Andrew Laffoon’s Thoughts

The 2006 Flash Forward Conference was going on in Austin, Texas last week, and Adobe made some significant announcements:

• Flash 9 Penetration is projected to hit 50% by the end of September
• Flash 9 Pro has a lot of great new features, including some strong integration with Adobe software like Photoshop: you can now translate PSD layers into keyframes in a flash file.
• Flex Builder 2 is coming out for Mac users
• Flash Player 9 is coming out on Linux (stop whining, ruby on rails fans - Adobe loves you)

There are lots of exciting things happening in the world of Flash and RIAs (Rich Internet Applications). Today, the only way to export to Flash 9 Player is through Flex 2, but Flash 9 Pro is coming soon. For now, we can just watch as the Flash 9 Player adoption soars thanks to MySpace and the auto-update feature (a la Flash Player 8). You can see a trend in the graph below:

Do you see some trends here?

• Before Flash Player 8, adoption typically took 12 months to hit 80%.
• Flash Player 8 hit 86% in 9 months - with so many sites using Flash and the new auto-update feature.
• Flash Player 9 is already to 50% adoption in 3 months - thanks to MySpace requiring the new player for its audio and video widgets due to their security flaw

What does this all mean?

It is the best time ever to learn Flash and Flex and use them to design the next generation of rich internet applications. Working with AJAX, Flex and backend frameworks like Ruby on Rails (yes, they can all work together), new applications can be rapidly developed that are highly interactive, scalable and robust. Now is a great time to start.

“Form follows function-that has been misunderstood. Form and function should be one, joined in a spiritual union.”
—Frank Lloyd Wright (LukeW: Interface Design Quotes)

Form AND Function is the key. So many web designers get caught up in building a beautiful form, and the developers get caught up in the raw functionality (many Google apps). The real goal is to create web applications that have BOTH form AND function. Both are critical in building a successful application that is usable by millions of people.

As a side note, there is a great section in Built to Last on how great (”visionary”) companies embrace this “Genius of the AND” instead of bowing to the “Tyranny of the OR.” More on this to come…