Why is Adobe really doing this?
Porting the same experience whether it is standalone or in-browser content, on a variety of platform remains a challenge due to fragmentation and deployment barriers. Adobe wants to latch onto the developer group that’s comfortable with Flash, yet wants their services and content to run across platforms – this by making its runtime consistent across all devices and encourage developers to design accordingly. Obviously, using Flash platform tools offered by Adobe. In other words, it’s an effort to make the Flash platform a de-facto development & delivery standard for the entire gamut of devices. Though some Flash platforms tools like the Flex SDK are freely available from Adobe, for animation and design you still need to depend on Adobe’s Creative Suite of tools – which is not free.

What’s Adobe’s contribution?
The most important one is Adobe removing restrictions on SWF and FLV/F4V specifications. So one can now develop software that can actually “play” SWF content. Also porting Flash runtimes on handheld devices has been made royalty free (which wasn’t the case earlier).

How’s it going?
Since the start of the project virtually everyone has joined the project , except for Apple. Here’s a whole bunch of CEOs praising the Open Screen Project. The alliance looks seriously large now especially with Google and Microsoft recently becoming part of it. As this Gigaom article points out chances are the Open Screen Project may be bigger than iPhone. It says – “The iPhone is awesome, but getting the full web experience on your set-top box or TV is something that represents a far bigger opportunity”.

One very significant partner in this list is ARM, the chipmaker that licenses its IP cores to handheld device makers. Flash is already optimized for x86 which rules the desktop market.  It is estimated that ARM based devices will overtake x86 based ultra-mobile devices in near future. It is important for Adobe to partner with ARM to target support for future devices that are beyond mere mobile phones.

Is there competition for Flash?
For RIAs, the target HTML5 specifications do have the potential to deliver a comparable experience. Checkout this drawing application made in HTML5. Even though HTML5 standards have not yet formalized, many browsers have started implementing the guidelines and encouraging developers to develop and test their applications.

In the mobile browser market, Webkit browser engine and Opera have taken the lead. The Webkit engine has been adopted by multiple smart phone (like iPhone, Android, Nokia, and Palm Pre) browsers that account for 65% of device market share. Recently, even Blackberry is adopting a Webkit based browser. Given the market share of Webkit, most smart phones will feature HTML5 rendering in the near future. Opera has released a HTML 5 version (Opera mobile) for Windows Mobile.

It’s interesting to note that most popular hybrid application frameworks like Phone Gap, QuickConnect, RhoMobile, Titanium Mobile, are based on HTML5 features to provide a rich application experience. So if we consider rich web applications for mobile, HTML5 is a clear competitor to the Flash platform to build a web-based cross-device service development and delivery platform.

Will the Open Screen Project be successful?
With their Open Screen Project Adobe is clearly preparing for the upcoming competition from HTML 5. The alliance partners are aligning themselves with BOTH the HTML 5 as well as Flash – may be no one is sure who will win. Or they all know HTML 5 will – ultimately.

I don’t think it is simple to answer this one. Check out this article by O’Reilly, to get an idea of the war for the web that’s on. Also there are strong reasons for HTML 5 not being able to replace Flash as pointed out by a former Macromedia person Jeremy Allaire.

For eLearning (& mobile learning) I think Flash will remain the obvious tool till for some time. Even if HTML5 gets stronger in terms of features etc, it would take even more time to reach the kind of designer-developer collaboration and the large communities that have emerged around Flash platform. Vector-based graphics creation and playback is crucial for eLearning and mLearning courses. That’s an easy game with Flash tools and I doubt HTML5 can compete there until we see some sophisticated designer-developer tools come up. We would love to see the Open Screen Project evolve Flash platform to be available for virtually all digital devices. It would help eLearning developers to focus on developing engaging and quality experience without concerning about technical difficulties.

I would like to hear back comments from learning professionals about their take on the Open Screen Project.

The post The Open Screen Project – Will It Succeed? first appeared on The Upside Learning Blog.

What does it mean for elearning (or should I say mlearning) industry?
Flash is the favorite delivery platform (development tool) for eLearning courses due to its huge install-base and ability to produce engaging content. However, that’s not the case with mlearning. Mobile device platforms are diversified – from screen sizes to the operating-systems driving the devices. Due to this (and some other reasons like processor capability, device features, etc), not all devices support Flash – neither within the web-browser nor outside of it. So if you do some mlearning development the solution would most probably limit its access to the targeted device only. However the advent of AIR for mobile provides an alternative here:

– It opens up possibilities of porting same solution across all supporting devices with some minor tweaks (like changing routines for accessing some device specific features).
– Mobile developers won’t need to learn specialized code each time to port their solutions on different devices
– You can use existing Flash development skills to provide engaging elearning apps for handheld devices.
– You can even implement SCORM LMS tracking methods within the apps itself
– You can develop eLearning content that can run on desktops, laptops, netbooks, and smartphones.

Apart from AIR app, the same code and assets in any AIR app can further be used to deliver a mobile browser version using Flash Player 10.1. Note that all the major smartphones (except iPhone) will support Flash, including Android, BlackBerry, Symbian, Palm’s webOS, and Windows Mobile. It will now also be available on LiMo devices, an independent and open smartphone platform with a Linux-based operating system at its core.

Checkout the video demonstrating some Adobe AIR apps on Motorola Droid –

And here’s a video demonstrating Flash running on Dell Mini 5 through mobile browser –

Apple’s decision of excluding Flash on their devices has resulted in some disappointment within our team and many others around the world. Nonetheless, Adobe has already announced a workaround using the packager for iPhone. So a solution developed for other devices, can possibly be ported for the iPhone using this packager. I assume the same packager would be made capable to publish apps for iPad too as the iPad uses the same underlying technology as iPhone.

At some point one would justify Apple’s standoff against Flash on their handheld devices, and advocate open-web culture of HTML5 or alike. The reality, however, is that the new HTML5-enabled web will take many years to become a standard. In the meantime the world wants to deliver and access content across all devices and that’s where Adobe is pitching. Their goal is to have every platform supporting native Flash and AIR (including iPhone).

As an eLearning developer, we will certainly benefit from the Adobe Flash runtime, AIR and Flash player 10.1 made available for handheld devices.

The post Adobe AIR & Flash Player 10.1– How it Can Benefit Mobile Learning first appeared on The Upside Learning Blog.

The previous version of Times Reader was developed using Microsoft’s Silverlight and Windows Presentation Format (WPF). While this worked well on Windows PCs, its Mac version received poor feedback, as you can see in many of these comments on the NY Times official website . Moreover, there was no Linux version of this Reader available, since Microsoft’s technology doesn’t support the Linux Platform. We believe those reasons could have contributed to NY Times’ decision to select Adobe AIR for their next release.

We are not sure if Siverlight is good enough for development of eLearning. We are researching and experimenting with the use of Silverlight for developing eLearning content; we would soon be sharing our experiences through a blog post.

If you have experience in using Silverlight for eLearning, please do write in to share your thoughts.

The post Is Adobe’s AIR better than Microsoft’s Silverlight? first appeared on The Upside Learning Blog.