14 DAY TRIAL // Adobe already announced plans to come to the market with a mobile version of its Flash platform, in a move intended to make it available across a wide range of mobile operating systems, including Android, yet it seems that the company wants to offer handset users some more goodies than originally believed, as it is reportedly getting ready to include multitouch and accelerometer support with the upcoming Flash Player 10.
As many of you already know, Adobe's Flash technology powers a variety of websites around the world, as well as videos and other types of media, and the support for accelerometers and multitouch input should enhance it a lot. The new features are expected to land sometime at the end of the ongoing year or at the beginning of the next, and now the question turns from “if” to “when,” it seems.
These pieces of information are reportedly coming from Redmonk’s James Governor (Twitter via ReadWriteWeb), who states the following: “[Adobe Chief Technology Officer Kevin Lynch] says beta for mobile Flash, unmodified, by end of 09. for embedding in early ‘10 multitouch, accelerometer.” At the same time, he also states that this move would provide great functionality to non-iPhone devices and would also boost apps on them.
Furthermore, VentureBeat reports, an Adobe spokesman already sent a confirmation: “Kevin Lynch has shown some of the great progress we’ve been making with Flash Player 10 for smartphones. As we’ve announced before, multiple partners have already received early versions of this release, and we expect to release a beta for developers later this year. Android, Symbian OS, Windows Mobile, and Palm WebOS will be among the first platforms to support web browsing with the newest Flash Player. Kevin also mentioned some of the new mobile features we’re working to include in Flash Player 10 including multitouch (to allow users to easily interact with dynamic content) and accelerometer support (to understand the orientation of the device).”
According to VentureBeat, the main idea behind this move would be whether the implementation of the technology is made well enough so that users will be able to benefit from it. At the same time, the news site also notes that these features of Flash-based websites would be similar to those present within native apps, and that it would make more sense to come up with such a site, accessible from any mobile platform, than to develop apps for each and every one of them.