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April 05, 2006
A Watershed
A Watershed: Pure opinion here... you don't have to believe me; this is just what I feel today. Today's news about Verizon and Adobe "developing the Flash mobile ecosystem in North America" and the word about the explosive public response to NTT DoCoMo's FlashCast-based i-Channel service feels to me like a marker we'll remember in the future. Sounds corny, but I kept thinking today of the height of the CD-ROM era, when Director was the only real cross-platform solution and was efficient besides, yet there was lots of debate about Visual Basic, custom C engines, systems like SuperCard or mFactory or many more. The introduction of the Shockwave web browser extension in 1995 changed the debate entirely -- there were still lots of other promises about network calls and in-browser capabilities through 1996, but few deliverables, and this event marked the spot that the entire scene changed. Now we're finally getting major carrier presence into the North American market -- I'll finally be able to use the advanced user experiences of everyday Tokyo and Seoul right here in my own hometown. I've got the same feeling I did when Shockwave went "beyond the CD" to the World Wide Web. Maybe people won't like engaging interfaces in their pockets? The NTT DoCoMo results show that people really go for this advanced stuff when it's available. Maybe it's just a Japanese thing? We've seen out-of-your-mind-incredible adoption rates on Flash Player 8, across regions... the addiction to sweet experiences is not limited to one geographic region. Maybe something will change in the meantime? Good point, it's hard to predict the future until after it's passed, but the trends, the announcements, the commitments are in the public record now... I think five years we'll look back on this day, and just say "wow"....
Posted by John Dowdell at April 5, 2006 09:25 PM
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Comments
I couldn't agree more John - I think looking back in a year or two that the announcements from the first quarter of 2006 will be viewed as a major turning point for Flash on devices.
Posted by: Bryan Rieger at April 6, 2006 07:03 AM
I hope you're right John, unfortunately I have my concerns. You can read about them here: http://www.mikekrisher.com/2006/04/mobile-ecosystem-questions-about-flash.php
Because this is a BREW port, means developers might have to learn BREW standards as well. Hopefully it means we, as content developers, can get our content onto the "ecosystem" as SWFs and don't have to provide accredited, licensed BREW applications.
Posted by: Mike Krisher at April 6, 2006 07:43 AM
John, I thought that the flash in phones was flash lite -- isn't that a version number less-than eight? Meaning actionscript 2 and no wonderful alpha blending? (not meaning to imply here that a phone has to have alpha blending to be interesting. just asking).
[jd sez: I'm not sure yet exactly what will be deployed and how in that deal, sorry. ]
Posted by: George Girton at April 6, 2006 02:16 PM