As of 15th August 2012 Adobe will no longer supporting the Flash plug-in for Android, Blackberry and Symbian. Once seen as the killer reason for owning an Android or Blackberry device, this decision will come as a surprise to many, especially considering Flash was the focus of Blackberry’s marketing campaign for their Playbook tablet, even going as far as to use Queen’s ‘Flash’ in its advertising. That’s a lot of Flash.
So were Apple’s reasons for unceremoniously banning the Flash plug-in from being installed on iOS devices justified, or did they instigate Flash mobile’s demise via their lack of support? Adobe are citing “unpredictable behaviour” on the latest Android OS Jelly Bean for the lack of future loving but it could be argued that if there was enough content being created in Flash, there would have been ample demand to support the plug-in. Whatever the reason the result is the same, Flash Mobile is as dead as Pat Butcher and was almost as bloated when it was alive.
It is however far from over for Flash. It’s still the most powerful way to deliver high powered interactive applications via the web, as well as Adobe’s promise of “console quality gaming” and secure video streaming giving it extra legs, features that simply can’t be achieved with HTML5 and JavaScript, yet.