2012-12-21-511

Adobe will stop supporting mobile Flash beginning August 15

One of the main reasons why Android has drawn so many loyal users is because many Android devices support Adobe Flash. The days of “I can watch Flash videos on phone” will soon be over as Adobe has declared that it will cease to support mobile Flash on August 15th.

Okay, we all know (or at least people that care enough to dig into these things) that Steve Jobs—and by extension—Apple had issues with Adobe, therefore iPad loyalists never got official Flash support. Essentially, Jobs decreed that the iPad will not have Flash support, and therefore it doesn’t. Some devs have managed to make some flash contents work on the iPad through certain app, but it’s nothing comparable to streaming YouTube contents from a desktop.

It’s simple with the iPad, but why is Adobe deciding to stick it to Android users now after several years of supporting mobile Flash? There could be a variety of reasons, but one main reason is perhaps there are just too many Android devices (with all sorts of specs) to support—fragmentation. Imagine working on trying to make one software compatible with literally thousands of devices from different OEMs. On top of that, Android users are all over the place with regards to the OS that’s powering their phone.

Albeit, over half of all Android users are still on Gingerbread, there are many more that are on Froyo, Eclair, ICS, etc… Did I mention that some OEMs also heavily modify their Android OS (i.e. Amazon’s Kindle Fire)? Okay, you get my point by now—that is, it just takes a lot of work to make Flash work on Android devices.

People that purchased Android tablets and smartphones recently with the intention of using their devices to view Flash content will just have to live with the fact that their device may not support Flash in the future.

Flash may become obsolete in the future, as HTML 5 is supposed the next medium for delivering media online. So Adobe may not be dropping Flash support for mobile devices based solely on how much work is needed to make it work, but rather they may see HTML 5 as replacing Flash sooner than we expect.

It’s unknown when HTML 5 will become the predominant form for delivering online content, but we can’t help it if Adobe wants to stop supporting mobile Flash. Until then, Android users will have to anxiously await a complete YouTube transition to HTML 5. Again, Android users will have until August 15th to get the most out of their “Flash enabled device.”

Click here to see Adobe’s reasoning on why they are dropping mobile Flash support.