Adobe Systems Incorporated announced the halting of its Flash development for mobile devices. The software computer company says it’s turning focus to HTML5.
When you access your computer and pull up a website with fancy graphics and videos, more commonly than not, it is built with a program called Flash.
Flash is a multimedia platform used to add animation, video and interactivity to certain webpages. Developed in 1995, it became increasingly popular by the mid-2000’s, and was purchased by Adobe in 2005. Since then, Flash has ruled the Web with its ability to bring a webpage to life with relative ease.
The main competitor of Flash would be HTML5, a web structuring language commonly used in the design and creation of websites. Flash had been commonly referred to as ‘better’ by consumers but the late Apple CEO Steve Jobs shook the electronic world with his opposing take on Flash, running his iOS devices entirely on HTML5.
The turn from Flash to HTML5 could be devastating to developers of the Android operating system who have long spited Apple for not supporting the platform.
Sources close to Adobe that have been briefed on the company’s future development plans have revealed this forthcoming announcement to ZDNet:
“Our future work with Flash on mobile devices will be focused on enabling Flash developers to package native apps with Adobe AIR for all the major app stores. We will no longer adapt Flash Player for mobile devices to new browser, OS version or device configurations. Some of our source code licensees may opt to continue working on and releasing their own implementations. We will continue to support the current Android and PlayBook configurations with critical bug fixes and security updates.”
The move comes amid a broader restructuring at Adobe, which announced earlier on Tuesday that it was cutting 750 jobs and resorting its priorities.
Adobe didn’t specifically call out this move, though it did say it was increasing its investment in HTML5, and “focusing Flash resources on delivering the most advanced PC web experiences, including gaming and premium video, as well as mobile apps.”
