Adobe Unveils Full Flash Player For Smartphones
Today at Adobe MAX, Adobe's big developer conference, Research In Motion (RIM) announced that they were also working on a full version of Flash Player for the BlackBerry. RIM and Google are the latest companies to join the fifty or so others participating in the Open Screen Project; a ten million dollar "industry-wide initiative, led by Adobe with the participation of other industry leaders, to enable the delivery of rich multiscreen experiences built on a consistent runtime environment for open web browsing and standalone applications."
Adobe issued a press release this morning unveiling the Adobe Flash Player 10.1, "the first consistent runtime release of the Open Screen Project that enables uncompromised Web browsing" for smartphones, netbooks, smartbooks, and other Internet-connected devices.Of course Apple is the most noticeable odd man out of the Open Screen Project, not participating while its biggest foe, the Palm Pre, demonstrated its ability to run Flash almost flawlessly today. Apple has defended their decision to keep the Adobe Flash Player off the iPhone, saying the full version of the player runs too slowly on the device. Another possible reason, one that seems much more likely, is what Adobe's Flash would give third-party developers: an alternative "runtime" to develop and distribute apps on. We all know how Apple feels about circumventing iTunes, so we can expect them to hold out even as the Android, Blackberry, Palm Pre, and other iPhone competitors get full Flash Players for their mobile browsers.
Videos of the Flash Player 10.1 running on the Palm Pre and Toshiba TG01 can be seen here.
