14 DAY TRIAL // People close to Adobe say the company’s development plans for the future do no include Flash for mobile platforms. Instead, the company behind Photoshop will be increasing their investments in HTML5, just like Steve Jobs predicted in April, 2010.
The announcement was revealed to ZDNet, with Adobe reportedly saying “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.”
“We will no longer adapt Flash Player for mobile devices to new browser, OS version or device configurations.”
The e-mail briefing also included future prospects, such as focusing development efforts on applications for mobile, expressive content on the desktop (in and out of browser), and increasing investments in HTML5.
Adobe is to officially announce the full scope of their new developments on their official web site, the ZDNet report said.
Now, as Apple fans may well recall, Steve Jobs once famously gave the world a piece of his mind regarding Flash.
Appropriately titled “Thoughts on Flash”, the open letter specifically stated the reasons why Apple did not want the Adobe standard on its iOS platforms. Some of the key paragraphs from his statement can be found below:
...“In addition, Flash has not performed well on mobile devices. We have routinely asked Adobe to show us Flash performing well on a mobile device, any mobile device, for a few years now. We have never seen it. Adobe publicly said that Flash would ship on a smartphone in early 2009, then the second half of 2009, then the first half of 2010, and now they say the second half of 2010. We think it will eventually ship, but we’re glad we didn’t hold our breath. Who knows how it will perform?”
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“Flash was created during the PC era – for PCs and mice. Flash is a successful business for Adobe, and we can understand why they want to push it beyond PCs. But the mobile era is about low power devices, touch interfaces and open web standards – all areas where Flash falls short.”
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“New open standards created in the mobile era, such as HTML5, will win on mobile devices (and PCs too). Perhaps Adobe should focus more on creating great HTML5 tools for the future, and less on criticizing Apple for leaving the past behind.”
Steve Jobs April, 2010