Adobe is to break with plans to put its Flash technology into the TV space, at the same time pulling out of the mobile market, in favour of HTML-5. The move follows two decades of development of the Flash Player for mobile browsers.
HTML-5 is now universally supported on major mobile devices, in some cases exclusively,” said Adobe. This makes HTML-5 the best solution for creating and deploying content in the browser across mobile platforms. We are excited about this, and will continue our work with key players in the HTML community, including Google, Apple, Microsoft and RIM, to drive HTML-5 innovation they can use to advance their mobile browsers.”
The implications for the connected TV world are widespread, although Adobe’s ambitions in this field did not stretch far beyond Sony and Google TV/Logitech, the technology had been picked up by Liberty Global’s Horizon box for UPC and the UK’s YouView. “Adobe will continue to support existing licensees who are planning on supporting Flash Player for Web browsing on digital home devices and are using the Flash Player Porting Kit to do so,” the company said in a statement released to GigaOm. “However we believe the right approach to deliver content on televisions is through applications, not a Web browsing experience, and we will continue to encourage the device and content publishing community down that path.”
The company said that its future work would be focused on enabling Flash developers to package native apps with Adobe AIR for all the major app stores. The upcoming release of Flash Player 11.1 for Android and BlackBerry PlayBook is expected to be the last in the format.
New features, some of which incorporate high definition, will be included in Flash Player 12 with plans for a seamless transition towards HTML and Flash.
