Mark Bridge writes:
So, that’s it. Today’s the day Adobe Flash Player - the preferred video player for many web sites - leaves the Google Play store.
It was November last year when Adobe told the world it was going to stop developing Flash for mobile devices, having previously offered an Adobe Flash app for Android. Flash would continue to be developed for desktop PCs, laptops and dedicated mobile apps but in-browser mobile support would be restricted to security updates.
Since then the company has confirmed that Android’s current ‘Jelly Bean’ operating system wouldn’t officially support Flash, noting that devices without a built-in version of Flash wouldn’t be able to download it after 15th August. Today is that day. It’ll still be there for updates but not for new installations.
With Apple’s iPad and iPhone choosing not to support Flash - and Steve Jobs criticising Flash products for their closed and proprietary nature - the presence of Flash on Android devices offered a significant differentiation between the two battling mobile operating systems. In the end, it was Adobe that quit the fight.
[Adobe blog; Steve Jobs on Flash]