Showing posts with label adobe. Show all posts
Showing posts with label adobe. Show all posts
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Pet Flash Bug #1: No arrow key movement of individual points in grouped objects, sometimes!
One of my biggest gripes with the Flash Professional Sub-selection (the white arrow) tool, is that when selecting points within an grouped object, your arrow keys will lose focus, making it impossible to move these points precisely. What makes it even more frustrating is this only happens sometimes. Most of the times when you have spent a long time selecting points, and almost never when trying to demonstrate the problem to other Flash designers who said they have never experienced it. I'm only griping about this because everyone else seems to just ignore and accept it... this bug has been in at least 2 generations of Flash Professional... I will hunt for a bug report on this... so I can let this pet bug go, or at least find a name for it!
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Nokia, throwing out the baby with the bath water?
It's been quite an interesting 12 months as a Nokia-centric developer, not only did Nokia jump off their "burning" platform, but they seem to be puncturing their floatation devices, thinking they are somehow avoiding further danger.
Let's take a look at some examples of real, currently working, not-in-the-future Nokia assets and features that they either don't understand, have forgotten about or don't know how to fit into their new strategy:
Flash Lite
In 2005 we complained to Nokia that most of their product managers didn't know what they could do with Flash on their devices, 6 years down the line, we are still getting "I didn't know Flash could do that?" or, "We have Flash on our phones?" from Nokia managers. During the recent Nokia CommunicAsia event, we were introduced to Marco, the new SVP of Developer & Marketplace. Marco was there to tell us about how we are going to reach the "next 250 million" (or billion, can't quite remember!). First we were blown away by the N9 slide interaction & Meego's maturity. Then we got into the details of what's out there for S40. For those of you who don't know, S40's are the "feature" phones that Nokia sells most of in developing markets. Though the high-end gets all the media attention, the low-end is Nokia's bread and butter in South East Asia. So we were told about the web services, a new browser, Java and a vague indication that Qt might come to S40 (no, I don't think they will offer backwards-compatibility for the majority of S40's out there). I was waiting for him to at least mention Flash Lite, I mean some of these devices have a 1ghz processors and touch screens, Flash Lite totally rocks on it! (And honestly, web-services are great, but a 240x320 screen is just too small these days for data-intensive stuff, the user-experience will be 2001 levels at best.) But no, not even a word, not a mention of the ONLY platform that you can realistically target in-market S40/S60/S3 devices for (don't tell me a small team can do this with Java). Not only is Flash Lite integrated into the S40 theming engine, it's also supported by all devices dating from 2005, which everyone seems to be forgetting, this whole backwards compatibility issue (which allows us to reach the current market, not the possible future market). Of course we raised this afterwards, Marco didn't seem to like the idea of "too many languages" - OK, possibly good strategy, but Flash shouldn't be one of those excluded - you guys paid for it (Steve Elop even brokered the deal!) and if finally used properly can give Nokia a wealth of unique and existing content on their low-end devices. I can understand that being new at the job, there is a lot to come to terms with, and it's not exactly like Nokia has taken advantage of Flash Lite since they got it, I can understand that it doesn't look very "hot" right now. I can imagine that there aren't many supporters of Flash inside Nokia, what data/results do they have to back up their enthusiasm (download stats and renewed focus on engaging smaller developers?). This new direction was a bit worrying because it demonstrated that the guys really had their heads way up there in the high-end - to please the media/investors? The message to the low-end was vague and confusing, not something that is really what we are looking for now. We also have another "Osborne Effect" happening, with the announcement that Qt coming to S40, won't this reduce Java development, the same way as the announcement of Qt reduced Symbian's attractiveness? Why invest time developing in a shrinking language if something superior MIGHT arrive, especially with no clear indication on when and how it will be implemented. What worried me was that this was coming from the SVP for Developers, someone who obviously has a big role in the future direction of developer offerings from Nokia. Marco himself is a developer with gaming experience, so we truly expected him to see the merits in the platform - otherwise, we have to ask, does Nokia at an upper-management level really care to listen to us developers in emerging markets (Java shrinking with 30%, Flash growing with 22% this quarter), or the developing markets needs?
This could also be another case of strategy over technology. The most obvious reason for this sudden cold shoulder could be that Silverlight is part of the mix with Windows Mobile, and maybe it was part of the deal signed? If I were Microsoft, I would also try to keep Flash from competing with Silverlight as much as possible, and it doesn't seem like Adobe is actively going to try and push Flash on Windows Mobile until there are a fair amount of handsets out there. The fact that Flash wasn't even available on Meego at launch also means that even deep within the nerd ranks of Nokia, Flash is taking a secondary priority (Good news: Flash Lite will be coming to N9 soon). Look XNA for doing high-end games really gets us excited, and we know the MS developer tools rock - but not the prospect of using it for casual games or learning Silverlight. Our experiences with Adobe taught us never to rely too much on the platform provider. The current Silverlight offering includes a lot of freebies that Microsoft can transform into paid services at any time, talk about stepping from one shifting sandbank to another. Also, you think our Mac Flash guys are going to be happy having to move over to Windows?
Update: A new competition has been announced to develop "next-generation" content for S40, think Flash Lite is on the list of technologies? Nope.
Themes
One of Nokia's most active group of items on their store is personalization content. Themes - yes, those things. Some of the reasons I believe they are so popular is because a) the default Nokia themes are dead boring/ugly b) it's about the only thing that one can customize, since there are too many shapes of Nokia's for cases. No one else really has them on the high-end, so Nokia is slowly just letting go of it. Letting go is a strong word, but almost, if there is not a champion/evangelist for a technology, how long will it last? The same thing happened with Flash Lite screensavers on S60, just removed in an update, no explanation. No, "Sorry we killed the flourishing Flash Lite screensaver market". The Meego device for instance has a no set theming engine. Only wallpapers and ringtones, so obviously none of the high-end people saw the value of themes. Guys, it's a differentiator, just because you sucked at marketing it, doesn't make it less relevant/cool. Look at your Ovi store download stats! Nokia has the opportunity to continue to make direct money from personalization, where Apple for instance loses most of that to 3rd parties who make physical cases and accessories. It's pretty obvious right? Your Carbide.UI team is doing an EXCELLENT job, don't let all that good work go to waste!
The Emerging/Developing Market
I feel that Steve Elop is trying to move some of the intellectual power to the US.... this is good and bad. Good for the high-end market, bad for the low-end/developing market. One of the biggest failures in terms of Flash Lite was that is was being run from the States, where they really had no idea about how emerging markets work, only developed ones. Try getting funding/support for Flash Lite for a project outside the US, if it wasn't with one of Adobe's partners, or if they weren't getting paid, they were not interested, and who would fund something in the US where there was virtually no Flash Lite presence? What do you mean they don't have credit cards? What do you mean they can only download 100K? What they can't afford a smartphone? Aren't they going to upgrade in 6 months? The US way is to wait for these people to magically upgrade or get richer... that doesn't help the 250 million people with Nokia phones currently and the fact that at least 80% of the world is poor, and that ain't changing soon. Not saying that Finland was that in-touch with the developing market (it's a super first-world country after all), but it had a certain respect for the fact that this market had to be supported (even though they didn't listen to requests for Dual-Sim phones, until they lost serious market-share). Moving core decision makers away from developing markets is not the way to go.
In Conclusion...
So there, at least I have said it - let's hope that Nokia at least pays some attention to the needs of their consumers, most of the stuff I'm concerned about has to do with consumer experience at the end of the day. I am just sad when I see Nokia make moves to further decrease the already terrible user experience. They are leaving many of their users behind, creating a gap that they might not be able to cross. A lot of Nokia's current plans in terms of increasing user experience depend on your next phone purchase to also be a Nokia, with the timelines they are talking about, they are expecting it from consumers for another 6-12 months.... after they have been waiting for something since the launch of the iPhone, I just don't see that many people being loyal. If you have a way to reach and impress your current consumers and clients, those that are on 2-year upgrade cycles, it's almost crazy not to! Isn't that what builds loyalty, especially during a time like this? Just continue creating better Nokia Store experiences for all your low-end devices!
ps.
Your new model naming convention totally sucks, please fix. Another case of listening to the consumer, but giving them something worse. It was probably an executive who came up with the idea to model the naming convention after that used for luxury sedans, this executive forgot that BMW doesn't bring out 40 models a year.
Let's take a look at some examples of real, currently working, not-in-the-future Nokia assets and features that they either don't understand, have forgotten about or don't know how to fit into their new strategy:
Flash Lite
In 2005 we complained to Nokia that most of their product managers didn't know what they could do with Flash on their devices, 6 years down the line, we are still getting "I didn't know Flash could do that?" or, "We have Flash on our phones?" from Nokia managers. During the recent Nokia CommunicAsia event, we were introduced to Marco, the new SVP of Developer & Marketplace. Marco was there to tell us about how we are going to reach the "next 250 million" (or billion, can't quite remember!). First we were blown away by the N9 slide interaction & Meego's maturity. Then we got into the details of what's out there for S40. For those of you who don't know, S40's are the "feature" phones that Nokia sells most of in developing markets. Though the high-end gets all the media attention, the low-end is Nokia's bread and butter in South East Asia. So we were told about the web services, a new browser, Java and a vague indication that Qt might come to S40 (no, I don't think they will offer backwards-compatibility for the majority of S40's out there). I was waiting for him to at least mention Flash Lite, I mean some of these devices have a 1ghz processors and touch screens, Flash Lite totally rocks on it! (And honestly, web-services are great, but a 240x320 screen is just too small these days for data-intensive stuff, the user-experience will be 2001 levels at best.) But no, not even a word, not a mention of the ONLY platform that you can realistically target in-market S40/S60/S3 devices for (don't tell me a small team can do this with Java). Not only is Flash Lite integrated into the S40 theming engine, it's also supported by all devices dating from 2005, which everyone seems to be forgetting, this whole backwards compatibility issue (which allows us to reach the current market, not the possible future market). Of course we raised this afterwards, Marco didn't seem to like the idea of "too many languages" - OK, possibly good strategy, but Flash shouldn't be one of those excluded - you guys paid for it (Steve Elop even brokered the deal!) and if finally used properly can give Nokia a wealth of unique and existing content on their low-end devices. I can understand that being new at the job, there is a lot to come to terms with, and it's not exactly like Nokia has taken advantage of Flash Lite since they got it, I can understand that it doesn't look very "hot" right now. I can imagine that there aren't many supporters of Flash inside Nokia, what data/results do they have to back up their enthusiasm (download stats and renewed focus on engaging smaller developers?). This new direction was a bit worrying because it demonstrated that the guys really had their heads way up there in the high-end - to please the media/investors? The message to the low-end was vague and confusing, not something that is really what we are looking for now. We also have another "Osborne Effect" happening, with the announcement that Qt coming to S40, won't this reduce Java development, the same way as the announcement of Qt reduced Symbian's attractiveness? Why invest time developing in a shrinking language if something superior MIGHT arrive, especially with no clear indication on when and how it will be implemented. What worried me was that this was coming from the SVP for Developers, someone who obviously has a big role in the future direction of developer offerings from Nokia. Marco himself is a developer with gaming experience, so we truly expected him to see the merits in the platform - otherwise, we have to ask, does Nokia at an upper-management level really care to listen to us developers in emerging markets (Java shrinking with 30%, Flash growing with 22% this quarter), or the developing markets needs?This could also be another case of strategy over technology. The most obvious reason for this sudden cold shoulder could be that Silverlight is part of the mix with Windows Mobile, and maybe it was part of the deal signed? If I were Microsoft, I would also try to keep Flash from competing with Silverlight as much as possible, and it doesn't seem like Adobe is actively going to try and push Flash on Windows Mobile until there are a fair amount of handsets out there. The fact that Flash wasn't even available on Meego at launch also means that even deep within the nerd ranks of Nokia, Flash is taking a secondary priority (Good news: Flash Lite will be coming to N9 soon). Look XNA for doing high-end games really gets us excited, and we know the MS developer tools rock - but not the prospect of using it for casual games or learning Silverlight. Our experiences with Adobe taught us never to rely too much on the platform provider. The current Silverlight offering includes a lot of freebies that Microsoft can transform into paid services at any time, talk about stepping from one shifting sandbank to another. Also, you think our Mac Flash guys are going to be happy having to move over to Windows?
Update: A new competition has been announced to develop "next-generation" content for S40, think Flash Lite is on the list of technologies? Nope.
Themes
One of Nokia's most active group of items on their store is personalization content. Themes - yes, those things. Some of the reasons I believe they are so popular is because a) the default Nokia themes are dead boring/ugly b) it's about the only thing that one can customize, since there are too many shapes of Nokia's for cases. No one else really has them on the high-end, so Nokia is slowly just letting go of it. Letting go is a strong word, but almost, if there is not a champion/evangelist for a technology, how long will it last? The same thing happened with Flash Lite screensavers on S60, just removed in an update, no explanation. No, "Sorry we killed the flourishing Flash Lite screensaver market". The Meego device for instance has a no set theming engine. Only wallpapers and ringtones, so obviously none of the high-end people saw the value of themes. Guys, it's a differentiator, just because you sucked at marketing it, doesn't make it less relevant/cool. Look at your Ovi store download stats! Nokia has the opportunity to continue to make direct money from personalization, where Apple for instance loses most of that to 3rd parties who make physical cases and accessories. It's pretty obvious right? Your Carbide.UI team is doing an EXCELLENT job, don't let all that good work go to waste!
The Emerging/Developing Market
I feel that Steve Elop is trying to move some of the intellectual power to the US.... this is good and bad. Good for the high-end market, bad for the low-end/developing market. One of the biggest failures in terms of Flash Lite was that is was being run from the States, where they really had no idea about how emerging markets work, only developed ones. Try getting funding/support for Flash Lite for a project outside the US, if it wasn't with one of Adobe's partners, or if they weren't getting paid, they were not interested, and who would fund something in the US where there was virtually no Flash Lite presence? What do you mean they don't have credit cards? What do you mean they can only download 100K? What they can't afford a smartphone? Aren't they going to upgrade in 6 months? The US way is to wait for these people to magically upgrade or get richer... that doesn't help the 250 million people with Nokia phones currently and the fact that at least 80% of the world is poor, and that ain't changing soon. Not saying that Finland was that in-touch with the developing market (it's a super first-world country after all), but it had a certain respect for the fact that this market had to be supported (even though they didn't listen to requests for Dual-Sim phones, until they lost serious market-share). Moving core decision makers away from developing markets is not the way to go.
... and of course: Meego & Nokiasoft
Looking at the N9, only one thought springs to mind: Microsoft must have paid a LOT to have the Nokia/Microsoft announcement made so early, there is no way they would have been able to get support for the deal after the Meego launch, it would have been too strong a contender. It also killed Symbian sales, and Nokia seemed to be surprised? They must know about the "Osborne Effect" - maybe Steve Elop was an unwitting Trojan horse. Was the world really so desperate for Nokia to announce something so early? I mean it sure didn't do the stock price of Nokia any good. Would have been fine if a Windows phone was coming out 3 months after the announcement, but 2012, come on! I predict that the first Windows Nokia phone will be a success, but I hope it's worth the cost.
So there, at least I have said it - let's hope that Nokia at least pays some attention to the needs of their consumers, most of the stuff I'm concerned about has to do with consumer experience at the end of the day. I am just sad when I see Nokia make moves to further decrease the already terrible user experience. They are leaving many of their users behind, creating a gap that they might not be able to cross. A lot of Nokia's current plans in terms of increasing user experience depend on your next phone purchase to also be a Nokia, with the timelines they are talking about, they are expecting it from consumers for another 6-12 months.... after they have been waiting for something since the launch of the iPhone, I just don't see that many people being loyal. If you have a way to reach and impress your current consumers and clients, those that are on 2-year upgrade cycles, it's almost crazy not to! Isn't that what builds loyalty, especially during a time like this? Just continue creating better Nokia Store experiences for all your low-end devices!
ps.
Your new model naming convention totally sucks, please fix. Another case of listening to the consumer, but giving them something worse. It was probably an executive who came up with the idea to model the naming convention after that used for luxury sedans, this executive forgot that BMW doesn't bring out 40 models a year.
Monday, August 16, 2010
A case for the "timeliners"
Over the past couple of years, coding in Flash has grown with leaps and bounds, though this is great, it has created a certain gap between coders, and some of the more "hands-on" creatives, called "timeliners", those who still embed their objects manually on a stage, and use crazy things like tweens and keyframes. These days, if you want to do anything serious on the Flash "Platform" you are not going to be able to get very far without getting text-based and probably AS3'd for at least a little while. That is already a turn-off for many of the creatively-orientated people I know.
This doesn't change the fact that some of the most talented Flash creatives I know are timeliners and the way they think, create, innovate is visual/timeline based. Timeliners are a vital and necessary part of the Flash eco-system - it allows people to output their creativity in a way that is much easier for them, where they can physically see what is moving, in stead of having to imagine it and then start coding. Also in terms of fast prototyping, hands-on technologies are great in terms of getting people from different skill-sets involved. I am not going to force them to learn AS3 to express themselves, out of knowing how they normally create and respect for the distinct way of expressing themselves. If coders apparently will "quit their jobs if they have to convert timeline to code" it means that coders are taking some kind of technical highground here, and at the end of the day there's really no right or wrong - though this most Flash threads in forums clearly favours "smarter" coders.
A possible solution is in abstraction layers between coders and timeliners/designers (making it easier/automatic for timeliners to generate basic AS3 code). Some are already out there with their aim to bring the fun back into visual development with Flash - you can't force people to think a certain way to use Flash, that is one of it's great strengths - that creatives and programmers can work together - if you don't see the value in that, then you are missing one of the most interesting things about Flash.
There is no doubt that in a perfect Flash world we would all speak perfect AS4, but this is not the world we live in and Flash coders seem to be woefully out of touch with the diversity and richness of creative intelligence out there - expecting people to adapt to them, because they went through the pain of having to think like a code compiler - this is a completely natural tendency once there is a high barrier to entry to a certain grouping of people.
This barrier to entry can be quite intimidating to people wanting to approach the platform the first time - I think in terms of AS3, there will be some more simple IDE's out there to fill the gap if Adobe and Flash community continues to widen it. Awesome FlashDevelop and FDT have already lured many coders away from the Adobe Flash IDE, further increasing the gap - if Adobe is serious about bringing coders and timeliners together, they should think about making the their own IDE more attractive to coders too (or are the all supposed to use Flash Builder?). Projects like the "Hype" framework are some of the first examples of this happening from inside the community from the creative side. Adobe should support all these technologies and try to integrate into the standard developer experience when working with Flash the first time.
Monday, June 28, 2010
Things to install for Windows 7 Flash Lite Development
I seem to be setting up a few environments for Flash Lite development on Windows 7, especially on Macbook Pro 2010 i5/i7's with all the virtualization/boot-camping going on!
Some realities - the packaged Apple Nvidia drivers for Windows causes some Windows 7's running Aero to crash under strain - there is a fix with one of the links below. If you want to run something like Carbide.ui (for Nokia theme development) - it's VERY slow running something like parallels, and buggy it seems - you cannot avoid having a pure XP/Windows 7 environment for hassle free Nokia-orientated development. This might change in the future, but I don't think we are there yet. Paragon Software released something called HFS+ for Windows (Win7 64-bit supported), I have only been using it for a couple of weeks, so I'm not going to add in until I am sure it's cool. I have a feeling that it's not a good idea to keep files you will be accessing a lot from Windows on your HFS volume, things like forks are not currently supported.
These are the things that need to be installed on my Windows 7 (64-bit version in this case) machine before I can really start working (this is very much for my own reference, for future cases):
Flash Lite Specific:
Some realities - the packaged Apple Nvidia drivers for Windows causes some Windows 7's running Aero to crash under strain - there is a fix with one of the links below. If you want to run something like Carbide.ui (for Nokia theme development) - it's VERY slow running something like parallels, and buggy it seems - you cannot avoid having a pure XP/Windows 7 environment for hassle free Nokia-orientated development. This might change in the future, but I don't think we are there yet. Paragon Software released something called HFS+ for Windows (Win7 64-bit supported), I have only been using it for a couple of weeks, so I'm not going to add in until I am sure it's cool. I have a feeling that it's not a good idea to keep files you will be accessing a lot from Windows on your HFS volume, things like forks are not currently supported.
These are the things that need to be installed on my Windows 7 (64-bit version in this case) machine before I can really start working (this is very much for my own reference, for future cases):
Flash Lite Specific:
- Adobe CS Suite containing at least Flash, Photoshop, Illustrator, Bridge & Device Central
- Flash Extensions: Organize Library, Add Stop Frames, Name Objects
- AS2 Libraries: Tweenlite+Plugins, QueueLoader or PreLoadAssetManager
- Nokia Flash Lite API Bridge & Actionscript API Library
- Flashdevelop (Associate with .as files & I made this AS2 template )
- SecureSWF (Encrypt your SWF content)
- Symbian Carbide.UI (Nokia theme creation)
- Firefox / Chrome / Safari
- Thunderbird
- Thunderbird Add-ons: Stationary & Lightning Calendar
- Pidgin (IM from one app)
- Skype (Phone conferences)
- LibreOffice (Cross-platform & Free Office Suite)
- Notepad++ (Open source text-editor, powerful!)
- Dropbox (great for transferring files while you are setting up too)
- Evernote (sync your notes across your mobile and pc devices)
- FileZilla (SFTP support added)
- TortoiseSVN (64-bit supported)
- Explorer++ (If you want a more powerful Windows Explorer)
- 7Zip (Open-source cross-platform compression/decompression 64-bit available)
- uTorrent (Lightweight torrent client, get Vuze if you want to go crazy)
- Growl (Very popular on Mac, finally coming to Windows!)
- Inkscape (My favourite Open-source SVG editor)
- Audacity (Open-source WAV editor)
- Quicktime Pro (Basic editing, conversion to MOV if required)
- Shark Coded Pack (Let's you play and preview in explorer)
- MacbookPro Aero Fix (Fix crashing Macbook Pro i5/i7 Nvidia driver issues)
- Winamp Lite (Lightweight MP3 player)
- Gnaural (Binaural beats below your music)
- Last.fm (Subscription service is awesome and cheap)
Flash vs Apple - for us that actually develop Flash
I have seen fellow Flash developers go through highs and lows trying to imagine what kind of future there is for them, not just with the current dispute between Adobe/Flash and Apple, but in general over the past 5 years as mobile has become more dominant. Here are my thoughts, and when the next spat comes out, I suspect this might still be relevant:
I'm overjoyed about all the drama going on between Adobe and Apple - it's never wise to start a publicity war against the masters of PR (Apple). The most obvious thing is that Flash is getting much more attention since Youtube got them back in the game through video - and this has put some serious pressure on Adobe to sort out nagging issues they have been trying to ignore for the past few years.
As you might notice, I am not worried, we are the guys that have been working with "flash lite" one of the many flash-related technologies that Adobe/Nokia have actively/accidentally botched up the past 4 years. In certain aspects things are better now (with Apple playing a very large role in this) - but it just taught us the lesson, if you are working at the bleeding edge (which everyone seems to be doing these days), things are going to be shaky/uncertain, ALWAYS - that is part of the fun of it all - the fact at the end of the day you can only trust your own gut and there are really very few that can tell you what and how you should be doing it.
For us Flash has never been about trying to reach iPhone consumers. For us it has always been an extremely open programming AND creative fast-prototyping tool, that both programmers and creatives could work on together. I don't see that changing anytime soon, even if developers are all C crazy, you still have to get creatives to surrender their tools (which is not easy if you think that some top designers STILL secretly use Freehand) - the point is, you just don't change programmer's and creative's workflow overnight - it might even just wreck it. As long as a tool allows you to develop/prototype your ideas quickly and get actual people to use it, that's enough for me (at this stage).
I think one of the biggest fears is, especially with those who used to be comfortable doing Flash for the web, is that all of a sudden have to think "backwards" in terms of processing power and size, it's scary when things are changing, but Adobe/Apple got us all into the mobile space somehow, and if not prepared for the turbulence, maybe better to paddle out to calmer niches?
I think our saving grace has been that we have always been aware how capricous technology and hardware providers are, and that their sheer size and corporate responsibilities can make them do really stupid things... to expect otherwise is just being out of touch with reality, and will make you feel very angry/depressed. We have been there, our best advice is to get over it and see how you can make the best of it - all your competitors have to do the same, there are very few silver bullets out there!
I'm overjoyed about all the drama going on between Adobe and Apple - it's never wise to start a publicity war against the masters of PR (Apple). The most obvious thing is that Flash is getting much more attention since Youtube got them back in the game through video - and this has put some serious pressure on Adobe to sort out nagging issues they have been trying to ignore for the past few years.
As you might notice, I am not worried, we are the guys that have been working with "flash lite" one of the many flash-related technologies that Adobe/Nokia have actively/accidentally botched up the past 4 years. In certain aspects things are better now (with Apple playing a very large role in this) - but it just taught us the lesson, if you are working at the bleeding edge (which everyone seems to be doing these days), things are going to be shaky/uncertain, ALWAYS - that is part of the fun of it all - the fact at the end of the day you can only trust your own gut and there are really very few that can tell you what and how you should be doing it.
For us Flash has never been about trying to reach iPhone consumers. For us it has always been an extremely open programming AND creative fast-prototyping tool, that both programmers and creatives could work on together. I don't see that changing anytime soon, even if developers are all C crazy, you still have to get creatives to surrender their tools (which is not easy if you think that some top designers STILL secretly use Freehand) - the point is, you just don't change programmer's and creative's workflow overnight - it might even just wreck it. As long as a tool allows you to develop/prototype your ideas quickly and get actual people to use it, that's enough for me (at this stage).
I think one of the biggest fears is, especially with those who used to be comfortable doing Flash for the web, is that all of a sudden have to think "backwards" in terms of processing power and size, it's scary when things are changing, but Adobe/Apple got us all into the mobile space somehow, and if not prepared for the turbulence, maybe better to paddle out to calmer niches?
I think our saving grace has been that we have always been aware how capricous technology and hardware providers are, and that their sheer size and corporate responsibilities can make them do really stupid things... to expect otherwise is just being out of touch with reality, and will make you feel very angry/depressed. We have been there, our best advice is to get over it and see how you can make the best of it - all your competitors have to do the same, there are very few silver bullets out there!
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