Adobe's Flash to ship on new Android phone
The HTC Hero phone will have Flash support built in.
(Credit: HTC)Marking a departure from the world of iPhone, HTC's new Android-based Hero phone will also come with the ability to handle Flash elements that adorn many Web sites and power YouTube video.
Adobe Systems announced on Wednesday that its Flash Player will be built into the HTC phone, an important step in the company's efforts to spread Flash to mobile phones. The phone, one of several from HTC to use Google's open-source operating system, is scheduled to ship in Europe starting in July and in Asia and North America later in the year.
However, the initial version won't match Flash Player 10, the current version for PCs, which can run programs written with ActionScript 3. Instead, the Android version will handle ActionScript 2 applications written for Flash Player 9 chores, Adobe said. HTC is participating in the Open Screen Project to bring Flash Player 10 to mobile phones through over-the-air updates, though, so Adobe expects fuller Flash support eventually.
"Flash Player 10 for mobile platforms that include Android is expected to be available in the first half of 2010. We are working on delivering a beta of Flash Player 10 in the fourth quarter of 2009," the company said in a statement.
The Flash support will be built into the phone and not available as a download for other Android phone users, Adobe said.
Just having a check mark in a feature list isn't enough to outflank a competitor, but Flash is a significant feature on the Web. It powers many games, streaming videos, and dynamic stock charts, and other elaborate features on Web pages. And Flash is also used for many more dynamic advertisements.
Adobe demonstrated Flash on Android in an online video Wednesday, showing off the technology for watching a trailer at Yahoo Movies, playing the Penguin Swing game, and selecting a region on travel site Expedia. Double-clicking on the Flash element on the Web page runs it full screen.
Apple's iPhone doesn't run Flash, though Adobe would like to see it there and has been developing a version.
"We are developing Flash player for the iPhone. To release software on the iPhone requires Apple's agreement. We have to make it work great, and need to get their agreement to have it released," said Adobe chief technology officer Kevin Lynch in a 2008 interview. "We would love to see Flash on the iPhone."
Stephen Shankland writes about a wide range of technology and products, but has a particular focus on browsers and digital photography. He joined CNET News in 1998 and since then also has covered Google, Yahoo, servers, supercomputing, Linux and open-source software, and science. E-mail Stephen, or follow him on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/stshank. 
Flash seriously uses way too much power.
Flash support will likely be even more important for Android smartbooks/netbooks, since users are likely to expect a comparable browsing experience to their current desktop browser.
If you're interested in going beyond expressing such subjective feelings and educating yourself about where the Web development market is heading (and where the buzz is), this may offer some interesting data to get started:
"Adobe Flash": http://www.google.com/trends?q=%22Adobe+flash%22&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0
"Microsoft Silverlight": http://www.google.com/trends?q=%22Microsoft+Silverlight%22&ctab=-1&geo=all&date=all
22&ctab=333247712&geo=all&date=all
"HTML": http://www.google.com/trends?q=HTML&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0
With all respect, if you had followed W3C work on HTML 5 you'd understand that it offers some improvements but still only a fraction of the functionality readily available in Adobe Flash and Microsoft Silverlight today. Besides that, consider that the HTML/JavaScript/CSS "standards" are implemented differently by all browsers, making it an increadibly tedious task to implement sophisticated and professional web applications using said technologies. Now, let's add HTML5 to that mix. yay!
On your reference to Flash "requiring too much power", well--that's a generalization that needs to be clarified. But if the reference is in regards to Flash Video, you may have missed the news that Flash Video is becoming a standard that will be supported by the chipsets used by all major TV manufacturers. Also, NVIDIA is releasing a chipset that will support Flash Video for computers. Besides that I'm not sure what power issues you may be referring to.
Whether or not Flash Video runs on a TV set is irrelevant to this discussion. They're plugged into the wall for power.
that consume CPU resources and slow everything down
plus they take up bandwidth on a already slow 3g connection !
for this to work they need to be a quick access setting to turn it of and on
or I can see it back firing big time !
1. Google's bread and butter (web advertisement) will still be there.
2. Some ads will be made in HTML 5 (now that it is getting slightly more sophisticated and can actually support it).
No wonder why the G1 is rooted by a higher percentage of its owners than the iPhone.
- by CreativeMalcolm June 25, 2009 7:26 AM PDT
- I confess I'd love to see Adobe really start making flash quicker and less of a processor hog. On Windows it's not so bad but on the Mac even doing simple stuff can suddenly get my MacBook pretty dang hot. It's pretty bad when playing an online game makes my machine run hotter than high end work in their pro apps.
- Like this Reply to this comment
-
(19 Comments)