – web developers by trade – start one of their heated debates that invariably end with “We’ll see who’s right in a few years.” Quite so.
Flash is in good health
I don’t really see any reason why Flash won’t endure. It has been around for quite some time during which it has shown how powerful it is. Many love it, some hate it, but nobody is really indifferent about it. And this I believe says a lot. It will take something truly special to topple it over and I have my doubts about HTML5 being that “truly special” something.. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not at all against it, but I get the impression that some people are a bit too excited about it. So, as Flash has its flaws and HTML5 has its strong points it seems reasonable to assume that HTML5 will take Flash’s place in those areas where the latter has been used simply because there wasn’t anything else available.
HTML5 and video
Flash has done a good job with video, but many think that it’s about time that something takes its place. I fully agree. HTML5 is still not there yet, but it’s going to be. And when it will be fully capable of handling video at the same standard as Flash does now, then it will certainty take over. But, Flash is more that video and all web developers know this.
Surely Flash will become redundant at one point?
At some point, HTML is eventually going to have all or at least the core features that Flash boasts today. There is not much arguing about it. The question then is, when will this happen? Will Flash still be useful or will it become superfluous? And then, if it will still have some value, how will it be used? In the same way as today? Only time can tell.
Flash is likely to continue to evolve itself, pushing new boundaries. Making predictions about its evolution is not something I feel comfortable with, and honestly I think only a few would venture to. I would say though that Flash will continue to bring better and better games to us all. “Games? Bah!” you may say. There are millions of people playing Flash games, so be careful with your judgment.
It may be a battle, but the battleground is huge
I think that the rapid development HTML is undergoing will bring many good things to web developers as well as to users. This competition after all is likely going to improve our browsing experience. Flash is strong and it’s not going to disappear out of a sudden. HTML5 will come to replace it in some areas but that will still be far way from eliminating the need for it altogether. And besides, this will take some time, years maybe.
All in all, we developers can only be ecstatic with the new opportunities we now have to create websites which are better and better. Why should we worry about Flash’s fate when there’s so much to do and so many new things to experiment with? What will be will be.
Good article, although I have to say that I’m still vexed. As far as I’ve seen, there aren’t any really solid, agreed upon solutions offered up to actually deal with those that can’t see Flash (iPad, iPod, iPhone, etc.). What is the most solid fallback solution when Flash isn’t available to these devices? I know Flash is still being widely used… but what do these non-Flash devices see when they visit a Flash-heavy site? I have almost stopped using Flash altogether due to the fact that I (or my clients) could be missing a lot of potential viewers.
Ideas, anyone?
the apple products will have to conform fairly soon , they are currently allowing window base application utilize flash as their marketing points (take the black berry playbook for instance). the other thing is alot of apps are made of flash , and flash developers are coming up with new dynamic ideas everyday that other codes end up following – ie: 3d walls for pics , page flip , picture transition. as long as the flash developers and designers keep coming up with new interfaces , and of course adobe need to advance the program further(i would say in the 3d direction) , flash will still remain the most use tool for dynamic content.
You have good arguments. Usage of Flash is slowly declining in the last few months (http://w3techs.com/technologies/details/cp-flash/all/all), but I agree, it will be around for a long time.
Very good article. Flash will be there for a good while. Question is, should we at some point stop developing new stuff in Flash and use HTML instead? If so – when? I also cannot imagine how HTML/JavaScript will replace flash games.
Serious question: What is Flash actually good for? A typical, casual, user is familiar with Flash for video, annoying advertisements, and occasionally games. Take away video and it seems to me that Flash becomes…I’d say less compelling but let’s just go with less useful. Interestingly, even Adobe seems to be nodding in this direction (http://articles.cnn.com/2011-03-14/tech/adobe.flash.war_1_apple-mobile-devices-ios-iphone?_s=PM:TECH).
Even the “Flash-Killer” Silverlight has been downplayed by its own creator, having recently been relegated to a mobile strategy for a virtually non-existant platform and/or a technology targeting “line-of-business” applications.
The writing is on the wall.
Flash won’t be going away anytime soon, sure, but it’s bound to become a whole lot less useful in the near future. My only concern with the HTML5 up take is that it’s going to suddenly become a whole lot more difficult to block annoying content (Flash has a lot going for it in that it’s easy to block).
Respectfully Guerren, I kind of disagree with what you say…
When you say-
“A typical, casual, user is familiar with Flash for video, annoying advertisements, and occasionally games. Take away video and it seems to me that Flash becomes…I’d say less compelling but let’s just go with less useful.” … well.
I wholeheartedly disagree. Look at some of these examples, and tell me that you’re not impressed and engaged. http://www.ebizmba.com/articles/best-flash-sites
From the perspective of an artist or designer, Flash enables a huge opportunity to produce incredibly compelling work… from the way content is handled, transitional effects, animation, reactive elements, and video. It’s the ability of a developer to produce a full-featured presentation with very few restrictions.
I think that the only reason that Flash is becoming less useful is because developers are becoming scared to use it; i.e. less people will be able to see it because of Apple’s market-driven statue-like stance on the subject. Anyone that says that Adobe is “caving” is full of beans… they’re only making progress in a positive direction (proactive) while Apple continues to look down from their ivory tower (stubborn).
Adobe should act like Apple, and never build a Creative Suite for Mac again. That’d show ‘em, right? Oh, man that would be so crazy…
A lot of people believe that HTML5 is the future and Flash is not necessary. Through the years we have seen a lot of creative things and tools today like pixlr.com aviary.com audiotool.com ecodazoo.com etc that is made in Flash and pushing the limits. So why aren’t there any games/tools in browser for Ipad/Iphone that is advanced as Flash at the moment? Look at the HTML5 demos and they look often like Flash for 5-10 years ago. You haven’t to be smart to realize this. A regular homepage with information and lot of pages could be done in HTML. But what if you want to combine vector/bitmaps/fonts easily, do timeline animation, have full control of audio, have advanced layer effects/filters and hundreds of other things without Flash? You can’t, you have to wait until HTML/Javascript/CSS3/whatever is ready. And I want to create today.
I started this weekend with my first canvas/js game and believe me: it’s a total technical regress.
The learning curve is extremely steep. First learn HTML and CSS. Then learn javascript. There’s tons off free libraries for javascript but for every step during development you have to pick one. For example when you need a simple bouncing effect; would you do it with jquery, mootools, jstween, tweenjs…? they all work fine but have different capabilities and non of them is (currently) as nice as Tweenlite. Some are best used for css others for the canvas…
After that you’ll have to test on all browsers only to find out different things are not working on different browsers, which will consume more time. Time otherwise probably spend on design.
As mentioned by Tomas the HTML5 demos look like Flash 5-10 years ago.
All visuals look crappy because Flash has a way to separate over half pixels, html5 doesn’t. This makes it look jaggy.
To get sprites moving you will need more programs (I used Flash (!) and Zoe). The distance between designing and development get’s very big at this point.
I started out as a designer and Flash helped me to start learning code step by step. Current young designers will have a hard time to do so in in HTML5 and most won’t make it, they’ll stick to design and will have to work in large companies.
So why would I switch to HTML5/canvas/js?
Because the flash-guru’s are switching to HTML5. Mr. doob (Three.js) and Grant Skinner (Easel.js) are working on js libraries right now. These guys are the people who really make the difference in innovation and provide the tools. They did this for flash and are now doing it for javascript.