Flash

When reading Gone in a Flash written by Keith Collins, flash became more then just a plug-in to me. It was just something that I needed in order to listen to pandora at the time. Reading this article, it gives a clear, detailed explanation of what flash has been through. From roaring success all the way down to being replaced, Flash has been through it all. The author concludes that HTML will be a suitable replacement for Flash, with multiple versions and enough complexity to to have long-term suitability.

Flash brought together the web community in ways that didn't seem possible at the time. It made the possibility of being able to access websites on all different browsers and still work properly a reality. The plugin guaranteed videos, animation, and interactivity onto every single computer. In 2007, Steve Jobs made the executive decision to not support flash in the latest updated iPhone. This prompted others to move away from flash as well and use HTML5. Facebook and Youtube used flash to build their games and videos, but eventually did make videos available in HTML5 as well so iPhone users could participate. In 2011, Adobe released Edge Animate - a new way to create HTML content, which was universally supported on most devices. "This makes HTML5 the best solution for creating a deploying content in the browser across mobile platforms" said Adobe. The major company that uses flash is Facebook. All of their games are based on flash and it's needed to play. Then, Google came out with the announcement that Chrome will block flash by default. You're still able to access it with an optional button, but for the most popular browser in the world to get rid of it, I don't see a bright future for flash.

As a web designer, I use HTML 10x more then I ever did Flash. It's the base of all my websites, while flash is more of an optional tag on. I don't understand how Flash could've been the base of anything. Even before iPhones wouldn't allow flash, there wouldn't of been a great use of it. All together, Flash is something that is just there, and I don't think it would make much of a difference if they got rid of it all together (unless Pandora doesn't upgrade).

Here's the link to the article: Gone in a Flash