Daily Archives: October 16, 2007

internet, multimedia, software, software development, web authoring

Adobe shows how anything can be a web application

The closing session here at Adobe MAX Europe was a series of “sneak peeks” at forthcoming technology, presented with a disclaimer to the effect that they may never appear commercially. I am not going to do a blow-by-blow account of these, since it was mostly the same as was shown a couple of weeks ago in the USA, and you may as well read one of the accounts from there. For example, this one from Anara Media, if you can cope with its breathless enthusiasm.

So what was interesting? Overall, Adobe is doing a good job of challenging assumptions about the limitations of web applications, and I am not just talking about AIR. A few years ago you might single out something like Photoshop as an example of something that would always be a desktop application; yet this evening we saw Photoshop Express, a web-hosted Photoshop aimed at consumers, but with impressive image manipulation capabilities. For example, we saw how the application could turn all shades of one colour into those of another colour, so you can make a red car blue. Another application traditionally considered as local-only is desktop publishing, yet here we saw a server version of InDesign controlled by a Web UI written in Flex.

The truth is, given a fast Internet connection and a just-in-time compiler anything can be a web application. Of course, under the covers huge amounts of code are being downloaded and executed on the client, but the user will not care , provided that it is a seamless and reasonably quick experience. Microsoft should worry.

We also got a glimpse into the probable future of Adobe Reader. This already runs JavaScript, but in some future version this runtime engine will be merged with ActionScript 3.0. In addition, the Flash player will be embedded into Adobe Reader. In consequence, a PDF or a bundle of PDFs can take on the characteristics of an application or an offline web site. A holiday brochure could include video of your destination as well as a live booking form. Another idea which comes to mind (we were not shown anything like this) is ad-supported ebooks where the ads are Flash videos. I can see the commercial possibilities, and there are all kinds of publications which could be enhanced by videos, but not everyone will welcome skip-the-intro annoyances arriving in PDF form.

This was a fun and impressive session, and well received by the somewhat bedazzled crowd of delegates.

internet, microsoft, multimedia

BBC to use Flash, Adobe streaming for iPlayer

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Adobe’s Chief Software Architect Kevin Lynch announced today at Adobe MAX Europe that the BBC will use the Flash runtime for its iPlayer application, which enables UK viewers to download and play broadcasts for up to a week after their initial airing. In a short announcement, he said that the BBC will use Adobe’s technology end to end, from streaming to the cross-platform player on the client.

This appears to be a setback for Microsoft, whose technology is used in the controversial iPlayer currently in beta. It is unfortunate that the existing iPlayer is based on Windows Media Player components, rather than the new cross-platform Silverlight component which would be more suitable. The BBC has endured a hail of protest concerning iPlayer, based mainly on its Windows-only implementation, but also on installation hassles and annoyances arising from the Kontiki peer-to-peer technology which it uses. See here for my own experience.

However, Adobe’s press release suggests that the Microsoft iPlayer is not dead:

The BBC iPlayer on-demand streaming service will complement the download service currently available.

On the other hand, its seems odd that the BBC would use both a Windows-only and a cross-platform player technology. My hunch is that if the Adobe solution works as smoothly as the Flash player usually does, then the Microsoft-based service is likely to wither. I’ll be teasing out more detail on this later today.

There are a few more clues in this BBC story:

The BBC has also confirmed that users of Apple Mac and Linux machines will be able to use its TV catch-up service from the end of the year.

The broadcaster has signed a deal with Adobe to provide Flash video for the whole of the BBC’s video services, including a streaming version of its iPlayer.

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