The death of mobile flash may have even more consequences than we initially imagined
Flash for mobile devices died a couple of days ago, and apparently there wasn’t a web-wide mourning vigil cast. Nobody cared. Most of the video sites are adding a HTML5 player now, so soon flash video will be gone too. Even Adobe has put out their own HTML5 authoring tools, leaving flash for desktop animation, presentations and e-learning. And for a while we would’ve thought it’s gonna stay that way. I mean Flash is definitely fantastic for making animated movies and clips. It’s also pretty good for presentations and e-learning solutions. But that last part might change soon too.
Most companies (including big corporations) that use e-learning solutions don’t really care what technology they’re using, as long as it works. And that worked out pretty well for e-learning delivery companies, because on most laptops and desktops Flash does work well. But there’s a slight change now, that apparently many of those content creation companies didn’t notice.
More and more corporations are getting tablets
And from now on Flash won’t work even on those Android devices, that supposedly were the future of the Flash mobile platform. Flash is gone from mobile, possibly forever. Even Adobe gave up. So now what’s gonna happen is a manager will try and launch his e-learning app on his brand new iPad or that other similar looking tablet from Samsung just to notice it simply won’t work. And these people don’t really care for the technical BS. They want things they pay for to work.
That might be a big shift for e-learning companies, one that will probably catch them with their pants down. Sure there are HTML5 authoring tools out there (Hype, Purple and even Adobe Edge) but they’re not yet widely used. It’ll take time to learn the new tools, and emerging new companies that already know them can have a slight advantage in this market segment.
E-learning is going to change. If you plan on staying in the game, I suggest you do some reading.