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I don’t know how long Apple’s ad will run for. So go visit espn.com right now.

You can still access all of the site’s menus even when the advert is running, and portions of the website seem to have been cleared out of the way. Seamless, non-irritating, responsive, intuitive, and a very attractive advert to watch on top of all that. Simply awesome. Oh, and it’s Flash-less!

Any company that shows this duty of care to an audience it is trying to attract is one that I am going to buy stuff from. Simple as that.

Take note Wired, and other crappy ad laden sites. This is what you should be doing when you do your huge banner adverts.

This extension removes the need to use flash on YouTube by converting all videos to their HTML5 video tag equivalents. It also has the added benefits of decreased CPU usage compared to flash, and the removal of in-video ads.

Using it now. It seems to work just fine.

A few of you have asked why this is better than the YouTube HTML5 beta, and the reason is very simple: YouTube will only display an HTML5 player for videos without advertising in them, so videos from Vevo or many other popular sources will still use flash.

Getting rid of ads is a real bonus!

Research In Motion (RIM) is extremely excited about the opportunities available with the new BlackBerry® Tablet OS and its corresponding application platform. Building on the incredible power of the QNX operating system that’s uniquely suited for tablet computing, the BlackBerry Tablet OS will lay the foundation for the future while preserving the key investments that have made the BlackBerry platform so successful.

• Download the BlackBerry Tablet OS SDK Beta for Adobe® AIR: SDK for Windows®, SDK for Mac
• Download the BlackBerry® PlayBook™ Simulator Beta: simulator for Windows, simulator for Mac

Having a look at the getting started guide now. But bearing in mind that it’s just for Adobe AIR apps I might wait until they release the real SDK.

I warned Palm about this approach.

Today we’re making available a preview of Adobe® Flash® Player that we’re calling “Square.” This preview includes support for two new areas, namely enhanced support for Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 9 Beta and native 64-bit support for all major desktop operating systems including Linux, Mac, and Windows.

I have spoken previously about the various Apple iPhone OS / iOS Developer Agreement clauses that have caused consternation within developer circles, and a feeding frenzy among bloggers over the last few months…

Clause 3.3.1 – Language and Development Kit Restrictions.

Clause 3.3.2 – Restrictions on interpreted code.

Clause 3.3.9 – Restrictions on collecting User’s Data.

Although on the face of it these clauses if applied to the letter were quite worrying, I have always maintained that people were getting their knickers in a twist unnecessarily. Apple was simply setting a base line, and would apply a certain amount of judgement in special cases.

That didn’t stop some people predicting that Unity and others would soon be booted from the App Store. Something I said they were wrong about then. And I have been proven to be correct about today.

In short the changes to Apple’s iOS Developer Agreement mean this :

• Flash Apps Flash Professional CS5 authoring tool OK.
• Flash is not.
• Scripts that are compiled at run time are OK.
• Downloading new scripts to an app over the air is not.
• AdMob are “in”.
• Distimo may have to work harder to “be in”.

Adobe responded to all this today…

Apple’s announcement today that it has lifted restrictions on its third-party developer guidelines has direct implications for Adobe’s Packager for iPhone, a feature in the Flash Professional CS5 authoring tool. This feature was created to enable Flash developers to quickly and easily deliver applications for iOS devices. The feature is available for developers to use today in Flash Professional CS5, and we will now resume development work on this feature for future releases.

This is great news for developers and we’re hearing from our developer community that Packager apps are already being approved for the App Store.

If you thought App Approval times were bad before…

Ironically this new open, transparent and friendly face to the App Store is more likely to make me consider moving to other services…

Just how bad is Flash on Android?

What does this demonstrate? Simply that the idea that Apple could simply magically put Flash on the iPad (which runs a processor in the same class as the Nexus One) is fantasy. Ignoring the broader reasons for Apple wanting to keep Flash off its platform, it’s clear that Flash is simply too processor-intensive to work properly on mobile-class processors as currently specified.

Pretty bad. In fact, if you’re thinking video, utterly unusable.

From Technovia.

Of course, some of this saw this coming in May, and of course prior to that. Which is why some of us were in whole hearted agreement with Apple’s strategy for Flash.

Yet another move to end dependence on Flash, giant online video website, Vimeo, today introduces a new universal video player designed to work on the iPhone, iPad, iPod touch (iOS) and Android devices.

“With the latest generation of browsers and devices, we’ve had huge demand for an embeddable player that works with HTML5 and on devices like iPad and iPhone,” said Andrew Pile, vice president of product and development for Vimeo, in a statement.

In other news Adobe’s CEO, talking with the London Telegraph, said that his company would “..rather work with partners who are interested in working with us.”

Translation : The FTC probe thing didn’t come off. And we still have not delivered any of the software we promised.

For those of you that have been waiting to install a stable version of Flash with hardware acceleration. Or those that have been struggling with browser crashes and machine lockups with the Beta Gala Flash build. Well, your pain is over. Maybe.

Of course, you will not see the tiny top left white rectangle anymore, we removed it.

I am sad to see the little white box has gone though.

Adobe hasn’t given any signs that it’s close to porting Flash to webOS, Palm said in an AT&T online app development seminar on Thursday. When asked about the multiple delays, a representative said that Palm didn’t ‘know what the hold-up is’ with getting it ready. Adobe itself hasn’t commented on the state of the webOS version or of other platforms.

Surprise!

Are Adobe still aiming for 50 Bazillion Flash handsets by next week?

Perhaps Adobe thought that HP / Palm aren’t making mobile phones anymore?

I asked the question in this post’s title, perhaps somewhat flippantly, in an earlier post today. But it was not posed without first seriously considering that possibility.

This week Unity celebrated its 5th anniversary…

Unity has succeeded in the browser game market where Flash never has :

But even if the new HTML standard represents a somewhat unknown, distant threat to Flash, this week’s news that the Unity plugin has passed its 30 millionth download shows that, for gamers wanting more graphically advanced browser games, Flash has significant competition already. “Unity’s strength lies in 3D gaming, an area that Flash has never made any real progress in,” says Lloyd. “If you take a look at 3D web-based games, Flash pales in comparison to hardware-accelerated 3D with the Unity plugin.

From Edge Online.

In some ways Flash’s migration to mobile may even be a last gasp for the technology. Much in the way that the 2D and pixel art genres have seen a resurgence in budget console and mobile game ecosystems. Perhaps Flash too will have a resurgence in those places too.

But I fear it will be short lived. A prospect that this article from Edge Online explores…

There are some interesting comments from a range of industry people. They all pretty much seem to conclude that Flash will survive…

Tom Fulp, creator of the Newgrounds Flash game portal and founder of Behemoth, developer of Alien Hominid and Castle Crashers, has always been publically supportive of Flash and the developers who work with it. But even he is diplomatic when it comes to Apple’s refusal to welcome the plug-in to their products. “In all honesty, I want to flat-out hate Apple for their decision. But they do have some valid arguments, as Flash has not traditionally run well on mobile devices. The hardware keeps getting better, though, so the excuses are running out. I do think Apple likes to control the access to software via their App Store, but I also do believe a lot of their other reasons for not supporting Flash. I think they’ll regret it some day. I’m already considering Droid phones and the HP Slate instead of iPhone 4 and iPad.

I am not so sure.