Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

MacRumors

macrumors bot
Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
63,294
30,378



flash_player_3d_icon.jpg


Last November, Adobe announced that it was ending development of Flash Player for mobile platforms, opting not to optimize the plug-in for new browser, operating system, and device configurations. Adobe's announcement came roughly a year and a half after Steve Jobs penned his "Thoughts on Flash" open letter outlining why Apple had decided not to allow Flash to run on its iOS devices.

Now nearly eight months after Adobe's announcement, the company is officially pulling Flash from the Google Play marketplace for Android for new users. Those users who already have Flash installed on their Android devices will, however, be able to continue receiving updates.
Beginning August 15th we will use the configuration settings in the Google Play Store to limit continued access to Flash Player updates to only those devices that have Flash Player already installed. Devices that do not have Flash Player already installed are increasingly likely to be incompatible with Flash Player and will no longer be able to install it from the Google Play Store after August 15th.
Adobe also notes that Flash is officially not certified for use with the upcoming Android 4.1 "Jelly Bean" previewed earlier this week, and users are encouraged to uninstall Flash if and when they update their Android devices to Jelly Bean.

Article Link: Adobe to End New Installs of Flash on Android as of August 15
 

HarryKeogh

macrumors 6502a
Jun 25, 2008
609
863
Does this mean we no longer have to hear: "No flash? Yeah, that's a deal-breaker right there." from the anti-iOS folks?

Oh well, at least they'll still have: "No removable battery? Yeah, that's a deal-breaker right there."
 

Ciclismo

macrumors 6502a
Jun 15, 2010
830
72
Germany
Cool, maybe they can now use the resources they have freed up to fix Flash for desktops? The current version keeps crashing doing relatively simple tasks such as streaming radio.:mad:
 

Ktulu

macrumors regular
Jul 23, 2002
103
3
Brownstown, MI
Flash Developer - POV

As a Flash Developer I can say this is good news. I have always disliked the flood of poor programming by sudo developers in Flash, this is one of the major reasons for issues with the Flash player, and welcome the hope that as Flash becomes an even smaller "niche" platform we begin to see fewer things developed in Flash, but much better quality for those things that are.

I for one will not miss it on mobile and have always thought it to be a bad idea in the first place.
 

Ryth

macrumors 68000
Apr 21, 2011
1,591
157
opting not to optimize the plug-in for new browser, operating system, and device configurations.

Translated to "we could not program or create a better version of our piece of sh-t program we bought off another company who bought off another company and didn't change for almost 14+ years"

Steve
Jobs
Was
Right
 

Daveoc64

macrumors 601
Jan 16, 2008
4,074
92
Bristol, UK
This will be problematic for companies like the BBC reliant on Flash for their products.

We're not going to see the death of flash any time soon. There's no real alternative to it for protected video streaming (other than Silverlight, which is just Microsoft's version of Flash, so hardly different in concept - closed-source browser plugin.).
 

Over The Hill

macrumors member
Jun 28, 2012
35
0
If you observed things carefully it was on its way out for quite some time now. Just that Adobe was going through all 5 states a bit longer than anticipated.
 

jayducharme

macrumors 601
Jun 22, 2006
4,517
5,936
The thick of it
There goes one of the main arguments I've kept hearing of why someone would choose Android over iOS. I guess arguments now will focus on "closed" versus "open."

Noteflight, an online-based music creation tool, since its inception had a Flash interface. The developers just announced they're recoding their entire site to HTML5. That's huge! But it will open up the entire mobile market to them.

In a way it's a shame. Flash had so much potential, but it seems Adobe just sort of let the software get bloated and irrelevant.
 

Aftershocker

macrumors member
Oct 11, 2011
52
0
Wont be sad to see it go completely, its a terrible resource and battery hog.

Hopefully it will mean everyone mores to html5 that much sooner.
 

Apple Knowledge Navigator

macrumors 68040
Mar 28, 2010
3,525
11,675
......

HAHAHAHA!

Who's having the last laugh now, eh Adobe? This is even funnier than when Steve Jobs said "We opted for killer graphics" (aka. GeForce 320).
 
Last edited:

gnasher729

Suspended
Nov 25, 2005
17,980
5,565
Does this mean we no longer have to hear: "No flash? Yeah, that's a deal-breaker right there." from the anti-iOS folks?"

We'll still hear it, but only from RIM fans (does Blackberry run Flash? I don't know. I don't care).
 

Kyrra

macrumors member
Jan 15, 2009
50
0
Does this mean we no longer have to hear: "No flash? Yeah, that's a deal-breaker right there." from the anti-iOS folks?

Oh well, at least they'll still have: "No removable battery? Yeah, that's a deal-breaker right there."

I'm happy flash is dead, but Android still has advantages over iOS:
1) More choice in phones (which can lead to removable batteries, better cameras, various screen sizes, etc...)
2) A less locked down app store. There can be browsers other than safari wrappers on the Google Play store.
3) Being able to set default clients (email, browser, etc...)
4) Google Maps. (I hope apple can pull off their own mapping solution, but google maps look better right now).
Lots of other things I'm probably forgetting.

But at the same time, iOS has a lot of nice things about it that I would miss if I moved to android (iPhone owner here, trying to decide what phone to get next):
1) Better games (graphics support is more consistant on apple devices, so game devs have an easier time developing for these).
2) Will continue to get firmware updates for years (though, google makes most of the apps that Apple has baked into the OS be updatable from the Play store, so not getting a new OS on android isn't too big of a deal).
3) Nice consistent feeling. This has gotten better with Android ICS, but few people have that.
4) Good customer support. When **** breaks with apple devices, their customer service rocks.
5) Consistency. As much as people like the control android gives you, it tends to make troubleshooting these devices for computer illiterate people a lot more difficult.
 

Rogifan

macrumors Penryn
Nov 14, 2011
24,084
31,015
I thought IE and Chrome had Flash build right into the browser i.e. not a plug in.
 

The Phazer

macrumors 68030
Oct 31, 2007
2,997
929
London, UK
This will be problematic for companies like the BBC reliant on Flash for their products.

We're not going to see the death of flash any time soon. There's no real alternative to it for protected video streaming (other than Silverlight, which is just Microsoft's version of Flash, so hardly different in concept - closed-source browser plugin.).

I'd imagine they'll either switch to Silverlight or use AIR. Adobe isn't withdrawing AIR from Android, just the browser plugin.

A bad day for the web. HTML5 doesn't do nearly enough yet, the creation tools are still very poor, and more content will be pushed to proprietary apps.

Phazer
 

Saladinos

macrumors 68000
Feb 26, 2008
1,845
4
There goes one of the main arguments I've kept hearing of why someone would choose Android over iOS. I guess the main argument now will shift to "closed" versus "open."

Noteflight, an online-based music creation tool, since its inception had a Flash interface. The developers just announced they're recoding their entire site to HTML5. That's huge! But it will open up the entire mobile market to them.

In a way it's a shame. Flash had so much potential, but it seems Adobe just sort of let the software get bloated and irrelevant.

64-bit Linux users will attest to the fact that the software was always bloated. That's why it took them so long to port it - apparently lots of it only really worked on Windows, Intel 32-bit systems.

Anyway, good to hear it's dead. Now I want to see companies serving their HTML5-enabled sites to desktop users, too.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.