San Francisco — In a shocking surprise to Adobe’s Flash technology, global search engine titan Google on Tuesday unveiled a new Google Labs experimental product called “Swiffy”, that promises to convert .SWF files into HMTL5, making formerly-Flash files compatible with mobile devices that include Apple’s iPad and iPhone.
Swiffy, as it is named, originated as a summer project from an engineering intern on Google’s mobile advertising team, fiddling at how Flash animations could be displayed on devices that do not support Adobe’s format.
With this engineering mojo, Flash authors who come to Google with their SWF files can run it through the Swiffy converter, which splits it into a JSON file, then renders it with HTML, Scalable Vector Graphics, and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS).
As a result of the process, Google says the converted files have rendering performance that is “quite good,” with a file size that is “slightly larger” than the original. Converted files can then be rendered in a modern Web browser without the Flash Player plug-in, which means they will work on Apple iOS devices, among others.
“You can upload a SWF file, and Swiffy will provide an HTML5 version which will run in modern browsers with a high level of SVG support such as Chrome and Safari,” described Google product manager Marcel Gordon in a blog post. “It is still in an early version, so it would not convert all Flash content, but it already works well on ads and animations.”
However, the web-based tool does not convert pages that have .SWF embedded, rather individual Flash files such as vector graphics, embedded fonts, images and timeline animations should work fine.
Google has set up a gallery of example conversions and it is fair to say that they make the leap to HTML5 well. That makes the Swiffy more appropriate for developers rather than for anyone with an iPhone trying to watch a flash animation.
Surprisingly, early this year, Adobe rolled out its own Flash-to-HTML5 conversion program called Wallaby. Wallaby, unlike Swiffy, which is web-based, required users to download a piece of software before they could run conversions. It turns FLA-formatted files into HTML5, JavaScript, and CSS. That tool was initially designed as a way for developers to develop and port ads for iPhones, iPads, iPod Touches, and any other devices without Flash capabilities.
In addition, Google also described that Wallaby’s converted product can be edited easily and reused whereas Swiffy delivers a compressed format that can not be easily edited.
What does Adobe opines about third-party tool to convert its Flash files into HTML5? In an FAQ, Google answered that very question as well:
“Adobe is glad to see the Flash platform extended to devices which does not support the Flash player. The result is that anyone creating rich or interactive ads can continue to get all the authoring benefits of Flash Pro and have the flexibility to run the ad in the Flash Player or HTML depending on what is available on the system. Google and Adobe look forward to close collaboration around efforts like these.”
However, to utilize Swiffy’s output on your own site, you can simply save the HTML file that is generated, and incorporate it on your site using an iframe tag.
You can preview the output on a mobile device as well. Google also says that Swiffy currently supports a subset of SWF 8 and ActionScript 2.0, and the output works in all Webkit browsers such as Chrome and Mobile Safari.
While Google is not touting Swiffy as anything more than an experimental tool at the moment, the strategic advantage for Google of being able to get people away from proprietary formats to its beloved open standards mean that further developments to this converter seem highly likely.