Fully-fledged Flash coming to smartphones

 

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By Barry Collins

Posted on 16 Feb 2009 at 08:44

Adobe is planning to bring the full PC version of its Flash player to high-end smartphones - with one significant exception.

The company says the fully-fledged Flash software will be available for Windows Mobile, Nokia's Symbian S60 and Google's Android.

However, the iPhone remain a notable absentee from the list, with Adobe claiming that Apple continues to spurn the software.

"We would love to see it on the iPhone, too," said Anup Murarka, director of technology strategy and partner development for Adobe, according to CNet. "But it's Apple's decision on when and how it supports any new technology. So we will continue to work on it."

The full Flash software for smartphones should reduce the number of websites that don't work properly on mobile devices, according to Adobe.

However, it awaits to be seen how phones cope with the extra memory and processing overhead that Flash 10 will require.

Adobe already distributes a cut-down version of Flash for mobile phones. Flash Lite was shipped on 40% of all new mobile devices last year, according to the company, which has just released version 3.1 of the software at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.