[LSW]

Adobe drops Flash for mobile market

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Our future work with Flash on mobile devices will be focused on enabling Flash developers to package native apps with Adobe AIR for all the major app stores. 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

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HTML5 is now universally supported on major mobile devices, in some cases exclusively. This makes HTML5 the best solution for creating and deploying content in the browser across mobile platforms. - Adobe

Where does that leave flex developers for web based applications. Ouch.

[Ben]

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Where does that leave flex developers for web based applications. Ouch.

John Gruber (Daring Fireball) recently posted this:

Adobe Q&A: (http://blogs.adobe.c...bout-flex.html)

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Is Adobe still committed to Flex?
Yes. We know Flex provides a unique set of benefits for enterprise application developers. We also know that the technology landscape for application development is rapidly changing and our customers want more direct control over the underlying technologies they use. Given this, we are planning to contribute the Flex SDK to an open source foundation in the same way we contributed PhoneGap to the Apache Foundation when we acquired Nitobi.

Translation: “No.”

[LSW]

LOL - The problem is Flex is a Flash based application. We are re-writing all our Retirement apps with it. The thing is more and more of our staff is using iPads to do more and more work and we always expected that eventually the apps could be used by mobile devices and we would switch to Android based tablets.

But if all flash support is dropped from mobile devices then Flex web applications will never work on them and either some departments in the state will have to switch application technologies or plans for widened use of tablets by for instance our employees traveling to native villages etc. will have to continue to use laptops and any former employees who go mobile and replace computers will not be able to access our tools.

So the answer is not as simple as "No," this could cause some state departments to finance a complete switch in development technologies complete with training costs and re-development costs as well as licensing etc.

The only bright side is that Flex applications made as desktop AIR apps will still work on mobile devices. But right now all our development is web based.