Tech & Dirt Bikes » flash

HTML5 Gauntlet #1

admin — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 13:06:41 +0000

OK, so here’s the deal, I love the internet, it’s been a great place the last ~25 years and it seemed like we were going in the right direction.

But Apple’s recent HTML5 demo page finally did it for me, proclaiming that they’re the bastions of the “open web” (what ever the hell that is – I’m really not sure any more) then putting a “to view this content please download our propriety platform” just plain sucks!

So in an attempt to show that the future technologies which are going to usurp Flash as the dominant rich experience aren’t actually all that rich, I’m throwing down the gauntlet. Can the animation in the swf below be recreated in HTML5/CSS3/JS/Canvas/SVG? To make it easier, lets say you only have to make it work in 1 browser.

Shape Tween Gauntlet (swf)

I’m genuinely interested to see if there’s an HTML5/CSS3/JS/Canvas/SVG guru out there that can do it.

To clarify, the reason that I’ve chosen a shape tween is that it utilises one of Flash’s core strengths, manipulating vectors. If you go back to Flash’s birth even before it was Future Splash/Flash 1 the core engine was about taking user drawn input, wibbly lines and turning them into recognisable vectors; straight lines, smooth curves, squares and circles. With this strength creative people are able to realise incredible interactive experiences like this: http://soytuaire.labuat.com/

Happy coding!

PS. If this gets some traffic I may start a series

So they put “Flash” on the iPhone

admin — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 11:32:33 +0000

It wasn’t that much of a surprise, all the hints were there from the press releases yesterday morning (19 of the top 20 handset manufacturers) to the big grid of Open Screen Project partners with room for 1 more logo.

But the thing that concerns me most about Adobe’s announcement (that Flash CS5 can compile to iPhone) is that there were no Apple representatives at MAX. It’s still unclear if what Adobe is doing is sanctioned by Apple.

Flash on the iPhone has been something developers have been asking for since it’s launch, I myself had an email exchange with an Adobe Evangelist who was as excited about the possibilities as I was.

My feeling on the whole thing is more frustration at Apple than respect to Adobe. Frustration because I want to have as close as possible the same web experience on my mobile device as I do on my desktop. Finally the Open Screen Project is coming of age with the release of Flash Player 10.1 and half of it’s focus on Mobile integration.

I have major respect for Flash Player 10.1, there are some awesome features in there that the community have been asking for for ages. I won’t repeat them all here, you can go and read about them on labs.adobe.com

One thing that’s clear is that this latest update will be shipping with devices by the middle of 2010, what’s unclear however is if Adobe have improved the deployment mechanism to update the Flash Player on devices, previously with Flash Lite this has been a major problem. Even if we can’t update past 10.1 we’ve still got a very feature rich Flash Player version on Mobile.

My 30 seconds of fame

admin — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 09:56:38 +0000

After my 3 minute wonder @FOTB Andrew Shorten grabbed me and asked me if I’d answer some questions on camera. At the time I hadn’t realised he would be posting them on the internet for the whole world to see.

They’re a nice insight into the future of Flash, the Flash Community and Flash Catalyst.