Mobile Flash is… dead?

 

According to ZDNet Adobe just took Flash for mobile out to the pasture and put a bullet in it.

 

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.

 

I am no fan of Flash, but frankly HTML5 isn’t even close to be a valid replacement yet.  This move seems ill advised at best and downright stupid at worst.  I know hands down my Asus Transformer tablet gets far more usage than my iPad simply because it supports Flash.  If there was a valid rich media alternative to products like Flash and Silverlight, I would be all over it, but that technology sure as heck isn’t HTML5!

 

 

I don’t really have any stakes in this game at all, but I do think it was an ill advised play by Adobe.  So they are basically going to become a pure tools provider going forward?  This is a bit odd, as I’ve understood it, AIR was a bit of a flop?  Regardless, a move focusing more on AIR and away from Flash, is a move into being fully a development tool provider and out of being a platform provider.  One of the biggest sales bullets for desktop flash, it’s ubiquity, just went away.

Totally Off Topic


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