Adobe has announced that after a series of betas, the mobile version of their Flash player is production-ready and now available to partners. Android gets a lot of attention in the press release, confirming that the Flash player will be baked right into 2.2 (a.k.a. Froyo), but BlackBerry, webOS, Windows Phone, Linux Mobile, MeeGo, and Symbian also get a nod.
Of course, Apple is conspicuously absent from the list, but the battle lines have pretty much been drawn. The main applications for Flash on the mobile web will video, gaming, and advertising, all of which Apple has mostly decided to subsume into iPhone apps and their development environment, and any work on the web on those fronts would be enabled by HTML5 instead.
Nokia has been on Adobe’s side through the whole thing, as one might expect since they have two platforms that will be making use of Flash. Palm was getting a little antsy about the release, and the few Pre and Pixi devotees might be as well, but I think Palm’s eagerness in Flash video has more to do with tablets than phones at this point. RIM has been supportive of Adobe since announcing Adobe tools last year, although we likely won’t see the full power of Flash on a BlackBerry until OS 6. Microsoft has agreed that Flash will find its way onto Windows Phone at some point, but like so many of other features, I wouldn’t be surprised to see it missing from launch and finding its way on board sometime in the next five years.
Battery life is still a concern for phones handling Flash, but from what we’ve seen, the end result is exceptional. The only mention we have of commercial availability of phones with Flash is whenever Android 2.2 is launched, which feels like it’s getting closer and closer with every leak. Developers looking to get involved with Flash can swing by Adobe’s site.
[via Adobe]