| News | Features | Interviews |
| Blog | Contact | Editorials |
| Adobe to fully retire Flash for Android |
| By Thom Holwerda on 2012-06-29 18:38:03 |
| And so, Flash on mobile is now completely dead. "There will be no certified implementations of Flash Player for Android 4.1. Beginning August 15th we will use the configuration settings in the Google Play Store to limit continued access to Flash Player updates to only those devices that have Flash Player already installed. 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 from the Google Play Store after August 15th." |
|
| Comment by werfu |
| By werfu on 2012-06-29 20:16:13 |
| I highly expect Adobe will release a new software or a new version of Flash Studio able to target HTML5. |
 - Score: 1 |
| Die Flash |
| By 0brad0 on 2012-06-29 20:19:18 |
| Die Flash die! Burn! |
| - Score: 7 |
| Adobe could have saved Flash, if they'd tried |
| By theosib on 2012-06-29 20:21:08 |
|
This is an example of a business totally dropping the ball on a major focal point of their business. They COULD have put more effort into making Flash perform well on more platforms, using less CPU time, more acceleration hardware, etc. But they didn't. They COULD have open sourced it, but they didn't. They even had a good shot to get it right on Android, and they flubbed that too. It makes me wonder if this was intentional. Did Adobe execs decide that Flash and Flash-related tools just weren't the source of enough revenue to take seriously? Or did they just screw themselves out of incompetence? |
| - Score: 3 |
| ... |
| By Hiev on 2012-06-29 20:29:04 |
| "Steve was right" is my new mantra. |
| - Score: 3 |
| RE: Adobe could have saved Flash, if they'd tried |
| By YEPHENAS on 2012-06-29 20:33:25 |
|
I guess it's a completely unmaintainable code base. Improving it is probably impossible and open sourcing would be embarrassing. It's from the 90's. Edited 2012-06-29 20:34 UTC |
| - Score: 1 |
| RE[2]: Adobe could have saved Flash, if they'd tried |
| By ebasconp on 2012-06-29 20:46:33 |
|
> It's from the 90's. It is not a valid argument at all. Almost all software we depend upon has been implemented in the 80s and 90s. Java is so 90s; Linux is 90s based in an OS created in the 70s. Windows is 90s; .NET is 2000s but runs on top of Windows... The "real world" programming languages were born at 70s and 80s. So, telling some technology comes from the 90s sounds contemporary and really current... to me. |
| - Score: 7 |
| Flash on mobile not retired or completely dead |
| By rklrkl on 2012-06-29 21:19:44 |
|
Hmmm, it looks like the original article headline and its first sentence is a bit over-reaching to me. Adobe has said that nothing beyond Android 4.0.* (i.e. ICS) will have Flash support, which most certainly doesn't equate to either "fully retire" or "completely dead" to me. A bit more research, Thom, and you'd have even spotted a Nexus 7 chink in Adobe's armour: Nexus 7 release date with Android 4.1: late July 2012 Adobe's removal of Flash from Google Play for any device that hasn't already got Flash installed: 15th August 2012. So there's a 2-3 week period where Nexus 7 users will be able to install Flash from Google Play, but then probably won't be allowed to update it after 15th August 2012. So could there be years where Nexus 7 users have an unpatched, insecure Flash after 15th August 2012?! Also, I bet someone will make the .apk file for Flash available on the Net for download and Nexus 7 users might get to run Flash even if they buy the device after 15th August. It should be noted that there have been numerous minor updates to Flash player on my Android 4.0.X tablet and 2.3.X phone ever since Adobe's "we're dropping mobile Flash" announcement many, many months ago and these will continue to appear well beyond August 2012, despite Thom's hyperbole. What *won't* happen is any major update to Flash on Android ever again. Mind you, there's a laughable Nvidia + hardware acceleration + Flash + YouTube + Linux combo that actually results in "Blue Man Group"-style videos (everyone's faces turn blue, I kid you not): https://bugbase.adobe.com/index.c... Would be nice if Adobe and/or fixed that one as a goodbye present to Flash on Linux too! |
| - Score: 2 |
| RE: Flash on mobile not retired or completely dead |
| By Rahul on 2012-06-29 21:47:12 |
| You dont need such a elaborate defense of Flash. Yes, it is available from http://fpdownload.macromedia.com... and users with more knowledge could still get it but it is clear that Adobe is slowly phasing it out more and more and while it is technically going to be used for sometime still, it is dead in the sense Cobol is dead. |
| - Score: 3 |
| RE: Die Flash |
| By WorknMan on 2012-06-29 22:09:02 |
|
> Die Flash die! Burn! Ding dong the witch is dead :) |
| - Score: 3 |
| RE[2]: Flash on mobile not retired or completely dead |
| By KLU9 on 2012-06-29 23:41:19 |
|
I know COBOL's alive (and well?) in the financial industry; to this day banks spend a lot of money on keeping their COBOL-based stuff up and running. But Flash is a *consumer*-oriented technology. And if consumers don't have it on their devices, why would companies spend a lot of money to keep Flash-based stuff up and running (let alone make more of it)? Flash's future seems much darker than COBOL's. |
| - Score: 2 |
| News | Features | Interviews |
| Blog | Contact | Editorials |