Flash is the Future – Even for the iPhone

The web development industry as a whole has long looked down their nose at Flash. The name of the technology itself seemed to reveal how many felt about it; big in its visual impact, but lacking in the substance that made the Web 2.0 movement – with functionality and simple graphics at its core – so very attractive. Whilst Flash served as an incredible tool for creating stunning user interfaces online, it fell behind, lacking in the usability and utility that web users had long come to expect; zero loading times, back buttons that worked intra-site and frequently updated modular designs. As a result, it also suffered in the SEO game that the rise of search and Google engendered.

Despite this, the widespread adoption of broadband and the craze for online video through YouTube and a thousand clone sites allowed the plugin to reach near-universal adoption. Its developer community forged ahead, attacking each problem through further refinements; VI being the first to produce a Flash site as indexable by search engines and as familiarly user-friendly as any other non-Flash site.

With these issues largely out of the way and over 99% of internet-connected desktops having the plugin, Flash has a huge part to play in the future of web development and content-rich sites and applications. As IE6 holds back innovation and HTML5 waits in the shadows, it is Flash – now packing some SEO punch – that has the strong hand.

And what of the fast-growing mobile space? The latest version, 10.1, was recently announced for nearly every mobile device platform (Windows Mobile, webOS, Android, Symbian, Blackberry), with huge innovations that allow it to function with less processor and power consumption – increasing rendering speeds by 87% on mobile vs desktop and reducing memory consumption by 55%. But what of the one notable exception – the iPhone?

Despite being the smart phone that set the bar for mobiles as on-the-go internet-enabled devices, Apple has been vocal in not allowing the Flash plugin onto its closed system, even the new mobile-enhanced version. But in doing so, they have actually pushed Adobe to be even more innovative and actually cater for the iPhone in a meaningful – and monetisable – manner.

Unlike the other mobile platforms that have now accepted the plugin within their browsers, the upcoming Flash CS5 will allow developers to create standalone, native iPhone applications using Flash and ActionScript3. Although the door was closed to the plugin, it’s had the effect of making Flash a powerful development platform for the applications that make the iPhone what it is. Not only will Flash enjoy continued ubiquity of adoption across multiple platforms as a plugin, it will soon be able to offer developers direct monetisation through the App store when they export an application rather than a SWF.

And if the continued ubiquity of Flash as a platform and now application-builder was not enough, the technical limitations placed on its mobile implementations will quite probably benefit the technology as a whole. By catering for mobile and mobile applications, the “full” version can learn a few tricks itself in becoming a more lean technology that puts user engagement at its core.