[Hopperxx] Farewell Flash

[Danny Kodicek]

(Announcement coming from Mike Chambers of all people - and on Reddit of
all places)
https://www.reddit.com/r/adobeanimate/comments/1qv5yju/updates_on_the_status_of_adobe_animate/

On Wed, 4 Feb 2026 at 00:05, Danny Kodicek <dragon at well-spring.co.uk> wrote:

> And now apparently Adobe are frantically backtracking and saying they
> *aren't* ending access to Animate at all but are going to continue to
> allow people to use it and retain access to their files.
>
> I'm assuming they have had some severe blowback to this and possibly even
> some legal threats - and I'm guessing I'm not the only person who
> immediately cancelled my subscription either
>
> On Tue, 3 Feb 2026 at 18:39, Danny Kodicek <dragon at well-spring.co.uk>
> wrote:
>
>> 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.
>>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>>> Hopperxx at vispo.com
>>>>> http://vispo.com/mailman/listinfo/hopperxx_vispo.com
>>>>>
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