Google have announced on their Geo Developers Blog that they are deprecated support for the Flash based Maps API.   They claim this is so they can focus more resources on the JavaScript Maps API v3.

The Flash API was introduced back in 2008 when Flash was probably at its peak.  The decline of Flash, is in my mind, linked to one device in particular.  It seems very coincidental that the iPhone was in first released in June 2007.  It was the iPhone that was in the vanguard of Flashless web content followed more ravishingly by the iPad which first appeared in April 2010.

Is this another nail in the coffin of Flash based content?  In a previous post I bemoaned the lack of Flash on the iPad with reference to live streaming.  There are certainly somethings that Flash does brilliantly well of which live streaming is an example.  But, I think we have to assume that the Google announcement is not welcome news at Adobe.  Yet again, the once dominant Flash is moving down the pecking order.  Despite Google’s statement that they remain committed to the Flash platform on both Android and in Chrome, the Flash Player is just not the multi-platform, multi-content delivery system it was back in 2008.

As a Flash developer myself, who has used the Google Flash API, I would say to others fear not.  Those hard won Actionscript skills transfer very nicely to Javascript.   They are both ECMAScripts, and if there is one permanent in this business it is change.

One Thought to “Google Deprecate Maps API for Flash”

  1. andy m

    For those trying to figure out what to do with your Google Flash Maps code, I’d suggest checking out the MapQuest Flash Maps API. It’s homegrown and being improved all the time. A lot of recent work has been spent on a mobile version to take advantage of the new features of Flash Builder 4.5.1.

    Web/AIR Flash Maps API – http://developer.mapquest.com/web/products/featured/as3-flex-flash.
    Mobile Flash Maps API- http://developer.mapquest.com/web/products/featured/as3-flex-flash-mobile

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