Adobe Hopes Wallaby Can Vault Apple’s Flash Blockade: Online Video News «
Ever since Steve Jobs issued his “Thoughts on Flash” almost a year ago, there’s has been a lot written about the conflict between Adobe’s favorite runtime and Apple’s iOS platform, supported by the powerful new capabilities of HTML5.
We’ve certainly given it plenty of attention as Adobe has tried, and largely failed, to get Flash onto the iPhone, iPad and iPod.
It’s starting to look like those arguments won’t matter any more, however, since Adobe appears to be switching its strategy and launching new products that can cope with Apple’s restrictions. The first major example: Wallaby, a system it is launching today to convert basic Flash files — such as animations and banner ads — into code that will work on iOS.
Wallaby in action
A prototype of the system was first shown off at Adobe’s MAX conference in October, but this time it’s real: as of now it should be available to download from Adobe Labs.
I spoke to Adobe’s Tom Barclay about the launch, who said that the project had a specific purpose — to make Apple’s Flash ban less painful for developers — but pointed out that it was still very much experimental.
“There’s still room for improvement, but I think we’ve addressed a very specific use case for banner ads on iOS,” he told me.
He’s right to emphasize the limitations, because Wallaby certainly has them right now.
While it can port over simple animations and transitions, there’s a lot of information that it can’t handle: notably ActionScript instructions (which are used to program inside Flash) don’t convert, although Barclay suggested that they may come into the picture further down the line. Similarly, some of Flash’s higher-end features — such as filters and blend modes — aren’t being ported through Wallaby yet. And it doesn’t convert audio and video because HTML5 has its own dedicated tags for those.
It’s also, for now, focused on Webkit browsers like Apple’s Safari and Google Chrome. In the future, if there’s demand, Adobe says it will extend the system to other browsers with different code bases, like Firefox or Opera (but not, he suggested, Internet Explorer — at least any time soon).
So is this Adobe capitulating?
It’s likely to be painted that way in much of the technology press, but that’s probably unfair. In one way, Adobe might have to take this route: after all, short of an antitrust lawsuit, it can’t force Apple to support a system it doesn’t like. But to think that this is a case of Steve Jobs emerging victorious over his rivals is a dramatic — and dangerous — simplification of what’s going on.
Of course Adobe wants wider support for Flash, but it also already has a foot in the HTML camp too. That’s because Adobe is about a lot more than Flash — even in its own product lineup, it isn’t the only game in town. The company also produces HTML editing software like Dreamweaver, which can hardly ignore the advances being made in the Web’s native language.
Adobe has admitted that it didn’t realize mobile would take off so quickly, but now it is trying to get itself back on track. As Paul Gubbay, the company’s VP of engineering for design and web, told me last year: “We have to be realists about what’s happening.”
So, will Wallaby fix the enmity between Apple and Flash? Not entirely. For a start it can’t handle complex Flash objects like games or applications. But it does solve a major and valuable problem, advertising. And it sends a clear signal that Adobe has decided it is more productive to build answers rather than just stamp its feet in protest.
