Posts Tagged ‘Adobe’

Flash Available but No Devices are Compatible

June 25th, 2010

It seems that in all of Adobe’s excitement in releasing the new mobile version of the Flash Player, they have forgotten that there is only one smart phone that makes use of the new feature –and as it is, the number of Google Nexus One owners is just a very small fraction of the Android community.

Still, it is a big step for the web format developer in their quest to show critics and the market that Flash is still a widely used web format. And they are right. While Adobe also recognizes the need for HTML5 development and they also support the new media (Adobe has confirmed that they are currently working on HTML5 development software), Flash is still a well accepted medium.

Anyway, the launch of the Flash Player 10.1 is still big news. So far, none of the existing mobile phones are compatible with it simply because Google’s launch of Android 2.2 Froyo is still not applicable for a vast majority of Android devices.

And that is an issue that Google needs to fix as soon as possible. While it has been confirmed that the HTC Desire will be getting a 2.2 update in the next few days, there are plenty of other impressive Android handsets that have yet to taste the power and versatility of the new Android version.

According to the original announcements, Android 2.2 features a whole host of new features such as tethering and support for turning a handset into a WiFi router. Froyo also improves existing Android performance by boosting the performance speed up to two times faster and the browsing speed up to three times faster.

Naturally, the new Flash Player support is considered to be the main attraction of the new OS, and once it is available for other smart phones; many mobile users will be able to enjoy Flash content on the go.

Adobe’s Flash Arrives on Android

May 25th, 2010

The new Android Froyo update finally brings the much awaited Flash support. It has already been announced early on that the update will bring native Flash and AIR support, but Adobe has one other surprise in store, a dedicated Flash player for the new OS.

According to reports, the Flash Player 10.1 is exclusively available to Froyo and the beta is already available for download. At the time of writing, only the Nexus One is the only smart phone that supports the new Android update though it is expected that other devices such as the Samsung i9000 Galaxy S and the HTC Desire will also be getting updates for the new OS in a matter of weeks.

The addition of Flash to the Android is not the only thing that Google and Adobe have been working on. They also recently unveiled VP8, a new web format for video encoding that is going to be used in YouTube. According to Adobe, the new Flash player will support standard Flash content, VP8, VP6 and H.264 encoded video content. VP8 is slated to be open sourced which means that anyone will be able to use it soon.

In many ways, the big scuffle between Adobe and Apple has proven to be beneficial for the Flash developer. With Apple, they always found themselves on the receiving end of complaints and lacked support from the platform that they were supporting. This is ultimately what made the Adobe’s previous efforts unfruitful. As seen with their team up with Google, Adobe has a lot to offer on the table –more than just Flash.

The ironic thing is that Apple’ was forcing a sudden shift to HTML5 –which is why they never wanted Flash at all (since HTML5 is stable under Apple’s operating systems). Right now, Adobe’s Dreamweaver update is the most impressive integration of instant HTML5 on the internet –making it the most viable development tool for the platform.