Adobe pushes Flash video on mobile devices

Updated on October 5 at 2:00 p.m. PDT: adding information about support for iPhone

Adobe Systems has garnered the support of mobile heavy hitters such as Google, Motorola, Nvidia, Palm, RIM, and Qualcomm for its new Flash Player 10.1 software for smartphones, Netbooks, and other mobile devices. The company plans to announce the support Monday at its developer conference in Los Angeles.

Adobe's goal is to get Flash Player 10.1 accelerated directly on the chips in smartphones, Netbooks, and small laptops based on the ARM chip architecture, called smartbooks. To date, Flash video acceleration has not been available widely on mobile devices.

"It's critical to support in hardware because (Flash) video is really computationally intensive," Tom Barclay, Adobe senior product marketing manager for Flash Player, said in an interview. "Putting that on the hardware provides the ability to play it back fluidly...so you're not going to drain the battery on these devices."

Though Flash-based video is available on virtually all PCs, "the vast majority of mobile devices have been fundamentally closed," according to Barclay. "This means there is a single (device maker) or carrier or handset manufacturer that can stop technology from getting onto those devices. And that's one of the reasons why the Web as been so slow to be directly accessible from those devices."

Toward the end of getting Flash to run directly on small mobile devices, Adobe created the Open Screen Project. "The Open Screen project is about making more of those devices open. In particular, providing flash player for free in an open manner with the requirement that (device suppliers) make it open for developers," Barclay said.

Adobe also announced on Monday that Google has joined the Open Screen Project initiative. Handset manufacturers such as Motorola will ship Google Android based devices with Flash Player support "early next year," according to a Motorola statement. Companies such as Nvidia, Broadcom, Nokia, RIM, and ARM chip suppliers such as Qualcomm, are all participants in the Open Screen Project.

Conspicuous by its absence was Apple. "Flash is not available on the iPhone at this point," said Adrian Ludwig, group manager, flash platforms at Adobe. "So far, we haven't received the support that we need from Apple." (Note: Adobe announced Monday that programmers will be able to create native iPhone applications using Adobe's Flash Professional CS5 developer tool, currently in beta testing, then offer their programs as an Apple App Store download.)

Apple aside, this is all part of an aggressive push by Adobe to get acceleration on mobile devices. More than 75 percent of video on the Web is delivered through the Flash Player, according to Ludwig. "Having the Flash player on your device means you're able to access all the content out there on the Web," Ludwig said, referring to referring to such sites as YouTube, the video inside MySpace, and Facebook, as well as Fox News and CNN.

Games are also a target. Ludwig pointed to Flash-based games, such as Playfish and FarmVille, played on social-networking sites.

A public developer beta of Flash 10.1 is expected to be available for Windows Mobile, Palm WebOS, and desktop operating systems including Windows, Macintosh, and Linux later this year, Lugwig said. Public betas for Google Android and Symbian operating systems are expected to be available in early 2010. Version 10.1 includes more comprehensive Flash player support for accelerometer-based screen orientation, in which the screen can be reoriented between landscape and portrait modes, and multitouch.

RIM, Nokia, Nvidia, and Qualcomm announced their intention to bring Flash Player to devices, including BlackBerry smartphones, Nokia devices, Nvidia silicon, and Qualcomm chipsets, respectively.

Intel's Netbook technology, which is based on the Atom processor, will support the Flash Player directly on hardware by way of a Broadcom chip, according to Intel. "One would need Broadcom video acceleration to take advantage of the optimizations that Adobe is making on flash," an Intel spokesman said.

Nvidia will support Flash acceleration on its GeForce graphics processors, Ion chipsets, and ARM-based Tegra chips.

For its part, Nokia said that along with Adobe it is introducing a new Nokia Web Runtime (WRT) extensions for Adobe Dreamweaver CS4 software making the creation of mobile WRT widgets for supported Nokia devices easier. Qualcomm said that the first consumer devices ready to support Flash Player 10.1 will be smartbooks and smartphones from companies such as Toshiba and will be based on Qualcomm's Snapdragon chipset.

Adobe is also working, in parallel, on the back end: where servers push the content out of the cloud. Barclay explained that servers need to adjust to the type of device that's playing back the video. "(If) the content was designed for a PC that's got very high resolution and very big from a bandwidth standpoint...the work that we're doing on the server side allows the content provider to detect your bandwidth and optimize the content on the fly so it doesn't need to deliver as many pixels as a high resolution because your device simply can't draw it."

[ewelch]

Adobe's getting desperate because HTML 5 is making inroads faster than they thought. It would be good to have Flash on all platforms, because it is ubiquitous. Not because it's good or usable or doesn't hog resources. But you can't say that about Flash. Either the player kills the battery, or its performance stinks. The iPhone has proven it can do heavy-duty graphics. But that actually is contrary to Adobe's argument that Flash is necessary for interactivity and rich media on phones.

[forever4now]

Adobe should take a leadership role, in bringing support for HTML5, WebGL, O3D & NaCl to their web tools, especially now that:

1. WebKit is emerging as the dominant rendering engine for "native" smartphone browsers (i.e. iPhone, Android, WebOS, Symbian, Blackberry (with Torch Mobile) & WinMo (with a 3rd-party browser)).

2. WebKit supports HTML5 & WebGL (recently integrated).

3. Chrome supports NaCl (recently integrated), with O3D to presumably follow soon.

4. Chrome Frame is available to bring WebKit, & its rich support for open web technologies, to IE.

This strategy would enable Adobe to sell web tools, regardless of whether developers build functionality with Flash OR HTML5/WebGL/O3D/NaCl. A win-win solution for Adobe AND web developers.

[gerrrg]

They're so slow on the development front for mobile devices, I say, to hell with them already.

[lordmorgul]

It is about time. I hope Apple gets onboard with this ASAP. It is always nice to have apps that are specific for your mobile platform, but it is also nice to have the ability to run web platform apps that behave the same for everyone. We need to once again move away from proprietary device lock-ins... at least as an option, while still having native apps if developers want to offer them.

[thelemurking]

Apple is still retarded in this aspect... they still are holding on to hopes of QuickTime being the goto standard and it's just never going to happen. About the only time I encounter QT / .mov files is on Apple.com when viewing movie trailers. Apple needs to face the facts that Flash killed them in web video. While the quality may not be as good as QuickTime, people are more interested in speed and functionality. QuickTime is a one trick pony that suffers from slow loading times. Flash can do a lot more than just stream video and audio... and now with SilverLight actually making it on to more and more devices, QuickTime is even in more danger.

I'm sure there will be people screaming h.264 or something and will be greatly offended that I would declare an Apple product essentially dead... but that's ok. I know more and more people who uninstall QT in favor of players like VLC and KmPlayer.

[ikramerica--2008]

As long as 10.1 is streamlined and not a resource hog, great. But otherwise, be careful what you wish for. Unless you enjoy sucky battery life and phones that get hot to the touch...

[DjiXas]

Still waiting for x64 fplayer

[SteveW928]

I also would welcome a replacement for Flash. It is hard for me to understand why it is such a resource hog. The same video as QT or just about any other kind of video will play with pretty low resources... in Flash, there goes your CPU and battery life. I can understand why Apple isn't exactly enthusiastic about this. While I'd like the possibility of Flash compatibility on the iPhone/iPod Touch, it would drain the battery in no time.

Maybe it could come with with a dialog warning... "Flash sucks!.... battery.... Ok / Cancel"

[aafuss]

Hope the WM version will support WM 45/6/6.5 devices.

[holywarrior007]

I would be very happy if Apple doesn't join the herd to promote this initiative of Adobe. Flash player is the most inefficient player and sucks your resources like anything. Apple should press forward with HTML5.

[thelemurking]

not to mention the most used and most versatile...

[codynews]

I'm not "pro flash" but it seems when it comes to support of Flash on the iphone, people point to other video formats that do work or that should be used.

People are forgetting that flash is used for more than video

(not that I want any of that crap on my iphone... I'm just sayin'....)

Cody

[Super2online]

Flash as a software plug-in is not the panecea of enjoyable web experiences that some make it out to be. I grow tired of the contant upgrades the software insists upon every time you turn around. As long as the chip makers are willing to add support for competitors offerings onto said chips then this seems to be a good solution.

[MaggieRed]

As Apple has said to Adobe go fix it. They haven't and now they have used the market power to bully the others, let them. Apple still is not going to allow it on their device until Adobe fixes the power and virus issues.

See Adobe likes to let stuff slip into their dialog and they wonder why Apple pushes them back. "A public developer beta of Flash 10.1 is expected to be available for Windows Mobile, Palm WebOS, and desktop operating systems including Windows, Macintosh, and Linux later this year, Lugwig said."

FYI Lugwig, there is no such thing as a Macintosh operating system. You seem to be able to spit out the words Windows and Linux, try again moron... it is OS X. The Macintosh boy wonder is a device.

This is why I hope other products take the place and push flash out of existence. For the last 10 years or so Adobe has be anti-Apple and pro WIndows (I notice how they are cuddling up to Linux like they product other applications for Linux.) and yet they wonder why they don't have a better relationship with Apple. Get a clue.

[Jonathan]

Hey iTard. It IS a Mac OS. The only place OS X is allowed to be is on a Mac. Its the only computer that ships with OS X. As such it is a Mac OS. Stop being obtuse fanboi. Now go back to sucking unkie Steve teet. No one else is complaining about this, because no one else makes phones that do not have replaceable batteries. If I need access to a flash site for say access to my Comcast account or something at least I would have the option. And if it sucks down the battery life then I swap out batteries and be done with it. Or purchase a higher MW battery to compensate for the drain. But you can't do that with the God Phone can you? This is more of Apple playing Gestapo with their platform. They did it a bit with OS X, now with iTunes and the Pre, but with the introduction of the iPhone their true colors emerge. Any type of competition on their platform is met with anti-competitive actions that would easily spark a DOJ or EU investigation if MS ever tried such things. Apple is an ***hole pure and simple and frankly its probably the single biggest reason why Adobe couldn't give less of a **** about dealing with Apple.

[rich12313]

@Maggie
dumb fanboy, you got wreckedd

[rocketjam--2008]

Now Flash can bog down your phone as well as your computer.

[Jonathan]

Vs not being able to get to a website you need to access. I'd pick bogging down for 10 minutes vs. not being able to access something at all.....any day of the week.

[gertruded]

They will also be able to put all those tracking "supercookies" into the new devices. I wonder how much money Adobe makes by putting in all those supercookies that are very hard to get rid of and that most people do not even know exist.

[Jonathan]

I'd rather see Siverlight come to all platforms. Flash is a freaking hog on resources. For all the M$Bashing aside..Silverlight is pretty dang resource friendly.

[shellcodes_coder]

Yup that's true, moreover Silverlight uses sand-boxing making it more secure than flash

[ExWinUser]

Finally, I've been wanting to develop some Flash forms that I could access from my cell phone. Adobe is kicking butt on so many levels from creating content to delivering content. I personally have no concern about Flash being a resource hog, and frankly I have never noticed it. I hope Adobe Air will be available for cell phones as well so that I don't have to code in any HTML. Rock On Adobe!

[abcd9009]

I don't think it would ever happen but it would be funny if Silverlight starts working on iPhone and flash still doesn't... LOL

Again, like I said it's not going to happen but just a thought

[shellcodes_coder]

The only reason I have flash installed is because of youtube and as soon as I am done watching clips, I disable flash. Silverlight is the way to go...more secure and resource friendly than resourcehogash aka flash

[calculatorwatch]

well this is disappointing news more than anything, i think a lot of people expected full flash support to debut on android 2.0 coming out later this year, apparently their even farther behind than that though

and say what you want about flash player sucking or bogging down your computer but the fact is it's a huge part of the internet right now and i for one think it couldn't come soon enough

HTML 5 should not be seen as a substitute for flash. Flash deliveries binaries direct to the user device, a different concept from what is on offer in HTML 5. With HTML 5 network and hardware providers can 'easily' segment, filter and choose what portions of a page/site to allow through to a device. With a flash binary you tend to get it all or nothing (though function calls can be intercepted) . Standardization is not always good for the consumer, especially when standards are set by business. Many know the data flowing around us is cash if one has a way to control it. A 'open source type' mechanism for content delivery needs to evolve. Flash with it's binary deliver footprint is something you can inject into the current 'controlled network space' and by its format somewhat circumnavigate TOS.

Steve