Flash Player 10.1 – Device Camera support with PhoneGap through JavaScript bridging
March 14th, 2010 by scottjanousek
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Loading ...Mark A. Doherty (Adobe) had a recent post on how to Bridge in-browser Flash 10.1 into lower level APIs on devices using 3rd party software (e.g. Phone Gap).
FlashCam Demo from Mark Doherty on Vimeo.
Although it seems to me somewhat kludgy, it’s good to know that this route exists for extending browser bound applications and content that is likely to appear on 10.1 devices this year.
Previously to 10.1, those in the Flash Lite world will remember products like Kuneri Lite, SWF2Go, Flyer, and others … as well as newer technologies like Nokia’s Bridging technology; all of which did a “bang-up” job of providing the support needed to extend Flash on devices.
Anyways, since day one of the announcing of Flash 10.1, I was always curious and asking Adobe about their plans to address API support for in-browser Flash. It seems this is the route developers must take … i.e. developers must extend Flash within the browser using everything they can get their hands on, and via Javascript and “bridging methods” to jump the gap with 10.1 and APIs not found inside the confines of the browser. Given the complexity of the problem, this is probably the only way Adobe could go.
Of course with AIR rolling out on mobile and devices later this year, however, the API is already baked into the Flash Player, which is very nice and should remain consistent API (Geolocation, Multi-touch, Accelerometer, Screen Orientation, etc) …
My only problem is that now there are 2 (more) variants of Flash: in-browser and out-of-browser Flash. This creates frag (it’s a good thing it’s fairly easy to take Flash content for one device or platform, and get it ported over to another, fairly quickly).
For the most part, I don’t think it’ll be much too much of a problem … agencies will use in-browser for things like ads, video, casual games … while AIR will provide some sort of alternative to doing native mobile app development (and hence provide more beefy and more direct access to APIs). There will be two markets and it’ll depend on what content you’re creating …
In any case, we all know (or should know) that WORA (Write for One, run anywhere) is a pretty much a mythical “unicorn” (i.e. it does not exist anywhere but there are plenty of fakes around) …
W4OT4M (Write for one, tweak for many) is more likely in 2010 as Flash 10.1 hits devices both inside and outside of the confines of the browser.
In the end, developers and businesses will use whatever technology save time, generates cash, and for which there is a market.