The letter was criticized and
Posted: Wed Jul 09, 2025 10:29 am
It all came to a head in 2010, when Apple CEO Steve Jobs released an open letter called “Thoughts on Flash”. received strong condemnation from Adobe, and Apple ultimately backed off their plan (although work was done to support alternate tools).
The call-out, even if not initially successful, ended the party.
In November of 2011, Adobe announced it was whatsapp lead ending support of Flash for mobile web browsers, and in 2017, announced it was discontinuing Flash altogether for 2020.
Flash’s final death-blow was the introduction of HTML 5 in 2014. With its ground-up acknowledgement of audio and video items being as important as text and images, HTML 5 had significant support for animation, sound and video at the browser level. This mean increased speed, compatibility, and less concern about a specific plugin being installed and from what source – audio/video items just worked and Flash, while still used in some quarters and certainly needed to view older works, stopped being the go-to approach for web designers.
What Are We Losing When We Lose Flash?
Like any container, Flash itself is not as much of a loss as all the art and creativity it held. Without a Flash player, flash animations don’t work. It’s not like an image or sound file where a more modern player could still make the content accessible in the modern era. If there’s no Flash Player, there’s nothing like Flash, which is a tragedy.
The call-out, even if not initially successful, ended the party.
In November of 2011, Adobe announced it was whatsapp lead ending support of Flash for mobile web browsers, and in 2017, announced it was discontinuing Flash altogether for 2020.
Flash’s final death-blow was the introduction of HTML 5 in 2014. With its ground-up acknowledgement of audio and video items being as important as text and images, HTML 5 had significant support for animation, sound and video at the browser level. This mean increased speed, compatibility, and less concern about a specific plugin being installed and from what source – audio/video items just worked and Flash, while still used in some quarters and certainly needed to view older works, stopped being the go-to approach for web designers.
What Are We Losing When We Lose Flash?
Like any container, Flash itself is not as much of a loss as all the art and creativity it held. Without a Flash player, flash animations don’t work. It’s not like an image or sound file where a more modern player could still make the content accessible in the modern era. If there’s no Flash Player, there’s nothing like Flash, which is a tragedy.