Company admits the role of Flash 'will change' as HTML5 progresses
Adobe will cease Flash support for the next major version of the Android operating system, the company has said.
Android 5.0, colloquially known as ‘Jelly Bean’, has no firm release date though is expected to be unveiled next year. There will be a final Flash update to Android 4.0 next month, Adobe said, but thereafter support will be reduced to a handful of possible bug fixes.
Adobe rocked the interactive entertainment industries earlier this month by announcing it will cease support for Flash on mobile browsers.
And in what appears to be an indication of further action, Adobe said “with the growth and continued improved browser support of HTML5, the role of Flash will change”.
“For the foreseeable future, Flash offers advantages in delivering premium video with content protection, as well as providing a high performance, feature-rich and graphically advanced gaming platform,” the company told Pocket Lint.
Advertisement
“We are focusing our Flash Player efforts around these areas."
The sudden withdrawal of support for Flash comes despite high-profile support for the new desktop edition of the player.
Both Unity and Epic Games are modifying their game engines to support the Flash Player 11, which can display high-end 3D graphics due to advanced hardware acceleration techniques.
The company said it is “continuing to develop new versions of Flash for PC browsers and mobile and TV app developers. We are also continuing to develop new versions of Flash Professional and Flash Builder tools for developing Flash content."
Flash was like 90% of the reason I chose to get an Android phone! I love Flash on Android and I don't know what I'd do without it. I hope by Android 5 99% of Flash content is converted to HTML 5, otherwise WTF is the point of having internet access on my phone?
This makes no sense. The hardware running android 5 will be just fast enough to handle most flash comfortably, and could reduce the difficulties associated with making flash on the device to a minimum. I can't help but wonder if apple had a hand in this somehow?
The only reason I avoided Iphone was because it had no flash player. No reason to stay android now I guess. I don't have a problem with losing flash but it would be nice if the html5 tools got up to the same standard first.
Sick of people telling me HTML5 is "the future". It's more like Flash from 7 years ago. Where is Stage3d equiverlent? Oh, sorry, there isn't any. What will HTML5 be like in 2022 (the year it's spec is supposed to be set in stone). Oh, sorry, it will be exactly the same as it is today. HTML5 was announced back in the days of Flash 9 and look how much Flash has changed then.
A backwards step for devs, but a backwards step for consumers because the aim of being able to do everything in the browser no seems like a forgotten ideal. Big business and app stores with their 30% cut have won through. Sure there is Flash still on the desktop but as mobile devices become more powerful and Windows 8 Metro sees more people not using traditional desktop machines, how relevant will these awesome 3d engines be in the browser?
HTML5 might be "the future", but it's a crappy one.
Hard not to see this as being the end of Flash. I'm not sure what will replace it, or if Flash can survive as a niche format.
Daniel Piechnick
This makes no sense. I guess I have to drink the horribly outdated HTML5 coolaid along with everyone else.
The whole point to flash was its ubiquity. HTML5 forces me to make 5 versions of everything when flash worked everywhere (prior to iPad). Open source? Who cares, that sounds great to the W3C so they can pat themselves on the back but down here in the real world it is going to sink me. I am a small business and where I once could develope ellogant solutions very quickly now I am stuck crawling at a snail's pace with this outdated-open-source crap language, HTML5.
