As of November 9th, 2011, Adobe has killed Flash Player for mobile devices. This includes Flash Player for Android, Playbook as well as Smart TVs. Adobe has said they will continue to support Flash for Mac and PC and that Flash will remain a desktop platform. They have also stated that HTML5 is the best solution for creating mobile content.
Adobe has already started this transition by releasing the Adobe Edge Preview. Adobe Edge lets users make animations using Flash-like transitions and movements. Adobe Edge runs off of HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript. Content creators can make animations without writing any code.
Before we start, let us explain why Flash was popular in the first place. Flash requires little code and is extremely easy to make animations with. Basically, it’s all drag-and-drop. If you want to create a Flash-based website, little code is required.
Why did Apple decide not to include Flash in iOS? Steve Jobs listed a few reasons back in April of 2010. But the main reasons are simple: resources and battery life. Flash was created for desktop computers, not mobile devices. Battery life and processing power is extremely limited on mobile devices. Flash destroys both of these by using more resources (RAM and processing power) than CSS and HTML, the web standards.
You may be wondering, why does Adobe killing Flash matter to iOS users? Well, the explanation is quite simple. Now that Adobe is adopting HTML5, more HTML5 content will be created for the masses. This is because of the upcoming final release of Adobe Edge and the slow death of Flash.
