Flash 10.1 For All (Except the iPhone)

Flash is one of those things that you take for granted on a desktop or a laptop. Not so on a mobile. As we all know Flash support on mobile devices has been woefully inadequate for years now. Some progress has been made to be fair, but for the most part it’s really not much to write home about. Well this week at Adobe’s MAX conference in Los Angeles could be about to change that, at least when it comes to fairly powerful smartphones.

Flash 10.1 was announced along with public betas for both WinMo and webOS by the end of this year and for Android and Symbian sometime early next year. RIM too looks to be climbing onboard as they have joined the Open Screen Project, which looks to standardise feature sets across different platforms. RIM still have a good way to go though before they’re up to scratch with the rest of the smartphone pack so don’t be expecting to see a 10.1 public beta for Blackberry’s anytime soon. By the way, notice the total lack of the iPhone here … still no joy for the Apple faithful.

Of course Flash support is going to need hefty hardware to do it justice so it’s convenient that we’re now seeing the likes of Snapdragon chips appearing in handsets and OMAP4 architecture rearing its head. Having said all that it’s important to recognise that most handsets sold around the world aren’t anywhere near as powerful so until the likes of Snapdragon becomes commonplace Flash support is probably still going to be a dream for many.

Engadget posted up a video of the Palm Pre running Flash, enjoy …

[Via Engadget]