The Back Button

Something i’ve been wanting to ask for a long time now is, why doesn’t the Flash Player auto update? When Moviestar is released, wouldn’t it be great if YouTube would be able to switch all of it’s users almost overnight? It seems to me that it should be a no brainer feature!

So what are the options?

1. Silent Update
This is a tricky one. On one hand you have a seamless user experience and on the other you have trust issues. I’m very much about users having seamless experiences, I think it’s the cornerstone of todays modern computing. So imagine if you will, Flash 10 has just been pushed to the masses and your able to start developing on the new version straight away, without your boss bring you back down to earth.

It sound like bliss to me. But let’s also imagine that the Flash Player was Real Networks, Microsoft or “Facebook App Company X” product. It’d just be a matter of time before we saw piggy-back middleware taking over our machines. As Flash developers, we need to know that our experiences are not going to be tainted over time.

But, we trust Adobe right? We have disabled keyboard access in fullscreen, cross-domain policies and whole bunch of other stuff that stops Flash developers running riot with a SWF. The player has an excellent history of backwards compatibility, thus I’m not fearful of updates breaking my favorite sites. The only thing the Flash player is infamous for is attracting a long list of bad developers who create poor experiences.

So maybe this isn’t a trust issue. Could it be in-fact a self-help mechanism for the Flash Player team; either make compelling improvements or else no one will choose to upgrade. If your guarantied that your user base will automatically receive your software, where’s the driving cog of your motivation?

2. Built in Express Install
Today the best way to make sure users upgrade is to use the Express Installation “hack”. I call it a “hack” because it’s ugly, super ugly. JavaScript, VBScript and a SWF Badge all get together and if the user clicks YES, the mission is successful. And to top it off, it’s up to the developer to implement all of this correctly. Can Adobe sleep at night? I know I can’t; even the new SHARE beta gives me the express install dialog even though I’m using the latest F9 player, what gives?

Why not build it into the Flash Player? Well, I’m kind of half hoping that it’s already been built into Flash 9, but I’m not holding my breath. So, let’s try and understand why Express Install wouldn’t be built in. Well for one, it’s a branded upgrade; the SWF badge can be skinned in anyway you wish. Also a site may have an alternative to there Flash experience that they would prefer a user visited instead of installing new software.

I think this is enough reason not to build in Express Install as it may take too much away from a brand, but on the other hand, why not let developers decide … stage.enableAutoUpgrade = true .. sound good?

I think I’ve gone on long enough to get my point over; we need a built in solution for upgrading users. Especially now that we have competition such as Silverlight biting at Flash’s heals. We know Microsoft won’t play fair. And as I recently found out, they are already pushing out FUD to people why they need to be using Silverlight. Please Adobe, act! What good is Quake II running in Flash if no once can view it for 12 months?

MAX Photos

Chicago Photos - Part 1

Chicago Photos - Part 2

FYI .. Everyone should take a Segway tour!

While in Chicago attending this years MAX conference, I happened to start talking to someone in my hotels bar. Of course the conversation starts off polity by asking each other why we were both visiting the city. And as soon as I stated that I was a Flash developer attending MAX, the first thing he said was “you should be using Silverlight”. Of course my ears prick up and I feel a slight sense of rage come over me.

It turns out that I had randomly started talking to someone from Microsoft PR, Redmond. Of course my first questions were “why?” and “what advantages does it give me over Flash?”. He then replied, without hesitation, “HD Video”. My jaw drops in shock. I was anticipating a stream on answers of why Silverlight was “the bee’s knees” and now here I am digesting a now outdated advantage of Silverlight.

I inform him of Flash’s ability to play H.264 video to which he replies “oh…”. Upon quizzing him further (in a genuinely curious way) on Silverlights advantages, he simply claims that “a lot of people are excited about it”.

I think it goes to show that Silverlight, in the eyes of Microsoft corp, is nothing more that an answer for Flash’s online video dominance. Dominance being the only thing they seem to care about as the conversation then leads into Windows market share and web standards.

He states “Why should people need to use anything than IE, when other browsers can’t work most web pages correctly?”! Of course, this does sound somewhat logical, but to a developer, it makes your eyes turn red and steam come out of our ears. I try to explain to him about the browser wars, W3 and that WebKit/Sarari is the most compliant HTML viewer today. He doen’t seem very interested and goes on to mention Windows market share about four to five times more. It does seems that the MS kool aid is of the utmost potent.

I then go onto make digs about “The WOW starts now” and Vista being the new Windows ME. He tells me to check out Engadget in the morning for new the Zune and then he calls it an evening.

No wonder FUD is widespread on the Internet with people like this.

Wow, what a week! I’d like to start off this post by extending my warm thanks to the folks from Adobe and the staff at the McCormick Place for hosting such a great event. This was my first time at MAX and it didn’t disappoint.

The biggest announcement this year in my opinion was Thermo. I’m pleased to say that my Thermo Prediction proved to be very close indeed. Though, I think I was hoping for something a little closer to Apple Motion in it’s creativity capabilities. I guess until the display list gets full hardware acceleration, we wont see that any time soon.

Something else from my prediction id like to see is a “behavior” library. Possibly hosted on the new Adobe Developer Connection website. Though with 3rd party Flex components, I’m sure there will be a mechanism for this somewhere.

Up until now, the Flex Framework has always been too bland for me, being an AS3 purist. But now with the announcement of Thermo, I can almost now see the appeal of the framework and MXML. I can’t wait to see how this new product grows into its version one release.

To read more about Thermo, check out the Thermo page on Adobe Labs.

Next year MAX shall take place in November and be hosted in the city of San Francisco. (Boo! No traveling for me )
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