What is the difference between Adobe Flash and Adobe Animation?

by PRAKASH UPRETI SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER/ CONTENT

It’s just a newer version with new features. It was renamed to avoid a bad reputation that Flash had. The Flash web player specifically has some security issues and there have been requests to kill Flash.

But, Flash isn’t just a web player. It is a good animating tool and is widely used to make mobile apps and games as well.

Now, since the tool has been renamed, if Adobe announces that they killed Flash, it would only mean the web player.

Yet, that renaming also shows the direction Adobe is taking with Flash. Newer features are more targeted towards animators and artists than programmers.

At first, there is no difference. Despite that Adobe Flash was a big hit due to all the Web capabilities and game development provided. The only problem was that Flash was a private software, and it required external plugins for browsers and devices, so for that reason, it was a very weak feature in terms of universal accessibility in many different aspects, I would like to name a few:

Flash contents could be heavy (and it was very common to see “loading” screens.

It was not responsive, only if you’d set up width and height 100% of the browser.

It was not always easy to navigate, and people would not have a preview of the content unless the page was fully loaded, and blind or low vision people would be totally forgotten.

For these and many other reasons, despite all advantages, the Web had to be improved, new features like html5, CSS, and javascript frameworks, and many of these changes sponsored by big companies like Google, and Facebook (more recently). Not forgetting the ascension of mobile devices and, Flash simply died overnight.

However, thousands and thousands of people used Flash for animation, games, and others. And because of the bad reputation (of being a heavy thing on light and optimized Web), they chose to change the name, and Animate could now represent better what they can still offer. In my opinion, the biggest mistake Adobe did about their product it was not providing enough support for mobile and game development in these new versions, for it still has a lot of potentials, and it’s much easier to learn and use than many other animation software out there.