[Hopperxx] Farewell Flash

[Danny Kodicek]

I'm not clear what they're planning either, but I've seen some speculation
that they're planning to make an AI-driven animation tool, presumably on
similar lines to the various video generators like veo. But given that
these generators can already create animation-like content just as
well/badly as they make video, I'm not clear what this would add. Anyway,
it's all rumour for now (I'm not even sure whether the "pivot to AI" quote
I included comes directly from Adobe or whether it's something I picked up
from someone else)

On Tue, 3 Feb 2026 at 17:40, Jim Andrews <jim at vispo.com> wrote:

> What does it mean that instead of Animate, they are "pivoting to AI"?
>
> I'm currently just starting to use Claude Code. In VSCode. Do they imagine
> that's pretty much how dev will proceed?
>
> Have they put out any info on a more specific vision of the tools we will
> be using?
>
> ja
> On 2026-02-03 3:21 a.m., Danny Kodicek wrote:
>
> Well, you don't have much longer! It's no longer supported as of this
> month and will be shuttered for good next year. They're basically saying
> you have a year to get all your work ported into other forms or you'll lose
> it.
>
> On Tue, 3 Feb 2026 at 11:10, Robert Gordon <rob at article19.com> wrote:
>
>> I actually still very much have Animate in my workflow. Like many of us,
>> my catalog went from Director to Flash to HTML5. In that last transition, I
>> kept all of my assets in Flash (later Animate) ‘cause most of them were
>> vector and the texture atlas exporting was decent enough. Illustrator and
>> Photoshop (to my knowledge) still don’t natively support texture atlase
>> export. Will probably keep Animate around a while longer…
>>
>>
>> r o b
>>
>> Robert Gordon
>> The Article 19 Group Inc.
>> 514.938.8512
>> rob at article19.com
>> www.article19.com
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Feb 2, 2026 at 9:52 PM Danny Kodicek <dragon at well-spring.co.uk>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> I'm guessing everyone here has seen the news that Animate (nee Flash) is
>>> being abruptly discontinued as Adobe "pivots to AI". Considering that it's
>>> still very much actively being used as an animation tool, despite the death
>>> of the SWF online, that really does seem like a very sudden and callous
>>> move, and one that I think they'll regret.
>>>
>>> I found myself thinking about how things might have played out if Adobe
>>> hadn't decided to kill off Director. Even at the time, Flash was already in
>>> trouble - it had been seven years since Steve Jobs put the first nail in
>>> its coffin. Shockwave had already been essentially rendered useless, but
>>> Director was still a viable tool for making apps. Maybe if Adobe had put
>>> its force behind Director instead, even melded the two tools into one, they
>>> could have salvaged the situation.
>>>
>>> And with Animate gone, what do Adobe really have left that's unique and
>>> justifies their exorbitant cost? Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign are all
>>> still great, but there are so many cheaper rivals out there (Affinity is
>>> especially snapping at their heels). The PDF obviously isn't going anywhere
>>> any time soon, so Acrobat will still be around, but who really uses it now?
>>> Premiere is still my favourite video editor but obviously there are many
>>> more. AfterEffects is probably the only truly unique tool in the suite, but
>>> Adobe has never really known what to do with it and I'm frankly astonished
>>> it's still going.
>>>
>>> Anyway, it's 3am over here so I need to get to bed. But I felt the need
>>> to raise a glass to our old friend.
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Hopperxx mailing list
>>> Hopperxx at vispo.com
>>> http://vispo.com/mailman/listinfo/hopperxx_vispo.com
>>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Hopperxx mailing list
>> Hopperxx at vispo.com
>> http://vispo.com/mailman/listinfo/hopperxx_vispo.com
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Hopperxx mailing listHopperxx at vispo.comhttp://vispo.com/mailman/listinfo/hopperxx_vispo.com
>
> _______________________________________________
> Hopperxx mailing list
> Hopperxx at vispo.com
> http://vispo.com/mailman/listinfo/hopperxx_vispo.com
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://vispo.com/pipermail/hopperxx_vispo.com/attachments/20260203/e604b196/attachment.html>