Jeff LaMarche on Flash Based iPhone App
The news of Adobe FLash CS 5 ability to create iPhone app is really interesting to developer as well as customers. Will this affecting us, the developer, as the AppStore will flooded with many Flash developer out there? Will the Flash based app as good as native app created with iPhone SDK? Jeff LaMarche has been clearly put some thought on this, read it on his More Flash Thought.
Here are some quick summary of his thought:
1. Larger and slower
In my mind, there’s enough reason to believe the apps won’t be “as good” technically speaking, that it’s fair to put the burden of proof on Adobe. They should prove that these Flash-generated apps are capable of being just as good or at least identify how close they are and support that claim with verifiable data. We already know the file size of the Flash-generated apps are considerably larger than comparable Objective-C apps created with Xcode. Subjective evidence seems to point to the apps also being slower.
2. Changing the Game and experience of exisiting customers as well as developers as well as Apple.
Allowing existing Flash developers and existing Flash content to flood into the App Store almost overnight is bound to cause significant issues for the App Store infrastructure and the people responsible for maintaining it. That, in turn, will cause problems for customers and developers alike.
3. Legal matter as well as political, is in Apple’s hand.
I would say that there’s sufficient grounds for Apple to bring legal proceedings if they choose to. They could very likely get an injunction to prevent Adobe from releasing the iPhone portion of Flash CS 5 if they wanted.
I personally skepctical about the quality of Flash based app compared to native app created with iPhone SDK. I have just the same thought when there were some applications that able to create Flash content with easy click. Generated application would never been as good as native application! Sure, they can be good, but not enough compared to good app created with SDK. More again when we are talking about garbage collector, speed, memory management and optimization, and other many things.
Let’s wait how things come up in the near time.
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