Mobile Flash Coming This Fall
In it’s Q2 2009 earnings presentation, Adobe mentions that Flash 10 for smartphones should hit beta October of this year. This should mean a better quality (or, finally, the capability) of most smartphones from Nokia, Microsoft, Palm and Google amongst others to play robust Flash content on the go. We’re assuming the beta will hit all these operation systems at the same time, and should provide a consistent Flash presentation environment.
There are two major phones missing off that list though: RIM’s Blackberry line, and Apple’s iPhone. I’m not exactly sure why the Blackberry isn’t in the line up, but seems pretty obvious why the iPhone is foregoing Flash 10 (unless there’s top secret negotiations between Apple and Adobe).
When Flash is mentioned in the mobile space, the two things that generally come to mind are invariably ‘Flash enabled browsers’ and ‘streaming video’. Despite these obvious points, I believe it’s the ability for individuals to create applications and games outside the App Store ecosystem that presents the real challenge to Apple. They don’t shy away from pulling applications it doesn’t like on its mobile platform. Standalone Flash 10 based apps such as games and even replacement GUIs would fundamentally interfere with their top down control of content.
For example, a number of stand alone Flash apps currently run under Windows Mobile, including a now MIA iPhone like application launcher.
Letting customers customize their phone experience to that extent is outside of Apple’s business model, so don’t expect them to make it easy on you.
UPDATE:
The new HTC Hero Android phone running flash in the browser, including flash games, can be seen on Adobe’s web site here…
RIM doesn’t want flash because of the low level access and potential for security exploits…BB’s are now the most secure from an IT perspective handsets on the market and RIM doesn’t want to risk compromizing that