By Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen recently told Fox Business that Flash 10.1 should be coming to Android sometime in the second half of the year. We had expected to see 10.1 makes its way to Android phones sooner, but it seems Adobe will hold good on their word after failing to produce a beta of the platform running on Android at last year’s MAX Conference.
Straight from the horses mouth:
“We have a number of excited partners who are working aggressively with us to bring Flash to their devices, whether they be smartphones as well as handsets, and so companies like Google or RIM or Palm are going to be releasing versions of Flash on smartphones and tablets in the second half of the year.”
Android won’t be the only breed of smartphone to receiving full Flash support, and it is no surprise that Apple is missing from the list after becoming embroiled in a battle over Flash support on iPhone.
The bad news is Flash 10.1 won’t be getting any love on older handsets, as at a bare minimum phones taking advantage of Flash will require an ARM Cortex-A8 processor. Droid and Nexus One owners are covered, and this shouldn’t be an issue for upcoming handsets, but those who do not own one of these devices will be left without full Flash support.
[via Android and Me]
I have to agree with Jobs on this one. Flash sux. Move on to HTML5 or to Silverlight/Moonlight if you HAVE to.
Now didn’t I see this same story last year that said Flash second half of 2009 or something?
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At any rate (and I know Im about to piss off the flash lovers lol) its been hinted that Google is going to open source a hi-def video codec that they got when they purchased a company. This codec is supposed to be very easy on the cpu while encoding and decoding at high qualities. This would end the issue of HTML 5 video codec patent problems. Google would put it in Chrome an start using it on Youtube, Mozilla would put it in Firefox and Opera and IE would be forced to follow. And with Apple trying to push their content partners out of using Flash for video it would be a wrap and I’m sure they’d support this codec without a problem. So again I don’t think flash even matters anymore. And any way you slice it the big push for flash on these phones is video and not games. You notice any demo of it shows video rather than games.
Flash without GPU support sux. Flash lite 4 should end up on slower stes, but it sux on 7200 chipsets.
However, from Adobe’s on support forums, older Android sets such as the HTC Hero, Samsung Moment, G1, MyTouch3G, Cliq, Behold II, Eris, & Devour are all capable of running Flash Lite. A Flash Lite alpha build that was good enough to run Farmville.
http://www.flashmobileblog.com/2010/03/02/flash-player-10-1-installations-and-updates/
“Therefore the choice to target the ARM Cortex-A8 chipsets will result in greater efficiency, and most importantly a wider range of consistent experiences as uptake grows. To be clear, that uptake is already happening, and it will expand rapidly just like it does every other year.
It’s like a Moore’s Law of mobile phones
Yet some devices will not be able to support the full Flash Player 10.1 due to low hardware capabilities, and for many of those devices we have a new version of our optimized runtime, Flash Lite, to fill the gap. In fact the alpha version has already been spotted running Farmville on Android Eclair here.”
http://www.flashmobileblog.com/2010/02/23/redmond-pie-and-the-farmville-test/
So we will get a version of Flash, just not the full version. This looks promising.
this is total BS. they said they were gonna release it in the first half of 2010. Way to go back on what you said. Ugh, i guess it doesnt matter since i have flash lite with my desire ROM but still, hulu on my nexus would be amazing!!
I thought it was supposed to be released in q1.
HTML5 would be nice but it’s just not ready yet and doesnt have all of the capabilities that flash does.
Flash doesnt suck but some implementations of it do. For example the ads that float over web pages and what not.
There are many web based applications though that can’t be written in html5 or SilverLight as of yet.
Why can’t we have Flash 9.x for now like the N900?
Adobe lies again. I thought their code was so great and Apple was just blocking them for no reason? Obviously the code is complete crap and they are struggling to get it working. Flash has always been a horrible buggy mess!!
This is ridiculous. Maybe Adobe should spend more time working on Flash and less time pitching a fit on their evangelist blog.
Has this CEO not heard of the HTC EVO, not only will flash be available out of the box, it was demoed at CTIA.
Good lord! First it was the last quarter of ’09. Then it was the first quarter of ’10, then the first half of ’10 and now the second half?!?! What the hell is wrong with Adobe that it’s taking them so long and they keep going way, way off schedule?
For stringing us along for so long, and for being so pompous and callous about it, I sincerely hope flash goes under and is never heard from again. It seems like they think that their latest announcement is as compelling as the first time they made the announcement a year ago. With all the alternatives cropping up nobody really cares anymore. That is one seriously out-of-touch, and soon to be forgotten institution.thanks anyway Adobe
With all the pressure from apple. With all the false promises of previous releases. This announcement couldn’t have come at a worse time. The leadership at adobe needs to be replaced. At least get a beta out there. Ridiculous.
@informed.
That was probably flash lite 4.0
I hope they keep delaying it. Apple’s mobile products are helping kill off Flash, unfortunately Google is doing the opposite in terms of mobile.
Funny enough, Google is sponsoring the development of Theora on mobile ARM processes.
I rooted my G1 and had flash so…..WHAT!!!!!!!!!! lol
Its like Job said,”they are lazy”
Ill believe it when I see it. This has been demoed for a year saying its “soon to be released”
speaking of lazy, when is phandroid.com going to update their apps portion of their web page?
@omac – so I guess you are a software developer giving us your expert opinion.
They seem to be taking their sweet ass time with it that’s for sure
Well, According to http://home.leakdroid.com/2010/04/google-nexus-one-getting-a-ota-update-soon-rumor/ flash is not coming until Froyo ships out.
The problems I see with Flash are:
1. it tends to be a resource hog (CPU, battery life, …).
2. it is prone to crashes, on some platforms (i.e. it is not robust across all OSes).
3. it is notorious for security issues.
4. it does not integrate seamlessly with the rest of a web page’s content (try using keyboard commands on a page when flash content has focus).
5. it is based on proprietary technology controlled by one company.
6. it usually requires the installation & maintenance of a plug-in.
WebKit-based, HTML5-supporting browsers, are available on many/most smartphones. If websites/advertisers want to reach the more affluent user demographic associated with high-end smartphones, they should modify their websites. The last thing we need is Flash draining the battery, slowing down the device & potentially even crashing a user’s telephone.
I recently installed the FlashBlock plug-ins for Google Chrome and Firefox and they are amazing!
– pages load faster.
– you don’t waste unnecessary CPU cycles, battery, etc., on flash content.
– if you want to see the content (most times I don’t, because it’s usually advertising), you just click on it.
Lack of flash support on iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad PLUS FlashBlock installed on all desktop browsers could provide the necessary financial incentive for websites & advertisers to migrate to another technology (HTML5/Canvas/SVG/…), if they want their content/ads visible at all times.
@HereAndNow
1. HTML 5 is a larger resource hog
2. HTML 5 browser support is not standardized
3. Everything has security flaws
4. Many plugins suffer this same behavior
5. see #2
6. One more small thing to automate updates on along with the browser(s), OS, Office, etc, etc.
While HTML 5 has potential it is far from a full on replacement of Flash. Try playing a nice slow paced game of FreeCiv on anything short of a 2.8Ghz Core 2 Duo let alone a lowly ARM chipset with html5 implementation that likely will crash your browser.
Wow, the Flash codebase must be just a steaming pile. Between the runaway success of the iPad and Google’s rumoured open-sourcing of VP8, Adobe should be very worried. Flash is quickly becoming totally irrelevant and they can’t even push out a mobile release.
For all the apple fanboys hating on flash…what percentage of websites currently run on this buggy mess??? Better yet do me a favor and check out some ipad ready sites…see how many links still require flash….Apple equals mass fail. Flying cars and HTML5 so exciting!
they are just like motorola trying to update their droid.
steve job iam proud of you.
There’s nothing to stop the phone manufactures adding HTML5 enabled browsers. It doesn’t mean you cant have flash as well. I don’t understand the haters of flash, just get a blocker they are very easy to add and most browsers have them. Its like trying to ban tomatoes because you don’t like the taste! Just don’t eat them they don’t need to ban it. Personally i don’t like Quicktime as it instals stealth updaters which take up CPU but i don’t think it needs to be banned, i just don’t install it, its fine.
I have to say though that i’m getting P*&^%d off waiting, they announced 10.1 was going to be available for the palm end of 2009, then generally 1st half 0f 2010, now second half, its starting to smell like vapourware.