Adobe Halts Flash Plug-In Development For Mobile Platforms

This post has been updated.

On Wednesday morning, Adobe confirmed rumors that it will end development of its Flash Player plug-in for mobile browsers.

Danny Winokur, Adobe's Vice President and General Manager of Interactive Development, announced the decision in a blog post, explaining that the company will develop native apps for mobile platforms and will focus on the HTML5 web standard, but that it will abandon new mobile browser plug-in development following the release of Flash Player 11.1 for Android and BlackBerry PlayBook.

"HTML5 is now universally supported on major mobile devices, in some cases exclusively," wrote Winokur. "This makes HTML5 the best solution for creating and deploying content in the browser across mobile platforms. [...] 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."

Winokur went on to write that Adobe would continue to support existing versions of the plug-in.

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

Apple had famously rejected the Flash plug-in for iPhone since the device launched in 2007. In 2010, the company's then-CEO Steve Jobs penned a scathing critique of Flash. He praised HTML5 and wrote that "Flash was created during the PC era - for PCs and mice."

"Flash is a successful business for Adobe, and we can understand why they want to push it beyond PCs," Jobs also wrote. "But the mobile era is about low power devices, touch interfaces and open web standards - all areas where Flash falls short."

As Winokur noted in his blog post, this is not the end of Flash Player altogether. "We are already working on Flash Player 12 and a new round of exciting features which we expect to again advance what is possible for delivering high definition entertainment experiences," wrote Winokur.

However, tech blogger Dan Frommer argues that Adobe's move "ultimately signals the end of Flash."

On Tuesday, Adobe said it would lay off 750 employees as part of a restructuring plan.

Check out the slideshow (below) to see how tweeters reacted to Adobe's announcement that it will kill Flash Player for phones.

Comments

[Ogg-the-bear]

11:01 AM on 11/15/2011

Finally. Now I can watch stuff on my iPad. I think.

[Post31]

11:34 AM on 11/14/2011

Haha flash sucks

[moutonnoir]

06:56 AM on 11/12/2011

excruciatingly painful reading these comments...

amazing the things people say when they do not know anything about a topic..

[moutonnoir]

06:51 AM on 11/12/2011

if they really want to improve the online world, perhaps they can make MSIE compliant?

[Tully Hoover]

12:15 PM on 11/11/2011

What it is reallly about is Adobe not wanting to compete with itself? That makes sense to me.

[Kate Hendey]

12:15 PM on 11/11/2011

This is exactly why I converted my flash site to HTML5, since then I've been getting incredible results with my rankings and finally my customers can view my site on their iPads/iPhones.. I recommend www.convertmyflash.com

[Artur ConvertMyFlash]

12:06 PM on 11/11/2011

Another great reason to convert your Flash site into HTML5.

In case you weren't aware, Flash sites :

- Do not work on 250 MILLION iPhones & iPads.
- They are unusable to 1 BILLION SmartPhone Users.
- Don't fully show up on Google Search.
- Content is Not Shareable on Facebook & Twitter.
- Are not SEO Optimized.

http://ConvertMyFlash.com
We convert FLASH sites into HTML5 sites ( powered by WordPress )..in just 72hrs.

Enabling your business to stay competitive and ahead of the game.

[Herbert Ragan]

11:53 AM on 11/11/2011

I am a novice when it comes to code. All I know is HTML5 works better on mobile devices than flash. This is only my opinion. It is also my opinion that MAC and Linux are far better OS than windows.

[moutonnoir]

06:53 AM on 11/12/2011

good to see you recognize opinions are not 'facts'.

HTML5 and flash are not equivelant in any way.. Apple just does not want anyone selling apps to 'their' customers.

[NerdyStudent]

01:44 PM on 11/10/2011

One gets the idea that nobody dishing on Flash both mentioned in the (yet another) slideshow, or in the comments, has no idea what they are talking about, or has never even touched Flash--so far as development's side.

Typical.

[wzjussayin]

12:43 AM on 11/11/2011

stop();
flash_btn.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, myhome);
function flashsucks(event:MouseEvent):void {
gotoAndStop("flash");
}
stop();
flash_mc.addEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_DOWN, startDragging);
flash_mc.addEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_UP, stopDragging);

Flash sucks.

[Tchom]

07:21 PM on 11/13/2011

You're using the actions panel in the IDE to code?

You suck.

[Andrew Wojtkowski]

10:15 AM on 11/10/2011

*bashes head on desk*

Some of those twitter comments simply reaffirmed my belief that the only people who use twitter are those who never have any idea what they're talking about. The extent of knowledge these people have is "Apple says HTML5 is better than flash so it must be." It IS better than flash. But it's also a heck of a lot more difficult. It allowed people who didn't know the first thing about programming (Like whoever works on this site) to make a decently functional website.

Still, flash will remain. It's just there will be no newer VERSIONS of flash. However, it will still be patched. Air will continue to be updated and pushed even on mobile browsers.


Apple bucked flash because Apple insists on having pathetic outdated hardware in their phones/computers (LOL@A5 and IntelHD respectively.) If Apple supported flash, it'd be obvious how inferior this hardware is especially when the Tegra 3 comes out.

[NerdyStudent]

01:45 PM on 11/10/2011

Aye, the twitter comments--I ignored until this morning, and wow--I would of saved myself some time if I had continued to ignore them...you get the idea they don't work with code, Flash...or anything besides their mobile keypads.

[moonbot]

09:37 PM on 11/10/2011

So your saying that, if you have "good" hardware, it's OK to waste CPU capacity on slow, bloated, inefficient, buggy software? Is that why we need fast processors? Is that the best way to allow "people who don't know the first thing about programming" to do their thing?

Are people who don't have a Tegra 3-class machine SOL? Screw the tens (hundreds?) of millions of folks who have late-model phones, but not the soon-to-be-released models?

You must be a marketing person.

[RationalDubSteppa]

08:59 AM on 11/14/2011

You comment shows how little you know of the subject. Performance issues about Flash our a myth. Flash is a high performance runtime which means that if you write great code it will run like butter, but if you run bad code it can cause problems. All high perofmrnace run times have this characteristic. As for performance, Unreal tournament was ported to Flash 11 using its new high performance 3d acceleration APIs. I suggest you google that.

[cincypix]

10:11 AM on 11/10/2011

Don't understand the fuss ... Flash works fine on my Dell Streak w/Android 2.3, in fact a little too fast ;)
Lighter OSes & faster processors are the way to go.

[aphextwin07]

10:07 AM on 11/10/2011

adobe is doing something smart for once, what a surprise

[chiGrkBoy]

10:02 AM on 11/10/2011

I still laugh at brainless Apple fanboys who made over the top flash sites for years and thought static content was "the past"...

...then Steve Jobs comes out against flash, and all those sheep suddenly do a 180° turn because their god said so.

I wonder how the FWA site and such will change? Because most of the sites shown are flash sites.

[drumtosurprise]

09:37 AM on 11/10/2011

Adobe what a terrible idea. I guess we will sit and wait till you change your mind. Flash is superior to HTML5.

[tpeserik]

09:23 AM on 11/10/2011

Time to get off Steve Jobs' jock. He's dead.

[wilray]

09:09 PM on 11/10/2011

I am fanning, faving, and giving you a badge because .... ahh ... uhh. Don't ask me why?