Prologue: Tom attended the Flash in The Can 2010 event in San Francisco and has documented his experience. The opinions and/or views expressed in this series of posts are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Springbox. 
As I sit here in Dallas waiting for our plane to SF, I can’t help but wonder if this conference is fruitless before it’s even begun. But maybe that’s the Popeye’s chicken talking. The two of us are headed to San Francisco for Flash in The Can (FiTC), a conference all about Adobe Flash.
But I don’t think it’s the red beans and rice or the popcorn-butter biscuit that’s making me apprehensive about this trip. I felt this way for at least a couple of months now.
While waiting for the bus in Austin, a woman sitting next to us asked what the deal was with Steve Jobs and Flash. For a second I didn’t have an answer. Then I remembered (it’s been months now) what some claim are reasons behind the refusal to support Flash on the iDevice. Steve Jobs has his reasons. Others say that Adobe wants more control over their interface and applications. They don’t want Flash competing with their App Store and hurting revenue. Good thing Adobe was already planning to add iPhone application creation to the latest version of Flash, right? Wrong. Some claim Adobe went ahead with this plan even though Apple wasn’t on board. Adobe went public with it and thought they could win over support from Apple through the threat of public humiliation. Again, all hearsay. Next move by Apple was a big one: Steve announces, right before CS5 is released, that you could not use any third-party tools to build apps, including and most importantly, Flash. So in a swift moment Flash is, well, just a flash in the pan.
It definitely felt like the end was near after this whole mess. But this is Adobe! Too big to fail, right? I do feel more confident about the future of Flash, especially with support on Android, but the threat is still looming. I planned this trip before any of this mess, and here I am. Heading to Adobe’s hometown, to hear Adobe evangelists preach the word on Flash. One thing is clear. They better have some strong words about the future of this product. I’m expecting the Golden Gate to sway, mountains to crumble, buildings to fall when they preach their message. Am I expecting too much?