Adobe to ditch Flash for mobile

Adobe is expected to cease development of Flash Player for browsers on mobiles devices.

A blog post from the company outlined plans to focus on enabling Flash developers to package native apps with Adobe AIR for all major app stores.

According to Adobe, "we will continue to provide critical bug fixes and security updates for existing device configurations.  We will also allow our source code licensees to continue working on and release their own implementations".

According to the company, this move will allow it to 'more aggressively contribute' to HTML5:

HTML5 the best solution for creating and deploying content in the browser across mobile platforms. We are excited about this, and will continue our work with key players in the HTML community, including Google, Apple, Microsoft and RIM, to drive HTML5 innovation they can use to advance their mobile browsers.

This uptake of HTML5 will essentially allow browsers to carry out the same functions as Flash, but without relying on Adobe's proprietary technologies - and which can be implemented across multiple platforms.

The move suggests an end to the row between Apple and Adobe over the usefulness of Flash on the mobile platform, but doesn’t necessarily mean chalking up a win for Steve Jobs.

Using Flash on Android doesn’t exactly produce the smoothest of experiences, so this actually opens the door for better, sturdier development on this platform.

Full details are expected to be revealed later today at Adobe’s financial analyst meeting in New York.

Published by: eConsultancy

Published 9th November, 2011

Add comment