The writing on the wall for mobile Flash Player
Publish date: 02 July 2012 by Hanleigh DanielsWindows Phone OS-powered handsets and RIM’s (Research In Motion’s) BlackBerry smartphones browsers do not offer support for Flash Player in their browsers, and now the latest generation of Android mobile devices will similarly abandon the media player.
Adobe has announced that there will be no certified implementations of Flash Player for Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean), which is Google’s newly announced version of the popular mobile operating system (OS).
This follows on the company’s announcement back in November that it is refocusing its Flash strategy on PC browsing and mobile apps packaged with Adobe AIR, and that it would be discontinuing its development of the Flash Player for mobile browsers in the process.
As of 15 August, Adobe will use the configuration settings in the Google Play Store to limit the continued access smartphone and tablet users have to Flash Player updates. Only those devices that have Flash Player already installed will be able to access updates.
Mobile devices that do not have Flash Player already installed “are increasingly likely to be incompatible with Flash Player” and will no longer be able to install it via the Google Play Store after August 15th.
Android ICS users that upgrade to Jelly Bean
Adobe recommended that users employing a mobile devices powered by Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich), should uninstall Flash Player when they update to Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean) later this year. This is because the current version of Flash Player “may exhibit unpredictable behavior”, since it isn’t certified for use with Android 4.1. Future updates to Flash Player also will not work.
In related news, Adobe recently showcased how its CS6 (Creative Suite 6) package could offer a myriad of workflow improvements to creatives.
