You might remember, back in November, when Adobe revealed its plans to focus on Flash for the PC and mobile applications packaged with Adobe AIR. Part of this shift in focus involved the discontinuation of development of Flash Player for mobile browsers. Now it seems the end has arrived for the Flash plugin for Android.
Adobe in June announced that Flash Player was not certified for use with Android 4.1 and recommended users with devices running 4.1 uninstall the plugin. Further, the company confirmed that beginning August 15, it would use the configuration settings in the Google Play Store to limit continued access to Flash Player updates to only those devices that had Flash Player already installed.
In case you haven't had a chance to check your calendars, today is August 15. It seems Adobe is prepared to let the day pass without any formal announcement on its official Adobe AIR and Adobe Flash Player Team blog. Adobe announced the August 15 deadline shortly after Android 4.1, AKA Jelly Bean, was unveiled.
In November, Adobe pointed to the widespread support of HTML5 as the reason for Adobe's departure from the mobile market.
"[...] HTML5 is now universally supported on major mobile devices, in some cases exclusively," the company said last year. "This makes HTML5 the best solution for creating and deploying content in the browser across mobile platforms. We are excited about this, and will continue our work with key players in the HTML community, including Google, Apple, Microsoft and RIM, to drive HTML5 innovation they can use to advance their mobile browsers."
The comments bring back memories of Steve Jobs' crusade against Flash on iOS. When asked why the iPad didn't support Flash, Jobs called the plugin buggy, and said that 'whenever a Mac crashes, more often than not it's because of Flash.' The late CEO of Apple then said that the world was moving towards HTML5.
