∞ Adobe stops development of mobile Flash

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Jason Perlow got this from his sources. It’s announcement that Adobe will make:

Our future work with Flash on mobile devices will be focused on enabling Flash developers to package native apps with Adobe AIR for all the major app stores. We will no longer adapt Flash Player for mobile devices to new browser, OS version or device configurations. Some of our source code licensees may opt to continue working on and releasing their own implementations. We will continue to support the current Android and PlayBook configurations with critical bug fixes and security updates.

Good scoop by Jason. An inevitable move by Adobe.


  • Anonymous

    Does Adobe actually believe that AIR apps are the right way? I wouldn’t even use it on my iMac.

    They still seem lost. I hope they get a good CEO like Jobs because I don’t want to see such a great company with so much talent burn to the ground. A company like Adobe should be hiring more people instead of laying them off.

    • http://twitter.com/VGISoftware Daniel Swanson

      Knock off the armchair quarterbacking.

      Adobe’s not burning to the ground by any stretch of the imagination. 

      If you actually read the linked article you may have noticed that Adobe is busy now providing tools for mobile app development and with supporting HTML5, to say nothing of their new Muse product along with ebook and interactive out of inDesign.

  • http://www.thegraphicmac.com JimD

    While AIR is a bit better than Flash, most savvy computer/mobile users know that is sucks almost as much as Flash. I suspect it will fail as well.

    • http://twitter.com/VGISoftware Daniel Swanson

      Flash had its run in the desktop/Web market which preceded the mobile era ushered in by iPhone and its OS.

      Though its lifespan may have been a little longer if it wasn’t banned from iOS, I don’t think it would have been that much longer.

      A similar fate may befall AIR without some huge marketing push by Adobe. But they may indeed not have enough concerted motivation from even within the company for pulling something off, or they may not have sufficient resources to back it.

      Its death may be slower and more drawn out, and it may be hastened if developer interest also wanes.

      Flash may have been the major property of interest with Adobe’s Macromind acquisition back in the day, and they most likely did what they could to keep its fire burning.

      But besides its significant appetite for processor power, it lacked anything akin to Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines. Most all the Flash sites I ever visited were rather difficult to “figure out” how to use or navigate.

      I also thought its programming interface was incredibly clunky and awkward.

  • http://mangochut.net/ mangochutney

    AIR doesn’t need a marketing offensive, it already had that when it was introduced.
    Remember all those Mac Twitter clients built with AIR?

    At this point smart devs opt for native applications or open web standards, if they actually care about the user.
    This is something Adobe still doesn’t want to acknowledge and it will hurt them in the long run.
    Sure, AIR might be a bit better for certain things than Flash, but it is still