Adobe to Bring full-fledge Flash to Smartphones, iPhone still missing

Permalink: Adobe to Bring full-fledge Flash to Smartphones, iPhone still missing by Franz Bicar

With the emergence of these new breed of smartphones, Adobe Systems has strengthen their efforts in distributing its trademark Flash technology to these devices. The company has worked for years on a lightweight incarnation of its Flash technology for mobile phones, but it now is working to bring the full-fledged Flash Player 10 to higher-end smartphones.

At Adobe’s Max conference, Chief Technology Officer Kevin Lynch mentioned a lot of possibilities and revealed their plans on these technological advancements. “We are midst of evolving Flash Player 10 for mobile,” Lynch said. “We’re taking the full Flash Player and making that run on the higher end of the mobile market.”

Adobe, of course, isn’t the only company trying to push forth their products. You also have Sun Microsystems who already has had some success spreading Java and its newer JavaFX to mobile phones. Then of course,  Microsoft, which also has legions of programmers familiar with its technology and development tools, is working hard on Windows Mobile.

Lynch demonstrated Flash Player 10 on devices running Nokia’s Symbian operating system, Microsoft’s Windows Mobile, and Google’s Android operating system. But the quintessential example of the new family of smartphones, Apple’s iPhone, so far remains only on the wish list.

Questioned about its absence, Lynch said that it still needs a little more baking. Adobe need to pass the taste test of Apple’s head chef. Naturally, nobody from Apple shared the stage with Lynch. Google Android leader Andy Rubin, by contrast, made an appearance after Lynch’s demonstration of Flash on a T-Mobile G1, the first phone powered by Google’s mobile operating system. That Adobe was able to bring its software to Android affirms Google’s strategy of building an open platform intended to give a better Internet experience on cell phones

Flash is used for YouTube’s streaming video, and Lynch demonstrated a Windows Mobile phone playing a video hosted on the Google service.

“Our goal was to make a billion phones Flash-enabled by 2010,” Lynch said. “We’re actually going to get 1 billion Flash-enabled phones by 2009.”