In a surprising move (or not so surprising), Adobe is discontinuing its development of Flash plugin for mobile browsers. According to Adobe’s official announcement, they will now focus their efforts on HTML5 instead, as it is “now universally supported on major mobile devices, in some cases exclusively“. They will also continue development of mobile apps based on Adobe AIR and of Flash for desktop.
Adobe will continue releasing security updates and bug fixes for the already existing versions, but the upcoming release of Flash Player 11.1 for Android and BlackBerry PlayBook will be the last official one. Others who have licensed Adobe’s code are permitted to still use it to create their own versions, which will not be supported by Adobe.
What do these changes actually mean for us? Currently, not a lot. Since bug fixes and security updates will still be released, those of us who have Flash on our mobile devices will be able to continue using it as before. The true change will happen when new devices come out without Flash support, but considering the most popular mobile device never supported it, the world will probably not change considerably.
What do you think about this move? Is this merely Adobe giving up, or are they making a wise choice?
Source: ZDnet
Explore more about: Adobe Flash, HTML5.
Flash 11.x is good enough even to carry flash through for a long time on mobile devices as Flash 11.x I would imagine is still pretty advanced. Adobe didn't abandon ship with flash, it just went as far as it could with the plugin and feels that it sustainment is still pretty lenghthy while they dive into HTML5. Even then, Flash will still seem pretty updated!
Wow... I've been a flash developer for years! It's my tool of choice. I just hope adobe can develop a seamless transition with little to no change in the development workflow for flash developers. I don't know the first clue on how to develop media rich animiations and interactivity in HTML5, though I hear it's not a walk in the patk!
Flash will completely disappear, also on the desktop. It's a burning platform.
do you think this will affect android or its good for android with the rise of HTML 5
since my phone after upgrade to froyo still does not run flash, it's the best choice they could make ;)
and in my desktop browsers I have flashblock installed :) (not slowing down the browsing as adblock does..)
That's just it. It seems that they Are giving up, which is a wise choice.
Since I do all of my work on an iPad2 these days, I am not able to go a day,
nay a hour, without not being able to see something because I do not have
flash. Even Steve Job's death will not help me, mainly because he was right
about battery drain on mobiles and bugs in flash in general. I have even gone
so far as to buy three Android devices (all tablets) just to let me do my job
without finding a desktop to view something. I'm afraid it will still take years
for all of the websites that require Flash to dump it entirely for HDMI5, as they
should.
Wise choice. Considering the new adobe edge platform, most developers won't miss flash at all.