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Adobe is stopping development of its Flash Player for mobile browsers, according to an exclusive report from ZDNet. The company will continue to support existing Android and BlackBerry Playbook configurations of the player, but future development will be focused on developing HTML5 and apps.
Developers were apparently briefed by Adobe about the situation, which will be expanded upon later today on Adobe’s official site:
‘Our future work with Flash on mobile devices will be focused on enabling Flash developers to package native apps with Adobe AIR for all the major app stores. We will no longer adapt Flash Player for mobile devices to new browser, OS version or device configurations. Some of our source code licensees may opt to continue working on and releasing their own implementations. We will continue to support the current Android and PlayBook configurations with critical bug fixes and security updates.”
Somewhere, Steve Jobs is probably smiling. [ZDNet]
Is anyone shocked? It was massively late to the game, it’s near enough useless on a mobile device (it’s near enough useless on most laptops to be fair), and Adobe have always seemed a bit half hearted in it. Glad to hear they’re championing the cause of HTML5, makes me think that they’re not going down the usual route of blindly sticking at one product whilst their business model collapses around them.
So Jobs won (again) and he was right (again) and no I am not a fanboy.
I’m sorry, but I fail to see how Jobs “won”…
Flash was, and still is, a premium technology used to add elaborate interactivity and dynamic material on websites. It’s only with the arrival of newer standards in other codes (namely HTML5) that we have a position whereby Flash feels less of an exclusive treasure trove of design and more of a resource-heavy past-tech.
Saying Jobs was right about Flash is like saying anything isn’t the best when it is until it isn’t. Comprende?
I guess win phone 7 won’t be getting flash after all then… Pitty.
Microsoft’s Windows 8 for tablets won’t support flash either I believe.
As long as they have the desktop (and desktop ie) it shouldnt be too bothersome.