Adobe’s Flash will soon be available on most smartphones…
Adobe Flash is one of the most popular web technologies. In fact, more than 75% of video online is based on Flash. Flash also powers video sharing websites such as YouTube. Till now, the full-fledged version of Flash has not been made available for smartphone because of limited processing power.
However, this is set to change. Adobe has stated that Flash will be made available for most high-end smartphones by 2010. However, Apple’s iPhone will not use Flash. Once Flash becomes available for smartphones, user can run all the rich applications it supports on their smartphones.
Many websites also use Flash and all these will become functional on smartphones. Flash is one of the most popular applications installed on personal computers. Almost 98% of all computers have Flash installed on them. Flash also powers services such as BBC’s iPlayer service and most of the browser-based games.
However, Flash is not available for smartphones till now. Smartphone users have to use a stripped down version of Flash known as “Flash Lite” which doesn’t require more computing power. As of writing, almost 40% of all smartphones come with Flash Lite installed. It will continue to be used on low-end smartphones in the future.
Adobe is making Flash available for smartphones because this will make user experience more consistent across different devices. A few years back smartphones had limited capabilities. However, today they have become more powerful and can support better software and cater to increasing needs of the users.
Independent studies reveal that the number of smartphone users will increase exponentially. In the year 2009, more than one billion smartphones are expected to be sold across the globe. More and more users are accessing the Internet using smartphones.
Adobe’s latest version of Flash will support high-definition video and also function well with touchscreen-based devices. This version of Flash is a part of the Open Screen Project which aims to create a media platform for movies and games. Capability to run on any type of device is one of the major aims of the project. Developers can now develop applications which will run on a number of devices without any problems.
Currently, more than 50 companies including those such as Google and Nokia support the Open Screen project.
The new software will be available for Palm WebOS, Windows Mobile and desktops OSes such as Windows, Mac OS and Linux. Support for Google Android and Symbian is expected to become available in the early months of 2010. However, the new software won’t be available for Apple’s iPhone. In order to support the iPhone, Apple’s cooperation is required. Apple’s Safari web browser doesn’t currently support plug-ins. However, in the future Apple may cooperate and so the software may be available for the iPhone as well. As Flash becomes more and more popular, Apple will eventually have to accept it as well.