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Adobe Concedes In The Battle Between Flash And HTML5

Adobe Flash has long been the primary application used for web graphics, videos, interactive web pages, and more. With the recent development of smart phones Adobe began working vigorously to provide an acceptable Flash player however it has been a long and troubled road for them.

Adobe has been competing with HTML5 as the dominant graphics platform for smart phones however they were fighting a losing battle. HTML5 was by far the superior contender in the battle and Adobe finally conceded here recently.

In a statement about their recent decision regarding Flash for mobile devices Adobe said this:

“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.”

So why exactly did Adobe cease attempting to optimize Flash for mobile devices? Let’s take a look at the key reasons:

  1. HTML5 was superior – Adobe Flash simply did not work well on mobile devices despite the extensive amount of time Adobe put into working on it. HTML5 arrived a year before Flash and was still providing superior performance results than Flash.
  2. Flash lost support – Many people remember Steve Job’s message about Flash. Jobs stated Apple would cease working with Adobe and the Apple products would be using HTML5 instead of Flash. For Adobe this was a huge blow and the repercussions of Jobs’ decision were a determining factor in Adobe ceasing their work with Flash for mobile devices.
  3. HTML5 wasn’t owned by any company – While Flash was losing support HTML5 continued to gain significant support not only because it was superior but also because it wasn’t owned by a single company. Some of the biggest names in the internet world have switched over to HTML5 along with Apple including: YouTube, Twitter, CloudReader, Vimeo, Vudu, Pandora, SlideShare, and now even Adobe itself is working with HTML5.

The switch was a smart move for Adobe due to the fact that HTML5 is simply superior in almost every way for mobile devices. Now that HTML5 is fully supported by some of the biggest companies, web developers and publishers can rejoice and smart phone users can now expect to see far superior devices sometime in the near future.