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Captivate on the iPad

Guest
Mar 08, 2010 Mar 08, 2010

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Is anyone doing any research on running Captivate movies on the iPad?

Thanks,

Erika

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LEGEND ,
Mar 08, 2010 Mar 08, 2010

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Hi Erika

My guess here is the answer is a big NO.

When the iPad first was announced I saw lots of chatter among assorted Adobe folks as well as other Community Professionals. As I understand it, Apple totally rejects Flash. Therefore the iPad doesn't support Flash. Captivate outputs to Flash ergo no Captivate (or anything that requires Flash) on the iPad.

For me, I see iPad as just another silly move on Apple's behalf to lock out the mainstream. They have traditionally prevented any cloning of components and have kept prices artificially high as a result. Which is why PCs dominated the marketplace. You can usually buy about four PCs for what you pay for a single Apple.

Cheers... Rick

Helpful and Handy Links

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SorcerStone Blog

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Guest
Mar 08, 2010 Mar 08, 2010

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As always Rick, I appreciate your answer!!!

Erika J. Pasarela

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Community Expert ,
Mar 08, 2010 Mar 08, 2010

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Hi Erika,

As always Rick explained it very well. But ... am sure Adobe will find a way, Connect Pro can already function on iPhone (I'll never buy one for the same reason as Rick's), iPad...

Lilybiri

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Participant ,
Apr 29, 2010 Apr 29, 2010

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We can agree or disagree with Apple's decision, but that's not the point.  Mobile devices are the future, and we need to investigate ways to provide training on the iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch.  If Adobe doesn't want to produce tools that can be used to create eLearning for those devices then someone else will. 

Are there any plans for future versions of Captivate to publish to open standards, such as HTML 5?

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LEGEND ,
Apr 29, 2010 Apr 29, 2010

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Hi there

While I do not dispute the fact that mobile devices are the future, I have to really pause and ponder just how effective eLearning really could be on something like a tiny telephone. I mean, really. You might have enough space for a button and a few words. People are constantly fighting the issue with Captivate that what they have to present to the end user must be captured at a size that really isn't suitable. Then they struggle with how to shrink it to fit the smaller area they have.

So I'm genuinely curious here. What type of applications would you foresee that would translate so well to a format such as iPhone? For the sake of argument, lets rule out that iPad is even a remote possiblity. Or even if it were, lets say that HTML 5 is suddenly the norm. How does the fact one can play a movie without Flash enter into the mix? How does one answer questions or interact in a simulation in any way? To my knowledge it simply provides an easy mechanism to present video. I've heard nothing about the interactivity that is also a constituent part of Flash related technology.

So do your best to try and sell me on the idea that tiny devices such as cellular telephones are the way to fly with eLearning.

Anxiously awaiting any replies... Rick

Helpful and Handy Links

Captivate Wish Form/Bug Reporting Form

Adobe Certified Captivate Training

SorcerStone Blog

Captivate eBooks

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Guest
Apr 29, 2010 Apr 29, 2010

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I, for one, did some experimentation on using a smartphone for Captivate and it really was tiny...we gave up.

I could, however, see its use on an iPad.  I work for a magazine publisher and that's the way we are heading with our content. (If you have an iPad, check out Epicurious....absolutely FAB!)

Erika J. Pasarela

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Participant ,
Apr 29, 2010 Apr 29, 2010

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You raise a good point about the small size, and I agree that it limits what we can do, but I am looking at it as inevitable.  And of the course the iPad has much more screen resolution that the computer monitors we used for eLearning back in the 80s.

I am an eLearning professional and I am discouraged at the poor quality of much of the eLearning that I see, so the last thing I want is more poor quality.  But consider the apps for the iPhone that exist now.  Some are very good, and to the extent that they are useful so could eLearning, as long as it is built with the limitations in mind. I think you could have a lot more interactivity than I see in much of today's eLearning.  I would not create instruction that is nothing more than a bunch of bullet points and boring content for any device.  But as these devices become more the norm for many people we need to evaluate how to produce quality eLearning, and what tools are required to create that. 

We probably need a whole new authoring tool for these devices that works better with the smaller screen size, and it won't publish to Flash.  If a client buys iPhones or iPads for their employees and wants training to be delivered on them, what do we have to offer?

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New Here ,
Jun 11, 2010 Jun 11, 2010

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I did a conversion from Captivate to a static movie for the iphone a few years back.  You can actually record it in real time with you clicking the interactions to make your interactive elearning into a more of a software DEMO VIDEO (I develop software training in Captivate) but you lose the interaction and you're right with size being a huge issue - you end up having to recreate the captions to be pretty huge.  With the larger display iPadmight be worth a try if it gets widespread use.

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Engaged ,
Mar 08, 2010 Mar 08, 2010

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If --coming-- Flash 5 can convert to Apple's native format and if there's a smooth workflow integration between Captivate and Flash 5, --better yet, publish straight to Apple's format from within Captivate-- then Bob's your uncle.

p.s: no plans to buy an iPad.

Cheers,

Seth

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Participant ,
Jun 11, 2010 Jun 11, 2010

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I don't know how you managed to miss out on the last few months worth of Apple, Adobe, and Google power struggles. But, here's the deal: no Flash on Apple devices: http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/

For public-consumption, demonstration-only screencasts, that's not much of a big deal. Cp5 will export to the YouTube-friendly f4v format. YouTube will transcode that as Apple-friendly h.264 behind the scenes. For similar stuff that can't be put on YouTube, you can export from Captivate to AVI and use a converter like FFMPEG or Handbrake to convert to h.264. 

Another option will be HTML5 and its Canvas element, emerging standards that Adobe's authoring tools will, I suspect, eventually support. There are already some experimental converters out there (e.g. http://smokescreen.us/) which will convert SWF to HTML5 + JavaScript. The HTML5 option would provide a lot more opportunities for interactivity. And I think that Adobe could totally own this space, as the creator of HTML5 development tools, if they chose to do so. But we'll see how that shakes out.

[I think Apple has some legitimate as well as some perfectly selfish and self-serving reasons for banning Flash from its devices. But I'll refrain from diving into that for now. I'm a fan of both Apple and Adobe, which makes me something of an odd bird of late.]

Practically speaking, this has been a non-issue for my own screencast delivery. The consumers of the screencasts I create consume them via desktop, laptop, and netbook machines. Many people in my organization have iPhones and iPod touch devices. And quite a few have Macs (especially at home, as I do). But, as yet, there's been no strong desire to access training content via those devices. As Rick noted, the form-factor itself is an issue. The iPad (and, as they emerge, other larger-format touch devices) will be a more viable platform for delivering screencasts, but I'm still not sure that the typical usecase for these devices will be to consume training content. If trainees come beating down my door demanding to watch my SharePoint and Excel how-to demos and simulations on their iPads, I'll find a way to target them. But, for now, it's not a concern. 

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Adobe Employee ,
Jun 11, 2010 Jun 11, 2010

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The mobile question is an interesting one. Here are my 'guiding principles for mlearning':

1. eLearning will not be popular on mobile until it you can develop once, deliver everywhere.

2. The content will have to scale well, perform consistently and display ubiquitously.

3. eLearning authors prefer ease of use tools for content creation.

4. The content needs to be ADA/508 compliant.

5. The content should be indexed & searchable.

6. The content should be heavily optimized / streaming (to facilitate both rich media & rapid download.)

7. The content must be well integrated with collaboration, tracking, & reporting applications.

8. Content creators need to own, manage and control their own content.

9. Content should be hardware agnostic & OS agnostic.

I'm sure there are many others, but I think these begin to set the tone for expectations. Would love to hear what others think.

--Allen

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New Here ,
Oct 19, 2010 Oct 19, 2010

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11 October 2010:

Apple’s recent announcement that it has lifted restrictions on its third-party developer guidelines has direct implications for the Packager for iPhone. The feature is available for developers to use today and we will now resume development work on this feature for future releases. This is great news for developers and we’re hearing from our developer community that new AIR applications for iOS devices are already being approved for the Apple App Store. We do want to point out that Apple’s restriction on Flash content running in the browser on iOS devices remains in place.

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Advocate ,
Jun 14, 2010 Jun 14, 2010

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If I may, I think the executive summary for the Captivate on Apple mobile devices issue is:

  1. Apple has banned Flash from their mobile products (iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch), so you cannot use projects published directly from Captivate.
  2. Apple has banned the ability to use Adobe Packager for iPhone to convert Adobe-generated content to an iPhone-native format (link), so no hope there.
  3. Adobe has partnered with Greystripe to create a service for converting Flash to HTML 5 on the fly (link), but it's only just been announced and is intended to deliver interactive ads; there's no guarantee it will work for Captivate-published projects.  It's also a hosted solution, so you'll be paying Greystripe a monthly fee for the service if it works for Captivate projects at all.
  4. You can convert a published Captivate project to a video format (.avi, .m4v, etc.) but doing so means it's a view-only demo with no interactivity.  This conversion must be done using a 3rd-party tool each time you republish your Captivate project.
  5. The differing screen sizes of the iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch means you will likely end up targeting each published project to a specific screen size (iPad vs iPhone 3/iPad Touch vs iPhone 4) or settling for a lowest-common-denominator screen size (iPhone 3/iPod Touch).
  6. The differing screen dimensions of the Apple mobile products makes reusing project resources very difficult; some content that looks great on iPad will be unreadable at smaller screen sizes (iPhone 3/ iPod Touch).

Basically, until Adobe forces Apple to open up the iOS through legal means or Adobe adds HTML 5 support to Captivate, the ability to use Captivate-generated content on Apple mobile devices is limited to publishing your projects and converting them as view-only videos.

If there's anything I missed, feel free to chime in. 

Regards,

John

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Guest
Jun 14, 2010 Jun 14, 2010

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Such a shame.

I thought with Adobe coming out with a Mac version of Captivate, things might be loosening up.

I guess not.

I think training on the iPad is definitely coming, especially since Lynda.com now has an iPhone app....

Erika J. Pasarela

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Participant ,
Jun 16, 2010 Jun 16, 2010

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This is a good case in point. I haven't messed with the Lynda stuff too much, so someone more familiar with it please clue me in, but aren't those videos exclusively demonstrations?

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Community Expert ,
Jun 16, 2010 Jun 16, 2010

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Indeed, nothing interactive in the Lynda.com lessons, all (good) demonstrations

Lilybiri

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Participant ,
Jun 14, 2010 Jun 14, 2010

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I think your focus is in the wrong area here.  First of all, Apple is not going to change course and include the Flash player in the iPad. Whether Captivate generates Flash or HTML 5 is incidental, Adobe can make that change, so the choice is up to Adobe right now. 

The bigger question is whether Captivate is the right tool to develop for the iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch.  I don't think it is. The interface for these devices is heavily dependent on touch, swiping, pinching etc., and unless Adobe makes some significant changes in interactivity in Captivate you could not create the kind of interactivity needed.  Also, in much of what I have done in Captivate I make use of rollovers, which make no sense in the iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch environment.  And as much as I try to avoid it, Captivate is unfortunately built on a linear model.  While not alien to mobile devices (I have created podcasts, which are by necessity linear) a linear approach is an outdated and instructionally ineffective model.

So developing once and delivering everywhere makes no sense, since a PC-based training approach, on a larger screen, is just not the same as what a designer would want to do for these mobile devices.  The computer/mouse paradigm is a 1980s era approach.  These new devices need new thinking.  That doesn't mean that Captivate could not be modified to deal with this, and that is actually something we need, since there does not seem to be any good authoring environment for these devices right now.  So rather than arguing over Flash, Adobe should show some leadership and develop a great tool for creating native content for the iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch.

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Participant ,
Jun 14, 2010 Jun 14, 2010

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"The bigger question is whether Captivate is the right tool to develop for the iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch.  I don't think it is."

It certainly isn't at the moment, though Adobe tried to move that direction with CS5, though that was more in terms of making it a technical possibility, not a way of embracing the platform's touch UI as such.

I love the iPhone/iPad interface. I've tinkered a bit with Xcode/Interface Builder/Objective-C, just to see if it's something I could tackle. At the same time, I also love Captivate. I'm learning as much ActionScript 3 as I can, since that allows me to extend Captivate now. I have a foot and an interest in both of these camps. I'm curious to see what happens. Maybe video is good enough for mobile learners. Or maybe Apple isn't interested in being a mobile learning platform. We'll see.

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Participant ,
Jun 14, 2010 Jun 14, 2010

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"Basically, until Adobe forces Apple to open up the iOS through legal means or Adobe adds HTML 5 support to Captivate, the ability to use Captivate-generated content on Apple mobile devices is limited to publishing your projects and converting them as view-only videos."

I don't know what Adobe's legal position would be, with respect to forcing Apple to do anything. Adobe is a software vendor. They don't control Apple's hardware. Adobe has convinced Google to include Flash and AIR in the Android 2.2 OS (http://www.riagora.com/2010/05/flash-air-and-google-android/). So it seems their hope right now is that Android will become the leading edge mobile platform.

Video covers a lot of ground. I like Captivate's ability to produce interactive content (simulations, especially). But a lot of training starts as demos. And plenty of it ends there. I use Aggregator to create the TOC that ties my SCOs together, but I could just as easily render them all as AVIs (and then transcode to M4V) and build a TOC in HTML. For the demo-only stuff, that would do just fine.

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Enthusiast ,
Oct 19, 2010 Oct 19, 2010

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We recently got an iPad at work and I've been playing with it and Captivate 5.  As others have accurately posted, it is possible to create a demonstration only and publish it as an .f4v file.  I then used Adobe Media Encoder to convert that to an h.264 .mp4 file.  The iPad will play this mp4 file using the Safari browser just fine.  It looks and sounds great.

My concerns are that there is no interactivity at all.  And no closed captioning nor TOC either.

Mister C.

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Explorer ,
Oct 19, 2010 Oct 19, 2010

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Apple’s recent announcement that it has lifted restrictions on its third-party developer guidelines has direct implications for the publishing options available from Captivate 5 and Adobe eLearning Suite 2. If you have eLS2, or both Cp5and Flash Pro CS5, You can now publish interactive Cp content on to your iPad/iPhone. More details are in this blog post. http://blogs.adobe.com/captivate/2010/09/publish-to-iphone-from-captivate-5-and-elearning-suite-2.html

Shameer Ayyappan

Sr. Product Manager - Captivate | Adobe eLearning Suite

http://blogs.adobe.com/captivate

http://www.facebook.com/adobecaptivate

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Participant ,
Oct 19, 2010 Oct 19, 2010

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How well does interactivity work?  What happens with rollovers?

I will try this when I get a chance and report back.  Thanks.

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Guest
Mar 21, 2011 Mar 21, 2011

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Can anyone point me in the right direction please...

My understanding is that Adobe Captivate sims CAN now be played on ipads as an iOS application (but NOT in the iOS browser itself)

Am I right in assuming that the process now would be to

1.Create a Captivate project and publish as a a SWF

2.Import the SWF into Flash CS5 Pro

3.Publish the SWF in the iphone packager (inside of flash CS5 Pro)

4.Then you would have an ipa file which would be uploaded into iTunes

Is this correct?

Does anyone know of any tutorials using Flash CS5 Pro and the iphone packager using a Captivate file?

Thanks

Mike

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Participant ,
Dec 16, 2011 Dec 16, 2011

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Lol. I have painted myself into a corner. Any help would be appreciated...

I've developed some lessons for our customer... with much faith in Adobe's "Enable SWF for conversion to iPhone application", and knowing that flash can be packaged inside an iphone app, I presumed that captivate users were ready to launch into the ipad realm.

I'm trying to import my .swf into Flash CS5.5 to create the app, and it crashes Flash. Is there any reliable way to get my captivate .swf onto an ipad/iphone currently?

Thanks in advance.

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