Adobe Puts Another Nail In Flash’s Coffin

Flash is dying of a slow, painful death. Adobe, the company behind Flash, just made clear once again that Flash isn’t the future by renaming one of its apps. Adobe Flash Professional is now called Adobe Animate CC.

Flash Professional is an application to create rich animations on the web. In other words, Flash Professional lets you create Flash ads.

But for the past few years, more and more Flash Professional users have been using the app to create HTML5 and WebGL animations. These animations work on mobile and desktop and don’t require the Flash plugin for the end user. It’s a win-win.

According to the company, a third of Flash Professional content created today uses HTML5. There’s still a long way to go before we can all forget about Flash. But by renaming the application, Adobe is indicating that it’s not just about Flash animations.

So if you’ve been using Flash Professional for the past few years, don’t worry. Adobe isn’t dropping Flash support. But you should probably learn and switch to more modern formats.

Adobe will also add features to Adobe Animate CC, such as improved pencils and brushes, new vector-based brushes, a rotatable canvas, improvements when it comes to audio syncing and color changing. Animate CC will now also work with Adobe Stock and creative cloud libraries.

The first version of Flash Professional was released nearly 20 years ago. Adobe will release Adobe Animate CC in 2016. And the company promises support for “decades to come.”