Tag Archives: smartphones

Flash did turn out to be Adobe’s Achilles’ Heel

Posted on by
Reply

Adobe’s decision to halt the development of Flash Player on the Mobile came as a blow to the company’s 2+ year long commitment. They almost went to war with Apple to protect it. And now this. Adobe’s shift in focus from Flash to HTML5 for Mobile Browsers was taken keeping most developers out of focus. It has left them stranded.

What happens now? Adobe says despite discontinuing development they will continue to release bugs and security updates. That’s all for the show. They will drop support for all future device upgrades. This is a rash decision and disrupts the developer ecosystem who were dependent on Flash for mobile integration.

Adobe tried hard implementing Flash into mobiles but performance reports showed poor results. It almost led to diverging of the mobile development, which either for-sided flash or not. This was yet again, not in anyone’s favor. Flash, as Jobs said, was made for the PC-Era. It couldn’t  adapt to the newer standards. It altogether needed a replacement and a gradual shift but continuous upgrades to same old thing wouldn’t do the trick. Adobe failed to understand it and the reason too is clear, it was and is (On Desktops) its cash cow.

They decide to channelize their advancements onto HTML5, the newest open standard for web development. As the market changed, media consumption habits altered and as everything moved to faster performance – Adobe slogged. The Cost was high. Today, the entire brand identity is at stake. Obviously, by letting mobile phones go away, it’s already running a race to lose. Who would want to develop applications for Flash despite its great features if it offers no reliability. Who would want to waste their hardwork?

This would shake any developer’s faith in Flash on ANY platform. How can you suddenly stop supporting a widely distributed client for the newer devices with one blog post? The last two decades, when closed standards were treated with respect, Flash rose to power. Now it’s time that industry moves to Open Standards like HTML5, CSS and Javascript which offer more reliability and if not provide features like Flash but at least turn out to viable alternatives (for now).

There are several reasons why Flash failed.

  • It didn’t garner support from Apple. They hold a lot of Mobile Market Share. A lot of.
  • It really wasn’t that good. Performance sucked and it didn’t go with the concept of newer devices.
  • It had a premium tag for its developer tools. Premium tag for making something while you could run the same trick with Open Standards turned out a price too high to pay for Adobe.
With Flash going, the industry that suffers the most is Gaming. Zynga built an entire platform on Flash, it is now going to have a tough time. Even the newer standards don’t support something that advanced as of yet. What’s the only option left to developers is to start focusing on making native apps for the Mobile OS’s. This step will of course be readily be welcomed by phone companies who desperately want to expand their App Stores.
Conclusion is that this move is going to cost Adobe everything. ABI Research data suggests that HTML5 adoption on mobile devices will be 2.1 Billion in 2016. Flash could have been there but now it will not.

Ubuntu Linux to come to Tablets and Smartphones by 2014 : Do we need one more OS?

Posted on by
1

It’s never bad to have alternatives, right? Windows and Mac are the current highest market share holders in the computer OS area, but we always require an alternative. To prevent market domination or to enforce healthy competition. Ubuntu was made for this purpose, or even if it wasn’t, it’s still doing it.

Ubuntu was destined to enter the smarphone and tablet market. It’s very obvious because if it wants to survive it has to adapt to the changing computing devices. Canonical (Creator of Linux) founder, Mark Shuttleworth is going to announce the future plans at Ubuntu Developer Summit. He says Version 14.04 – April 2014 will see the launch of the OS on tablets and phones.

Ubuntu Unity Interface

They have been in talks with partners for over 18 months and the OS is going to land on ARM powered tablets which are predicted to be out next year.

I can’t deliver a product schedule yet, Ubuntu is already working with hardware partners to bring products to market. As progress is made Ubuntu will take the device-specific code, open source it, and roll it into standard Ubuntu ~ Mark Shuttleworth, Founder – Canonical.

Even Ubuntu’s desktop interface moreover looks like it’s meant for a tablet. It’s too simple to be on a Desktop. The release of the new unity interface was a signal that they’re eyeing touch devices. I don’t think they can really melt a rock because they cannot match the magnitude of iOS or Windows Developers in just few years. Via ZDNet.

Acer to reincarnate and likely to go the Apple way

Posted on by
Reply

Gianfranco Lanci

Gianfranco Lanci ( The CEO of Acer ) resigned from his post yesterday. The Board Of Acer wants it to me more like Apple than to HP. A simple reason for this was that Lanci followed a policy of increasing the volumes of Laptops so that he can provide cheaper Laptops than Dell and HP. Another reason for this could be the huge difference between Apple’s profit margin of 21.5% and Acer’s of 2.3% for the last fiscal year.

JT Wang(On the board of director) has replaced Lanci as the new CEO. Wang wants to concentrate on Tablets and Smartphones around enterprise sales. Wang clearly stated the start of new era for Acer by saying”Recently the iPad [tablet computer] and other new form factors have had a very big impact on the PC market. We have to change our business strategy.”

Let’s see whats the change in the strategy and how it works out. Apple is serving the premium market which means Acer could also be leading the same path. [Source]

Apple to enter Mobile Advertising market with acquisition of Quattro Wireless

Posted on by
4

Google acquired AdMob, silicon valley based startup for a price of $750 Million. This startup was focused on mobile advertising specifically for the growing smartphones, iPods, iPhones, Androids and so on.

Apple is also not behind in the race. Recently there was a cold war between Apple and Google over Google Voice application denial and also the most famous story of 2009, Eric Schimdt, who is Google’s CEO, resigning from Apple as board of director.

Apple is also rumored to be making a new map application which would challenge it’s rival Google Maps , currently used on all iPhones. Apple has challenged Google in nearly all fields and this step could be another challenge.

Quattro Wireless is also another startup which concentrates on advertising on Smartphones. It is supposed to be acquired for a price of $275 Million and the news is expected to arrive today.

Thanks AllThingsD