Adobe Flash Player exits Android Google Play store

Thrill

Looks like bad news for android users who bought them because of flash.


http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-19267140

Adobe is pulling its Flash Player plug-in from Android's Google Play store.
It follows a decision to halt development of the software for mobile devices.


The plug-in allows multimedia content created using the Flash format to be viewed via a web browser.


Adobe will continue to develop the player for PCs. It will also support Air - a tool which lets developers turn web-based applications using Flash into standalone mobile apps.




It also suggested that smartphone owners who had upgraded to the latest system should uninstall the Flash Player if it was already on their device.



Adobe said it was removing the option to install the plug-in because it was likely to exhibit "unpredictable behaviour" when used with the latest version of Android, known as Jelly Bean.

I was only thinking of getting one recently but I think I'll hold off for a while now


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BobbyPropane

Thankfully android still isn't as restricted as Apple so perhaps third party apps will still exist. But still bad news.

Baz_

Its not really bad news, one of the very good things jobs did at apple was to not support flash, a third party web technology that the internet community became far too dependent on for presenting multimedia online. There's a better solution out there and its html5, and jobs' decision over at apple has forced the web development community to take it seriously, which can only be a good thing for building the next generation of the open, semantic web.

In saying all that, I never felt aggrieved using flash, it was a great piece of technology and served a specific purpose at a time when HTML alone couldn't satisfy the need. And in fairness to adobe they never tried to make people (consumers) pay for the use of flash and provided it free of charge (I presume they made their money selling the authoring tools to developers?).

However, like I said a better solution exists and has now for the past number of years and its about time developers started to make use of it...

Flash is dead*, long live html5!


Baz_

*there probably will continue to be a use for flash, just not on the mobile internet for much longer.

5starpool

I don't really care if things are flash or html5, but I just want a phone that will play things whatever they use. Pain in the arse if flash isn't supported as lots of things are still using it.

Baz_

5starpool wrote: »

I don't really care if things are flash or html5, but I just want a phone that will play things whatever they use. Pain in the arse if flash isn't supported as lots of things are still using it.

Agreed, but I presume the decision was taken on the basis of changing attitudes towards html5 (higher uptake in use), and I believe that this android decision will force an even higher uptake.

Internet rumours abound that the combination of dolphin browser and flash (downloaded as an apk separately from the market) might be another way to solve the flash problem for some.

PogMoThoin

Baz_ wrote: »

Its not really bad news, one of the very good things jobs did at apple was to not support flash,

Jobs was right, HTML5 is the future, but flash very much was the present. The real reason Jobs refused to support flash was that he was afraid that it would kill their app store. The internet is full of free flash games that people can play in the browser for free but are expected to pay for in the Apple App Store.

Kenno90

When i got the Galaxy Nexus last October, i didn't (and still haven't) installed flash and i never noticed it as an issue. There was one app i installed (Whack a boss) that wouldn't work without flash so i uninstalled it.

Think flash causes more trouble then its worth

ongarite

Good riddance to Flash IMO. It's served its time and was a good bullet-point for Android phones but it is a battery and resource hog.
Nearly all Youtube videos are HTML5 now and this will push the rest of the mainstream sites to follow suit.