Home Android Hey Adobe, Keep Your Hands Off My Ice Cream Sandwich!
November 22, 2011 10 Comments

Hey Adobe, Keep Your Hands Off My Ice Cream Sandwich!


Adobe, which decided to kill off mobile-based Flash a few days back, will be delivering one last update to its soon-to-be-dead technology. The update, which comes out later this year, will bring support for the recently open sourced Ice Cream Sandwich. Despite being buggy, many ICS users are griping about the lack of Flash on their device, and many, in fact, are impatiently waiting to get their hands on the update. And even though it is very thoughtful of Adobe to cater to the needs of its loyal Android users, it’s still something the company shouldn’t be doing in the first place.

Ice Cream Sandwich, which is the fourth iteration of Android, is not just a simple upgrade; it’s a complete revamp of the open source operating system. For the first time, Google went back to the drawing board and made some serious improvements in Android’s design as well as functionality. Galaxy Nexus users, who are the first ones to try out the new OS, are quite happy with the new direction Google’s heading in. That said, like with every new upgrade, there are some issues with it. Apart from the recently surfaced volume-muting bug, one of users’ biggest complaints with ICS is the lack of Flash support. The select few Galaxy Nexus owners, who had switched to Android just for Flash, were disappointed when web pages looked just the same as they did on their year-old iPhone. However, despite the fact that Adobe has killed off Flash for mobile, it will, as told to Slashgear, deliver one last update in order to support Android 4.0.

The Problem with Flash on ICS

With ICS, Google has started off on a clean slate and in the coming years its omnipresence in the mobile market seems imminent. The problem with bringing Flash to Android 4.0 is that it will only bog down the adoption of HTML5. iOS and Android are currently two of the most popular mobile platforms around. Thanks to Steve Jobs’s reservations about the technology, Apple has already banned Flash on its browser. That leaves Android, the only major mobile operating system with support for Adobe’s failed relic. If, let’s say, Ice Cream Sandwich grabs a significant share in the mobile market by the year’s end, website owners who’re thinking about moving to HTML5 will get a good reason to procrastinate. This is particularly true for niche blogs who write Android-specific articles. If their site has 70-80 % of the traffic from Android users, they won’t even bother taking off any Flash-based content from their site. Thankfully though, the next version of Android, titled Jelly Bean, will be Flash-free. That said, it will take at least another year till it comes out, and by the time it does, ICS will be the most common Android around.

My advice to Adobe

Now, my advice to Adobe is this: Since you’ve already killed off that caveman-friendly technology, why bother putting it on an OS that’s going in exactly the opposite direction? So Adobe, if you’re busy developing Flash for ICS, please stop; do something better with your time. We don’t need it. And we don’t need to care about those who need it. It’s buggy, it’s messy and it will only impede the growth of HTML5.

What can I do?

As a Nexus S owner, I’ll be one of the first Android users – after Galaxy Nexus users that is — to get my hands on the sandwichy upgrade. By the time Adobe releases Flash for ICS, which will happen by the year’s end, my phone will be running Android 4.0(hopefully). Once upgraded, I’ve decided that, no matter what happens, I’m NOT going to install Flash on my fresh and clean phone. It completely undermines the experience of having such a big upgrade. Moreover, I think you too should do the same. Yes, boycott Flash on ICS. Just don’t install it. You can live without it; why do you need it for anyway?

If you’re an Android user, uninstall Flash from your device right now. Also, make sure that once ICS starts rolling out to major devices and carriers, encourage other users to avoid installing Flash on their phones. You can use a tag like #FlashfreeICS to let others know that you’re a proud ICS user but don’t prefer having the primitive technology on it. When more and more users will stop using Flash, then only website owners will think about moving to HTML5. Once that battle is won, it’s time to take on the bigger devil, that is, Flash on desktop.

Filed Under: Android, Editorial Tagged: ,
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  • timothylrobb

    Hmmm. Failed relic, huh. Umm. Flash is used everywhere for a reason! HTML5 is great and all, but none of the browsers agree how to render it. It’s the same crappy mess that we have with HTML4. Try programming in HTML5 for yourself. See if you can get the same result across all platforms and OSes. Good luck with that. At least with Flash the results are always consistent… ALWAYS!!!!

    What’s wrong with having the option of using Flash? Currently I have my own cell phone set to only use flash when I choose. It’s an option and not a requirement.

    Why was flash created in the first place? Because HTML couldn’t handle rich media and it took this long to even get to the point to where it was slightly considered feasible. Frame rates with HTML5 are still in question compared to Flash. HTML5 still doesn’t do the Shape tweening that flash does, though, so good luck with advanced morphs and transformations. Guess you will have to rely on some other package to simulate that. Perhaps Adobe’s upcoming HTML5 animation package will be able to handle that, though I doubt it will be available in an initial release.

    Failed Relic? Flash has been on top for how long? How many years? I wouldn’t call that a failure. You sound like an uneducated teenager throwing a temper tantrum with your rant!

    Why are you so against it? Oh! Let me guess! You decided that because popular news channels are bashing it that you should jump on the band wagon. That makes you someone who is not pro choice. You can’t think for yourself and you decided that you should make up everyone else’s mind as to how to accomplish something such as rich media presentations on the web. Seriously!?

    I personally like it when everything just works, no matter how it was made. Tech novices aren’t going to understand why the website they are looking at doesn’t work because there is no flash player. I hate explaining to computer illiterate friends that their video won’t play because they don’t have the right codec installed or they can’t read that document because they don’t have the right software installed. Things should just work. Let Adobe provide the option if they want to.

    Tech Politics should die! Not the Technology!

    • jeremy

      @timothylrobb

      flash should die or become open, adobe would never let it go open source though so it should die.

      • timothylrobb

        @jeremy @timothylrobb Flash is open already and has been for a long time. Adobe cannot make it open source, however, due to the patents on video and audio codecs that they have gotten licenses to include with Flash. Tell me. How does open source make a platform superior? Is Adobe Flash less capable at providing rich content because it doesn’t provide source code? What do you yourself need the source code for? Do you know how to program? I personally find that closed source software is often far superior to open source alternatives? Why? It’s likely because of the fact that companies have resources to do research and development, not to mention that they have resources to polish software. So can you tell me why Adobe Flash should die? Honestly, I don’t care if flash is on the mobile phone. It is ok to have software or a website that requires a desktop or laptop to view, but truly, what makes Adobe Flash a technology that should die? I bet you that you have no honest good reason to demand that it should die. I bet you don’t realize that some of the most popular apps on the iPhone were made with flash. Honestly. Flash isn’t some outdated technology. It is far superior to HTML5 and will continue be superior for years to come. I’m sorry despite the amount of hate that Steve Jobs has generated for flash, I am not convinced that Flash isn’t a good platform to perform rich animation, create rich Internet applications, or create desktop and cell phone applications. Do your research before you accept any opinionated article on the web.

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  • john_cockroft

    How about we get Lightspark (http://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/lightspark ) working PROPERLY on Android and then Adobe become irrelevent. People who WANT to use Flash can do so and those who want to use HTML5 can do so as well. Android is a enabling operating system – not a ‘disabling’ operating system which forces you to do things in a particular way :)

    • http://techlaze.com/ techlaze

      @john_cockroft I love the idea. The more alternatives the better. But I have my doubts whether many site admins will go for it. As a webmaster, you have to think about all the platforms, one of the most dominant among them is the flashless iPhone. Of course, if you’re running a niche blog written for Android users, this is perfect. Otherwise, website owners will have to stick to HTML5.

  • http://techlaze.com/ techlaze

    @timothylrobb I’m not jumping on the bandwagon. Flash is simply a technology that needs to go. I understand that it’s hard for devs to code for HTML5 but we’ve to make a start somewhere don’t we?

    There’s always an option, a choice, similarly we also have the choice to use IE6. Then why are we telling the world to stop using IE6? I’ve seen banking websites recommending IE6 for a long time and it just used to piss me off.

    As far as living without Flash is concerned, it’s not as bad as people make it out to be. I’ve uninstalled flash on my Nexus S and I’ve had no problems so far. The main sites I visited were mashable, thenextweb and techcrunch, each of which have a separate mobile site. In fact, if you go to techlaze.com from your mobile, you’ll get to see a custom mobile site without any flash in it. (This is made possible due to the WPTouch plugin I use on my WordPress installation.) There are always workarounds for site developers, it’s only when they’re convinced that there’s a need for a change they’ll implement them.

    I’m not throwing a tantrum here. I use the web and I feel that the only way it will move forward is by getting itself rid off all the proprietary technologies.

  • N2Paul

    Bullshit, we need flash, if Android isnt going to support it then theres no reason I should move to Android.

  • Tim Trzepacz

    HTML 5 is slow and inconsistent across browsers. It is a very poor replacement for Flash. I wish Adobe would stop drinking the Apple kool-aid and put the resources behind Flash to continue it’s success as the only stable platform for internet software development. Killing mobile Flash is a bad idea.