Adobe Flash expands to all smartphones (except iPhone)

Software provider Adobe Systems announced the introduction of Adobe Flash Player 10.1 for smartphones, smartbooks, netbooks, PCs and other web-connected devices, promising a consistent runtime release enabling uncompromised web browsing across multiple platforms. According to Adobe, the browser-based Flash Player 10.1 runtime uses the productive web model of the Flash Platform to enable designers and developers to reuse code and assets, effectively slashing the cost of creating, testing and deploying content across different operating systems and browsers. In addition, it leverages the power of the Graphics Processing Unit to accelerate video and graphics while conserving battery life and minimizing resource utilization. Flash Player 10.1 also boasts support for smartphone features including multi-touch, gestures, mobile input models, accelerometer and screen orientation.

Public developer betas of the browser-based runtime optimized for Windows Mobile, Palm's webOS and desktop operating systems including Windows, Macintosh and Linux will surface later this year--public betas for Android and Symbian will follow in early 2010. In addition, Adobe and Research In Motion announced a joint collaboration to bring Flash Player to BlackBerry smartphones, while Google will join close to 50 other industry players in the Adobe-led Open Screen Project initiative.

Conspicuous by its absence in Flash Player 10.1's future: Apple's iPhone. This summer, Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch told [1] The Wall Street Journal that the firm has assigned engineering teams to all major smartphones, but the iPhone delay has little to do to with technological challenges: "We need to have Apple's agreement before we can do it," Lynch said. In March 2008, Apple CEO Steve Jobs contended [2] the iPhone requires a media player more robust than the existing Flash mobile solution.

For more on Flash Player 10.1:
- read this release [3]