Despite the prolonged stalemate between Apple and Adobe when it comes to Flash content on the Apple iPod Touch, iPhone and iPad. A couple of guys, Chris Smoak and Simon Willison have come up with a JavaScript framework that essentially reads in a SWF file and turns them into animated SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) files.
Smokescreen also works with a range of browsers apart from Mobile Safari, including:
- Firefox 3.6,
- Chrome 5,
- Safari 4,
- Opera 10.5 (partially).
Notably, Internet Explorer is missing but apparently support for IE9 is in the works.
Before you start clamouring for for this remarkable piece of innovation, it’s only been previewed on video on a flash banner ad. The code is fairly bloated at around 8000 lines (and I thought my SQL code at work was bloated with a couple of hundred lines for my most complicated stored procedures with associated functions) and does not cope well with complex or Flash content at the moment. Speed is limited by the processing power available to the browser which ultimately means mobile browsers will be most affected.
Smokescreen – iPad demo #1 from Chris @ RevShockAds on Vimeo.
Never fear, the good news is that it will be released as open source. Hopefully, this means that people keen to cut their teeth on such a development will come out of the woodwork and maybe give the original Flash plug-in a run for its money!
Follow Us!