Highlights of the Week
The Google I/O event just passed us by and there have plenty of other major things happenings in the mobile phone industry. If you have not been in touch with the largest headlines, here is the quick recap of things.
First off, Apple is still undecided about the worldwide launch of the iPad. The touch screen tablet is still slated for a May 28 launch, though the official UK Apple online website now states that the device will be in shelves by June 7 –just in time for Apple’s big announcement. Many are expecting the folks at Cupertino to finally show off their new iPhone HD/4G handset. In other Apple news, they are now facing about four different patent infringement lawsuits; one each from Nokia, HTC, Elan Microelectronics and some company named Monkey (no, we are not kidding).
Google has finally come out with Android 2.2 Froyo as well as the announcement of their next Android version, 3.0 Gingerbread which is expected to appear later this year. The company is now focusing on development of HTML5 along with Adobe who has promised to deliver their own HTML5 development tools –something that would certainly make a lot of developers happy.
A new Dreamweaver has been shown at the Google I/O where Adobe showed off the software’s ability to handle different HTML5 and CSS for phone, tablet and desktop variations of a single website.
Speaking of Google, the company is now under investigation from Germany and Spain regarding the WiFi data that was collected by the Google Street Car. UK’s ICO has decided to respect and honor Google’s decision to delete the data.
In the world of social networking, Facebook has launched the new 0.facebook.com and m.facebook.com –two super mobile optimized versions of the website (0 for standard phones, m for touch screen devices). The social network has also partnered with 50 operators across 45 countries to make access to the mobile versions of the site free of charge. Sadly, the UK is not in that list.
Flash Not Dead and Developers Know It
Adobe is pushing strong with its “Love Adobe” campaign. They have set up their site in order to show the world where they stand in terms of ‘open’ development and of course, what purpose Flash serves in the current era of the internet.
Flash is of course, old technology, but it is far from obsolete. Despite the fact that HTML5 is starting to be adapted, the fact of the matter is that a vast majority of media on the internet is encoded in Flash formats. From videos to web apps, there are thousands to Flash based net content. Web browsers simply cannot do with just supporting the newer HTML5 and not have Flash –it leaves too much content to be inaccessible.
Well known web developer and book writer Jonathan Snooks shares his viewpoint on the current state of Flash:
“(Yet) Flash has turned into an annoyance for many consumers. Garish advertising is strewn everywhere; large, slow and confusing animated site intros are unnecessary glitz; deep-linking to content is often impossible; and normal browser features like keyboard navigation aren't available.”
For those of you who are sick and tired of those large pop up banner ads that use Flash, you are not alone. A vast majority of websites on the internet have pop up Flash advertisements that almost refuse to leave the screen no matter how much one begs. Some sites end up as completely being not viewable because of a banner that will fill up the whole screen each time a mouse hovers on top of the ads. More commonly, there are thousands of Flash adverts that will make users want to turn off their audio simply to be rid of the annoying sound effects in the background.
Of course, there is much more to Flash than the bad examples that people often come across. First off, Facebook’s most successful apps have Flash elements. Zynga , one of the largest game developers for the social networking site, heavily relies on Flash for games such as Farmville which has over 75 million users. There are many sites which are not viewable or accessible if Flash is disabled. Simply put, browsers need to support both HTML5 and Flash -regardless of how old Flash already is.
“Right now, HTML5 is slowly becoming a viable alternative to Flash for a greater variety of situations. However, Flash will continue to fill in the gaps for years to come because it continues to solve problems that web developers have and that can't be solved with any other client-side technology.”