

Adobe roadmap for the Flash runtimes - alvivar
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flashplatform/whitepapers/roadmap.html

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0x0
It is funny to see how every Adobe announcement about Flash keeps mentioning
their "commitment to the platform", when they in recent times have:

1\. Dropped Adobe AIR support on desktop Linux ("focusing on Android &
embedded", was it?)

2\. Dropped Adobe Flash Player support on Android (not focusing on Android
anymore?)

3\. Dropped Adobe Flash Player support on Linux (except in Google Chrome)

and here they announce that they're also no longer trying to support the "rich
motion graphics" use case.

~~~
talmand
I would say that's their response to what the market is telling them what they
want and don't want, of which the market has been quite vocal about the past
couple of years. Flash has been slowly evolving into something other than a
web browser plugin for years, we're just now reaching that cutoff point. The
fun will be if the platform can survive as something other than a web browser
plugin.

~~~
0x0
It _did_ evolve into something other than a web browser plugin; Adobe AIR was
launched (with Flex) as a complete solution for writing cross-platform desktop
applications.

By cutting Adobe AIR for Linux out as a surprise move, they did not exactly
build developer confidence in their ability to provide long-term development
platforms worth investing in.

Further, by claiming "commitment" in every press release while simultaneously
discontinuing more and more of the platform itself, it's getting harder and
harder to believe anything they say anymore.

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shimon_e
Interesting. So there will be another 3 version with the following features:

Keyboard input support in full-screen mode

Improved audio support for working with low-latency audio

Ability to progressively stream textures for Stage 3D content

LZMA compression support for ByteArray

Frame label events

ActionScript workers (enables concurrent ActionScript execution on separate
threads)

Support for advanced profiling

Support for more hardware-accelerated video cards (from 2005/2006) in order to
expand availability of hardware accelerated content

Improved ActionScript performance when targeting Apple iOS (What the???
iOS???)

Performance index API to inform about performance capabilities of current
environment

Release outside mouse event API

Refactoring and modernizing the current core Flash runtime code base

Work on the ActionScript Virtual Machine

Updates to the ActionScript language

Doesn't seem like there will be anything new that can not be currently albeit
less efficiently.

~~~
IanDrake
>ActionScript workers (enables concurrent ActionScript execution on separate
threads)

Ha! Been asking for this feature for the last 2 years. Now it's just 3
releases away. What's that like...2 more years?

~~~
joshtynjala
They switched the Flash runtimes to a quarterly release schedule semi-
recently. As mentioned in the roadmap document, the release that will include
workers is coming in the second half of 2012. Maybe as early as six months
from now, if you assume that 11.2 is coming very soon.

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pan69
It would be really interesting if Adobe made the Flash Platform available for
the mainstream console market and tied it in (or preferably made it optional)
with a game store where people can buy and developers can sell games for these
consoles.

~~~
teyc
They shut down the AIR marketplace
[http://www.adobe.com/devnet/air/articles/air_marketplace_faq...](http://www.adobe.com/devnet/air/articles/air_marketplace_faq.html)
but it is worth trying again.

~~~
pan69
Never even knew that existed!

The problem with the Flash runtime and building applications on it is that
UI's created on the Flash runtime get very, what's a good word?, sticky?

Look at Balsamiq Mockups. Weird scroll bars (not OS native) and the UI just
isn't as smooth as native OS counterparts. Would you want to browse Amazon
that was build as a big Flash app? Of course, no one does.

However, it's seems that Adobe has finally found a niche with the Flash
runtime, games.

Disclaimer: Since 2001 and 2010 I was a full time Flash platform/Actionscript
developer.

