History of Adobe Flash
I am a big user of Flash and find it to be one of the most effective tools in my e-learning toolbox. Earlier this week I was very disappointed to learn Flash will not be included in the Apple iPad. I was hoping the iPad would be a great new medium for m-learning delivery, but without Flash it will be very limited in its ability to deliver the level of interactivity mobile learning deserves.
Now that I got that out of my system, here are a few resources on the history of Flash.
Of course there is “The Rather Amazing and Slightly Distorted History of Flash” created by Nectarine.
What if iPhone and Blackberry Supported Flash Lite?
I was looking over the e-Learning Guild’s 360 report on mobile learning, released several months back. What really jumped out for me was the survey regarding targeted devices. Granted the results are anecdotal and not from a scientific survey, but none the less it does reflect answers from 240 m-learning designers from numerous regions around the world.
Of the devices m-learning targets:
- 34% support Flash Lite (21% in the USA) - e.g. Symbian and Windows Mobile
- 62% target iPhone and Blackberry (76% in the USA).
After adding these numbers up, one could conclude that IF/WHEN Flash Lite is on the iPhone and Blackberry Flash Lite can potentially be used as the m-learning development tool for 96% of the devices currently targeted (97% in the USA).
Yes, this is all hypothetical, but I and many others are of the opinion that the iPhone and Blackberry will eventually support Flash Lite. Let’s just hope sooner than later.
The e-Learning Guild did provide the following links regarding the possibility of Flash Lite on iPhones:
http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/6/adobe_flash_apple_iphone_maybe_someday
http://www.flashdevices.net/2008/03/adobe-flash-player-coming-to-iphone.html
