In this week's RIA industry news we check out the latest Flash Platform updates, take a look at some interesting Flash/HTML statistics and bid a final farewell to the old Flash Player Settings Manager.

Flash Platform Runtimes Update

Fresh out of the oven! Flash Player 10.3 for desktop and mobile along with a refresh of the Incubator build. Late last week, Adobe announced the availability of both these runtime updates and since that time, we've already seen security updates on Android for both Flash Player and AIR. Nice work, Adobe.

New in Flash Player 10.3:
Media measurement, acoustic echo cancellation, integration with browser privacy controls, native operating system control panel, and auto-update on OSX.

New in the Flash Player Incubator:
Stage3D ("molehill") enhancements, native JSON parsing, asynchronous bitmap decoding, support for large bitmaps, H.264 encoding, G.711 audio compression, garbage collection enhancements, a secure random number generator... and who knows what else!!!

Read more on this subject:

• Flash Player 10.3 Release Notes
• Adobe Flash Player 10.3 is live, and some Incubator refreshments!
• Adobe Flash Player 10.3 for desktop and Android devices now available (including Android 3.1 support)

Remembering Flash Platform Settings Manager

So, this is final farewell to the old Flash Player Settings Manager still present at macromedia.com...

One of the most bizarre aspects of Flash Player over the years has been the way it handled certain settings. For those who are unaware, or have never had to deal with the Settings Manager, it could be reached by pulling up the Flash Player context menu and clicking "Global Settings...". This would bring the user to a page on the old Macromedia domain which has the Settings Manager embedded in it. Can you imagine how confusing that would be for users? Why are "Settings..." handled in a modal dialog within the Flash Player but "Global Settings..." takes you to a web page??? Adobe Flash Player takes a user to Macromedia.com to change SECURITY settings. Think about that for a bit.

Perhaps we will never know all of the reasons why Settings Manager existed in that form (and for so long)... but let us hold a remembrance here. Momentarily.

Okay - now, go grab Flash Player 10.3 and never look back!

Flash or HTML Infographic

For anyone doing research in deciding whether to use HTML or Flash for an upcoming project, the people over at periscopic have published their research on the subject, along with a really nice infographic.

If your goal is to develop content in HTML5 so that it can be viewed through both a web browser and the iPad, (to reach the largest amount of people), you might be a little disappointed.

While I love Flash Platform runtimes and tooling, I also use HTML (even HTML5!) in my day to day work. Good to when to use one over the other and this high-level view is ideal to show to new clients.

Read more on this subject:

• Our Research into Flash and HTML5: Which One is Right For Your Project?
• Full Infographic