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Adobe slips mobile Flash Player 10.1 to second half of 2010

*LTD*

*LTD*

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Feb 5, 2009
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http://www.appleinsider.com/article...flash_player_10_1_to_second_half_of_2010.html

Adobe slips mobile Flash Player 10.1 to second half of 2010

By Prince McLean
Published: 05:00 PM EST

After mounting an intense attack on Apple for not supporting Flash on its iPhone OS mobile devices, Adobe has admitted that it will not be able to ship its promised Flash Player 10.1 for mobile platforms until the second half of the year.

Adobe's Flash Player 10.1 has been widely publicized as being the first version of the company's runtime that will enable mobile devices to play most of the Flash content originally designed for playback within web browsers running on the PC desktop.

The new 10.1 version was initially targeted at Android and Palm's webOS, with developer preview editions released over the last few months. Adobe has since committed to also supporting RIM's Blackberry OS, Symbian, and Microsoft's Windows Phone 7, which is slated for release this winter.

The company originally intended to release Flash 10.1 in the second half of 2009 (as depicted in the timeline below), then the first half of 2010. The latest slip now makes the release a year late. Despite its problems in delivering a real version of Flash for mobile devices, Adobe executives are seeking to pin the blame on Apple for not even wanting to wait for Adobe and its promised mobile Flash runtimes.

Engadget reports that Adobe's chief executive Shantanu Narayen told Fox Business that Apple's disinterest in bundling the upcoming Flash Player on the iPhone OS was a business rather then technology decision, and that it "hurts customers," even though his company hasn't ever shipped a full mobile version of Flash for any platform that actually works with the broad array of Flash content users might want to view.

clicktoflash.05.png


There is no mobile version of Flash

Existing mobiles that say they run Flash really only support old versions of the runtime (such as Sony's PlayStation Portable, which runs Flash 6 from 2002, or the legacy Palm OS, which runs a very old version of Flash 5 from a decade ago) or Adobe's "Flash Lite," a version that does not even aspire to playback the same content as desktop versions (it is based on Flash 8 from 2005). Symbian and Windows Mobile are limited to Flash Lite playback.

Adobe's problems in delivering a real version of Flash for mobile platforms is complicated by the fact that most Flash content is not well suited to play on a small screen, and particularly not in a multitouch environment where desktop browser conventions of a mouse pointer and mouseover events are simply not present.

Flash is also hampered by the memory and processor limitations inherent in mobile devices. The upcoming 10.1 version of Flash for mobile devices will demand a fast Cortex A8 processor, which means it won't run on anything but the highest-end Android, Palm, Blackberry, and Symbian phones sold over the last several months. Even if Apple wanted to bundle Flash 10.1, it would only minimally work on the iPhone 3GS and newer products.

In February, Apple's chief executive Steve Jobs reportedly told executives from the Wall Street Journal that Flash was a CPU hog riddled with security holes and dismissed his interest in working with Adobe to fix Flash playback in saying, "we don't spend a lot of energy on old technology."

Adobe's inability to ship Flash Player 10.1 on schedule means that the company's current 0% share of the mobile market will continue through the second half of the year. The fact that more than half of the world's mobile web traffic is originating on devices running Apple's iPhone OS also means that Adobe won't gain more than a minority share of the mobile market even once it actually ships its first functional version of Flash for mobiles.

This is in stark contrast to the 96% installed base Adobe claims for Flash on desktop PCs. With mobile devices becoming an increasingly important way for content creators and advertisers to reach people, the fact that they simply can't currently do that using Flash is a serious problem for Adobe right now and into the near future.

Competition for Flash

Adobe also hopes to get Flash Player installed in tablet devices running Android and Chrome OS later this year in order to head off a similar issue with Apple's iPad, which will similarly not run Flash. If Flash becomes the primary way to deliver dynamic content, games, and apps for Android, it will frustrate Google from being able to build a competitive native platform that can attract custom mobile development. It will also impede Google's ability to push HTML5 as the preferred way to deliver applications on its upcoming Chrome OS.

In addition to facing competitive pressure from Apple's App Store and its viable business model as a market for third party developer's content and games, Adobe is also scrambling to make Flash competitive with the emerging HTML5, which enables web developers to deliver rich apps and multimedia playback without resorting to an external plugin.

Flash also faces threats from Microsoft's Silverlight. While Silverlight is currently confined (like Flash) to the PC desktop as a web browser plugin, Microsoft hopes to rapidly push its Flash-alternative platform into its mobile devices, making Silverlight the primary way to create apps for Windows Phone and Zune.

Like Google, Microsoft is currently pushing Flash as a competitive feature checkbox, apparently in an effort to create the impression that Flash is important to browsing the web on mobile devices, and that Apple's iPhone OS users are therefore missing out. Once Microsoft delivers a mobile version of Silverlight, its commitment to Flash could evaporate quickly however.

------------------------------------

Good work, Adobe. By the time this mess is released and is actually usable (a big *if*), no one will care anymore. Why not pull a Microstupid and make users wait until 2011? Shipping bad software late is all the rage. And after all that bluster . . .

shantanunarayenin2007.jpg
 
As Butch said in Pulp Fiction: "Flash's dead baby. Flash's dead."

By the time Adobe releases a functional Flash Player for mobile devices, HTML5 would have already claimed the whole field as most websites would have moved to it in order to make their content visible to people accessing their website from mobile devices.

I was actually a fan of Adobe several years ago but not anymore. I no longer feel the same passion for the company and think that things have been going downhill ever since the Macromedia merger. This excessive focus on Flash is also not helping. They have not delivered a worthwhile update ever since they bought Macromedia. Just more expensive and more bloated software.
 
This isn't helping adobe any bit.

From what I've read, the early version of flash for the palm pre was so bad that they had to push back the release. It was causing the phone to reset itself, sucking down the battery and causing the device to heat up.

I'm not about to pronounce flash dead is its such an integral and important component to many websites. If adobe can deliver a working product soon, to android, and palm pre. Those platforms will have a leg up on the iPhone since they'll be able visit websites and interact with websites that the iPhone is incapable of.
 
75 million iDevices that account for 70% of mobile web access. Without Flash. Lots of incentive to move to other tech.
 
I wonder what the percentage the mobile devices consume the internet bandwidth as compared to desktops/laptops.

I'm not sold that one device will cause a major shift to a largely unproven platform. While I have nothing against html5 or any criticisms, many (most?) businesses are not about to spend money needlessly to drop flash and adopt a new technology that they have little to no experience with. More so if its just for one device.

What hurts that argument is adobe's inability to supply flash to other mobile platforms. While they've been making lots of noise about the apple rejection, the point is they've so far been unable to take advantage of that and release flash for other devices.
 
maflynn said:
I'm not sold that one device will cause a major shift to a largely unproven platform.
Click to expand...

One device can cause a lot of things to happen. One iPhone changed the entire mobile industry almost overnight and singlehandedly destroyed about a decade of Microsoft mobile development. One iPhone ushered in the App Store and changed how we use our mobile devices.

One iPod ushered in the era of iTunes and revolutionized music consumption.

Having developers move to a different video spec or the next version of HMTL is peanuts by comparison, especially when there's money to be made.
 
I disagree.

The iPod was a different kind of animal in that it was the first to tie a great device to software to buy software

The iPhone has lots of competition and I don't see many businesses spending $$ in a recession for one device.
 
kdarling said:
As it turns out, the CEO was talking about hardware for some reason.

Flash 10 is still coming to mobile in the first half of this year.

http://www.phonescoop.com/news/item.php?n=5835
Click to expand...

Too late. Adobe's already waffled on this for too long. They never had any respect for Apple or Mac users and now it's come back to but them square in the ass. They originally intended to ship it first half 2009, then they delayed it by a year. Now not only is HTML5 on the rise, but whatever Narayen said, his lack of clarity didn't help matters.

The perception has already begun. Many big names on the market are already moving rapidly in the direction of HMTL5 for iDevices. They can't afford to wait months to capitalize on a market that is exploding, while lazy Adobe holds conferences, makes promises, and runs their mouth at Apple. When Apple showed the power of HTML5 with ads in the new iPhone OS, you can bet dollars-to-donuts that many a company exec wondered why they were still paying for Flash.

Too late for Adobe. And so much the better for the rest of us. So shed no tears for shiftless-Shantanu and the comedy of errors that is Adobe Flash development.
 
*LTD* said:
Too late. Adobe's already waffled on this for too long. They never had any respect for Apple or Mac users and now it's come back to but them square in the ass.
Click to expand...
Read up on your apple history fanboy.

adobe was first developed on the apple platform and they were very chummy for years. They've not only respected mac users but relied solely on them for their very existence.

The perception has already begun. Many big names on the market are already moving rapidly in the direction of HMTL5 for iDevices.
Click to expand...
Which ones?

They can't afford to wait months to capitalize on a market that is exploding, while lazy Adobe holds conferences, makes promises, and runs their mouth at Apple. When Apple showed the power of HTML5 with ads in the new iPhone OS, you can bet dollars-to-donuts that many a company exec wondered why they were still paying for Flash.
Click to expand...
Which ones? Because that statement makes little sense. Its not like Flash doesn't work, just on some mobile devices and adobe is admittedly is have some serious problems getting it on the mobile devices. This in of itself isn't large enough to have many company execs wondering why they used flash

Too late for Adobe. And so much the better for the rest of us. So shed no tears for shiftless-Shantanu and the comedy of errors that is Adobe Flash development.
Click to expand...
You realize while adobe relies on apple platform for 50% of its revenue, so does apple. So in a twisted sort of way, the success or failure of adobe impacts apple sales. If they decide they've had enough of Job's arrogance and drop the mac platform. Many shops would have to embrace the windows platform if they wanted to continue using the latest and greatest adobe products.
 
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