Flash being replaced with Adobe Animate CC

So the news is out. Flash is being replaced with adobe animate cc. The full adobe announcement can be seen here. What does this mean? It means that Adobe is trying to rebrand Flash. Flash is not going away. Adobe is essentially just renaming it. However, there is more to it than that. Adobe has been working on various HTML5 output tools for the past few years (ie Edge Animate). So when this is released over the next few months, will Edge Animate go away and be merged with Flash? Will Flash actually have good HTML5 output?

Currently instructional designers are using captivate and articulate for most of their development because these tools are easy to use. However, these tools have major limitations. The HTML5 output is OK but even if it was perfect these tools are a little more than animated flash cards. They do an ok job but a serious training developer needs something more powerful with no limits. Currently this involves programming (ie javascript, java, etc), flash (which isnt compatible on mobile devices), or game engine software like unity. If the new version of flash truly can push out HTML5 content that has the power of an object oriented language then it could be a game changer. However, I do not see this happening just yet. All of the tests I have done are far from perfect using what Adobe currently has on the market. I think a big issue is that Adobe Animate really needs to use javascript instead of AS3 for programming but I am not sure this is the direction they are going – instead they push out AS3 content and convert it to javascript. I guess we will find out in the next few months when Animate is released.

Cyanogenmod hits 10 million users!

Quite an accomplishment. For those that do not know what CM is, it is a ROM for android devices. What does that mean? It means that the company, cyanogenmod, took the open source operating system Android, modified it, and put it on their website for anyone with an Android phone to download and install. I have used it but I prefer AOKP.

http://www.cyanogenmod.org/

Rooted your Android phone, now what?

Now that you have rooted there are many things you can do but one of the biggest is flashing a new rom. What does this mean exactly? It mean installing a new operating system on your phone. You can find these online in many different places like rootzwiki and xda. So if wanted the latest version on android you can get it. Now a few recommendations before you flash a new rom:

1. Back up your current OS by creating a nandroid. This will vary depending on the type of recovery rom you have installed. I personally prefer clockworkmod.

2. Find a good ROM. I have tried about 10 different. The most popular are cyanogenmod (cm or cmod) and AOKP. Here is a good article that breaks these down

3. Install it and have fun.

4. Once you flashed the rom remember to install the latest gapps package. This refers to google apps such as gmail, etc.

If you are curious how to flash a rom this depends on your phone and recovery software you have installed. For most phones you will boot into recovery and flash away.

Flash DOES work on iPhone and iPad!

I cannot stress this enough. It drives me crazy every time I see someone say this as I know that person is uninformed and is not working with these technologies because Flash DOES work on the iPhone and iPad.

You can create apps in Flash. They run very well. You do not need special software to run them. In fact, as a user you would never know your app was developed in Flash because you would get it in the app store. You probably even have iPhone or iPad apps on your device that were developed in Flash.

So where did this rumor come from? Flash does not work on the mobile browser. So people assume since it doesnt work on the browser it doesnt work on the device but that is very wrong.

Why would you develop an app in Flash instead of Xcode? Because that app can also run on Android. That means you develop one app that runs on both operating systems.