Adobe today announced that it will halt development of Flash Player for mobile browsers and focus more of its effort on HTML5, native apps using Adobe AIR and upcoming versions of Flash Player for PC browsers.
We will no longer continue to develop Flash Player in the browser to work with new mobile device configurations (chipset, browser, OS version, etc.) following the upcoming release of Flash Player 11.1 for Android and BlackBerry PlayBook. We will of course continue to provide critical bug fixes and security updates for existing device configurations. We will also allow our source code licensees to continue working on and release their own implementations.
Adobe still plans to release Flash Player 11.1 for Android and Playbook but only bug fixes and security updates will follow after.
Calling HTML5 “the best solution for creating and deploying content in the browser across mobile platforms,” is a significant about-face for a company that defended Flash for mobile devices for years, especially in the wake of Apple’s decision to stop supporting it in iOS. The move essentially web concedes the standards battle to Apple.