Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Internet Tools, Developer
CSS Animation to replace need for Flash in MobileSafari? Not likely
New nightly builds of Safari's bleeding-edge doppelgänger, WebKit, are getting some new support for CSS animations -- support that's already available in MobileSafari.
The animations, which include a falling leaves effect, a way to simply animate objects sliding across the screen, and a "pulse" effect (described as "the new <blink>") are all supported by WebKit. The WebKit blog shows code examples about how to use these behaviors in your own sites.
MacRumors's Arnold Kim suggests that Apple may be looking to obviate the need for Flash on the iPhone and iPod touch through the implementation of web tools like CSS Animation. I would argue that while CSS is powerful, getting Flash on the iPhone is about one thing and one thing only: Games.
Flash games have been a free, popular timewaster for years: perhaps knocking centuries off our aggregate productivity. Behind their playful exterior are mountains of code and graphics: multiple player interaction, powerful 3D rendering, score storage, and custom type. If someone asked me (as a web developer) to build FlashCat as a standards-compliant game with CSS Animation, I think I'd choke.
Yes, high-powered Flash applications exist too, pulling data from databases, presenting video, and providing a way for design-conscious web designs to use custom fonts. All of these can be solved through open-source methods (or QuickTime), with an appropriate time investment. Anecdotal evidence suggests that games, however, blow apps out of the water in terms of popularity.
I wouldn't be surprised, personally, if Apple was dragging its feet on implementing (or approving an implementation of) Flash on the iPhone if only to bolster sales of games through the App Store. Giving people a free way to play games they already know and love cannibalizes sales away from the 99-cent timewaster apps that Apple makes a bundle on.
Nevertheless, While CSS Animation is an excellent addition to the standards-compliant web developer's tool shed, Apple isn't using it to bypass Flash. While Flash needs to come to the iPhone and iPod touch -- like all things related to this platform -- it will be on Apple's terms.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Jackinloadup said 12:42PM on 2-06-2009
I completely agree, I cant see css animations replacing flash in the foreseeable future. Due to the slow adoption of CSS3 in addition to being accepted into W3C.
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Pedro said 12:46PM on 2-06-2009
And I would argue that you're both wrong, but specially you. There's no need for flash games with the App Store. The biggest loss when it comes to flash are websites that are flash only and streaming vid.
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Hawkman said 1:06PM on 2-06-2009
Flash gets used for:
- Games
- Presentational animation
- Video
- Ads
CSS animation is only supposed to replace it for presentational purposes. For video, we have QuickTime (and the biggest distributor, YouTube, is doing this already). Whilst on the desktop Flash can be cool for games, there can be no argument that the App Store beats Flash on the iPhone. I can't imagine it'd be an easy task rewriting a Flash app for a hypothetical iPhone Flash, either.
Which leaves Flash ads. I think I'll pass?
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KarlW said 7:10AM on 2-07-2009
I agree. Sites that want a little animation and go to Flash will be appeased with the new standard and be available on all platforms (let's remember that WebKit =/= Safari, as Chrome, Android, Symbian...etc all use it too).
Flash games can't be cross platform. They are heavily dependent on having a keyboard and mouse, and can't take advantage of things like the accelerometer. CSS effects aren't meant to replace them, because it too can't take advantage of the accelerometer.
According to the WebKit blog though, the iPhone's implementation already supports 3D. Interesting, no?
Johnny A said 1:09PM on 2-06-2009
In my opinion, Flash is nothing but a resource hog that doesn't offer many practical uses. The combination of new CSS and Javascript should be able to easily make up for a lack of Flash. Also, like Pedro mentioned, you can get all the games you want at the App Store. As far as using Hulu and whatnot, Google got around using Flash by adopting h.264 support. Even NBC (One of the creators of Hulu) uses it on their own mobile site. So, if you can get around using something that's going to take a long time to load, hog system resources, and eat up battery power, why not?
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Max said 1:30PM on 2-06-2009
Flash also allows for rich interface design. While a lot of it might be gratuitous, done well it adds greatly to the web experience. Plus I can create an interface to a database in Flash AND deploy in in under an hour. That is just not possible with the SDK and the App Store.
Jon said 1:22PM on 2-06-2009
Ummm...wouldn't getting flash on the iPhone be about "two things and two things only"....games and more importantly, video.
Who cares about the games anyway, they won't be better than what's in the app store.
I want flash so that I could use HULU, and the real youtube, and stream some radio stations that require flash.
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richard said 7:22AM on 2-07-2009
It might be, if those two things weren't already on iPhone: games and video.
jay said 1:23PM on 2-06-2009
Flash, whether you like it or not, is a needed part of have real web experience. Flash is often implemented badly and is used for ad—true, but not all Flash is bad. Just like not all Javascript, html sites, or any other media is all bad. I have seen poorly designed pdf sites, quicktime, and java—Flash gets a bad rap because it has a higher penetration within the market.
Some of it sucks—don't visit the sites. Some of it doesn't. Hulu and other sites like it are big reasons for Flash, plus I would like to visit some of the main sites I use—that use flash and view them. If Flash is implemented I would hope there would be a click to view option. If there isn't a CTV option then I will just close the browser on the sites I didn't want to see—just as I do now with HTML sites.
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Max said 1:27PM on 2-06-2009
It's more than games and video: it's also rich internet applications. We have several deployed on our intranet, using Flex, since flash is lightweight and cross-platform. and it's easy to develop with.
I also would like to see some support for video players on sites, but I'd also like to see it to run my apps.
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richard said 7:21AM on 2-07-2009
I'm curious as to why you refer to Flash (let alone Flex!) as lightweight or cross platform. Resource-wise, the AS interpreter is extraordinarily inefficient. And on a mobile platform, where efficiency equals battery life, I'd rather see the same app developed with appropriate tools (read Cocoa) than run inside a runtime environment (read Flash Player). The only way Flash is any good, as a platform, is because there's never been anything better. Until now.
Gav said 1:35PM on 2-06-2009
I want flash so that I can get Adobe Digital Edition epub files authorised on my iPhone. I don't care about games.
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Gazoobee said 1:41PM on 2-06-2009
What a mean-spirited little article.
You are certainly right about the popularity of Flash games, but that's hardly what anyone means when they refer to "Flash replacements" as you well know. Flash Games represent what is *wrong* with Flash in that they are a replacement for things that should be done in the operating system and hog a similarly huge amount of resources. They are also mostly poorly coded, crashy, crapola.
Such games can also be easily implemented in any other technology that similarly attempts to replace the OS with what is essentially a cross-platform "meta-OS."
It's foolish to suggest that the iPhone "needs" Flash because of the games when there are better options in the OS itself.
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required said 2:14PM on 2-06-2009
If Flash, why not Java? If Java and Flash why not Silverlight? If Silverlight, Flash and Java, why not bingo?
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required said 2:18PM on 2-06-2009
Does the iPhone/iPod Touch support SVG? If not why not? How about all of QuickTime? Does their QuickTime support sprites? QuickTime VR? QuickTime Music Synthesizer?
Joe RIckerby said 2:23PM on 2-06-2009
I think we're all missing the point here:
The iPhone is a very different platform to the desktop. While it works very well to have webpages displayed on the device (this is no accident- the W3C have ensured that it is easy to use HTML with a variety of interfaces), there is no reason why flash interfaces designed for the desktop should be anything but horrible and clunky on the iPhone. It's got no keyboard, no 'mouse' that can do anything but click, and a small screen.
So all that existing flash out there (especially games) aren't really going to work. If you had a flash app/game, you're probably going to have to adapt to put it on the iPhone. So why bother? It's not going to be as good as it was on the intended platform.
Another consideration is Apple's perspective- they really like having the control over the apps we can have on the iPhone (for better or worse), I really can't see them let this stuff invade their platform.
What I do miss is flash video. I don't see any reason why the iPhone can't just play .flv files without fully blown Flash.
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Joseph said 2:33PM on 2-06-2009
The CSS animation thing is less of a replacement for Flash than it is intended to make some of the animations used on web sites using toolkits like jQuery render faster in the iPhone Safari (presumably by writing mobile Safari versions of those functions that take advantage of the CSS animation capabilities in mobile Safari).
For animations/simple games, why not use SVG now (instead of waiting for Flash)? For instance, the following example uses a combination of SVG and JavaScript. It runs in Safari and Firefox on a computer and somewhat works on the iPhone (would work fine if it weren't intended to be controlled by a keyboard... a simple addition of some buttons and minor code modifications should do the trick):
- http://www.croczilla.com/svg/samples/svgtetris/svgtetris.svg
Also, check out the extensive examples (most work fine in Safari/mobile Safari):
- http://www.croczilla.com/svg/samples
Something this will not help with (for those that are used to Flash) is that this method (and most methods outside of the App Store) do NOT allow you to technologically protect the source code from download. This matters a lot to some developers and sending the entire source code to the browser as SVG, using Canvas in the browser, and CSS animations do along with JavaScript and all the images won't please everyone.
Apple is right that you CAN use these open alternatives (that will work and are already built into the browser) but they aren't a one size fits all solution for developers. Hence the App store opens more possibilities if you play by Apple's rules (and give them a cut if you want to charge for it). Flash would open the marketplace for more complex paid games/applications outside of the App store.
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Enmamin said 2:40PM on 2-06-2009
The whole is very simple ; bringing flash just against the behalf of Apple on iPhone. Why bother to open a portal for someone else to make money without benefiting yourself ? Did Apple build iPhone for this ? Would Apple allow flash come to iPhone 'just' because users ask for it ? History has told me that they would never do this without a good reason 'for them'.
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SpinThis! said 3:07PM on 2-06-2009
Most *useful* websites have html alternatives. The ones that don't are usually superfluous where a web presence isn't really necessary—sites like Nike, any car company, movie sites, etc.
Even if you could get Flash on the iPhone, I can't see all those sites rendering very well on the iPhone anyway. Go dig up an old iBook G4 (800mhz I think) and go visit a few modern Flash websites and let me know how that goes for you. I tried that—needless to say, I didn't get very far very fast.
And Flash gaming isn't even optimized to use OpenGL so you'd be stuck with crappy framerates in those games anyway.
Just say no to Flash on the iPhone.
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Andrew Noyes said 4:12PM on 2-06-2009
While for the web developer, Flash is an obnoxious technology that makes SEO more difficult, your sites less accessible, spikes bandwidth usage through the roof (you can just about rule out rural 56k and ISDN users) and is a hog of local client-side resources, it is a necessary evil. The W3C is moving at a snail's pace publishing all of the CSS3 modules, let alone the amount of time that will pass before it's reasonably (read: usable) well adopted. Consider that the most popular browser of all time still doesn't have complete standards compliant support of CSS2.1, let alone CSS3.
The most popular websites on the internet use Flash for a myriad of things, the most important of which is on-demand video streaming, like YouTube and Hulu. Scribd also uses Flash to distribute its iPaper format, the reason being that Flash is platform and browser independent.
There may be comparable technologies in WebKit that could eventually mimic the functionality of Flash, but the fact of the matter is that the iPhone is far too insignificant a number of visits for web developers to cater to specifically. Flash is a virtually omnipresent technology which provides lots of useful functionality for modern websites. Apple would be foolish to ignore it forever.
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