Apple may feel Flash has no future on the iPhone or iPad, but Adobe is making announcements at the Mobile World Congress today that are likely to increase its penetration with developers.
Adobe is unveiling its AIR platform on mobile devices, starting with Android-based phones.
AIR has allowed developers to build online standalone mini-applications for PC desktops as alternatives to services found within the browser. Twitter clients like Tweetdeck are a common example.
The significance of bringing AIR to mobile devices is that Adobe is giving developers an easy method of creating apps for both the iPhone and other platforms at the same time.
Using its Creative Suite software, they can develop a game, for example, and choose to export it as an iPhone-formatted product or an AIR-based one.
AIR is leveraging mobile-specific features from Flash Player 10.1 as it moves into cell phones. This is the long-awaited software release that brings fully-featured Flash to mobile phones, enabling video and other multimedia elements to be displayed in cell phone web browsers. Adobe is announcing at MWC that 10.1 is on course to be released in the first half of this year.
AIR’s mobile debut on Android later this year is a stinging response from Adobe to Apple’s decision to continue to snub Flash in the iPhone, iPod touch and now the iPad. Steve Jobs has reportedly complained that Flash is a drag on the performance and affects the stability of his devices. Adobe says Apple has given it incomplete and anecdotal crash reports and limited access to its programming interfaces.
Adobe’s new AIR support means developers can publish almost simultaneously in Apple’s App Store and the Android Market of its competitor Google.
Both Google and Apple are supporting the HTML 5 standard for future delivery of multimedia, posing a long-term threat to the popularity of Flash.
Adobe executives say Flash is the current de facto standard and HTML 5 is an evolving one with differing versions and variations on support for it in the different browsers.
Flash Player 10 has been installed on more than 90 per cent of computers. Around 75 per cent of online videos viewed worldwide are delivered using Flash technology, according to the comScore research firm.
