subject: Future Of Html And Flash [print this page] In short, the answer is an astounding yes; even though many individuals would question as to why that is. Adobe Flash, formally known as "Macromedia Flash" is really a multimedia source utilized to add animation, audio, video, and other types of interactivity to numerous web pages. Flash is more generally used for advertisements, games and more commonly--video. The more well-liked sites that use Flash are You Tube, Hulu, and Pandora Radio just to name a few. Flash was originally acquired by Macromedia and was introduced in 1996; presently it is developed and distributed by Adobe. Adobe is better known for their art related programs, Photoshop and Illustrator; for those who wish to produce their own Flash-based website, they offer Flash software through their Creative Suite package.
People must still be using Flash in some aspect or another because it has exceeded over 100 million installations worldwide as of 2009, of course some of these installations may be due to having Flash install every time someone downloads and installs the Acrobat Reader. Numerous users are often unaware that it is even on their system to begin with.
You will find some advantages to using Flash such as: The use of vector graphics that allow Flash files to be smaller in file size which use less bandwidth than that of subsequent bitmap or video files that were utilized heavily in the past. Overall these permit for improved performance and use much less CPU power allowing your system to run smoother with a reduced amount of lag or interference.
Using the advantages, there are also some major disadvantages; such drawbacks are the main reason for the criticism that Adobe has received due to their Flash software. Adobe themselves have been warning investors that they may take a hit on Flash's profitability because customers are moving away from Flash.
One this kind of challenger is Apple's CEO Steve Jobs, who had made the following statement shortly after their announcement of both the iPhone4 and also the new iPad: (Re : Adobe) "They are lazy, they have all this potential to do interesting things but they just refuse to do it. They don't do anything using the approaches that Apple is taking, like Carbon. Apple doesn't support Flash because it's so buggy; Whenever a Mac crashes more often than not it's due to Flash. No one will be using Flash, he says. The world is moving to HTML5.