Adobe to Halt Development of Flash for Mobile Devices

In a move that might come as a big surprise to many, since we're all becoming increasingly mobile these days, Adobe might halt the development of its Flash platform for mobile devices, at least this is what recent reports suggest.

According to ZDNet, Adobe is stopping the development of Flash Player for browsers on mobile devices, and will focus only on offering developers the possibility to come up with Adobe AIR applications for major mobile platforms out there.

Moreover, the company reportedly announced that they plan on continuing to offer support for the existing Android and BlackBerry PlayBook offerings.

“Our future work with Flash on mobile devices will be focused on enabling Flash developers to package native apps with Adobe AIR for all the major app stores,” Adobe reportedly announced.

“We will no longer adapt Flash Player for mobile devices to new browser, OS version or device configurations.

“Some of our source code licensees may opt to continue working on and releasing their own implementations. We will continue to support the current Android and PlayBook configurations with critical bug fixes and security updates.”

Adobe and Google have been touting the availability of Flash on Android devices for the past several quarters, although the experience was not as consistent as the one available for desktop users, it seems.

While this might be one of the reasons that determined the company to put an end to Flash for mobile devices, another one could be the fast emergence of HTML5 technology.

Adobe itself plans on increasing its investment in HTML5, and it would make sense for the company to choose one technology over another.

The move should not affect mobile phone users too much, although Android users might not see things this way. After all, Adobe promised Flash for more mobile devices since a few years ago, and they didn't yet deliver to that promise.