As usual, Steve was right. Adobe has just announced in the light of the new version of Android that it will no longer support mobile Flash, something which many predicted would happen sooner rather than later. Instead, focus will be put on the desktop version of the software as well as Adobe AIR.
The key date in all this is August 15, when Adobe ‘will use the configuration settings in the Google Play Store to limit continued access to Flash Player updates’, ending the mobile life of something that was once an essential part of the internet.
Steve Jobs’ open letter, Thoughts On Flash, predicted this moment back in 2010, as well as publicly dissing Flash at the AllThingsD D10 conference in 2010. Everybody was arguing that the major downside of the iPad was its lack of Flash – but as usual with people ahead of their time, they aren’t understood. Adobe officially announced that they would stop work on mobile Flash shortly thereafter.
So goodbye Flash, and hello HTML 5! My only lingering question is: what took so long?
