As expected, Adobe is ceasing support of its Flash technology on new operating systems. As a result, the latest Google Android 4.1 "Jelly Bean" that powers Nexus 7 media tablet and will be utilized on many new smartphones and slates does not support Adobe Flash technology. Adobe Flash will also not be supported on Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 systems.

"As we have not continued developing and testing Flash Player for "Jelly Bean" version of Android and its available browser options, there will be no certified implementations of Flash Player for Android 4.1," an official explanation by Adobe reads.

The Flash Player browser plugin integrates tightly with a device’s browser and multimedia subsystems (in ways that typical apps do not), and this necessitates integration by Adobe's device ecosystem partners. To ensure the best possible experience, each device requires certification by Adobe. Devices that do not have the Flash Player provided by the manufacturer typically are uncertified, as their manufacturer has not completed the certification testing requirements. In many cases users of uncertified devices have been able to download the Flash Player from the Google Play Store, and in most cases it worked. This will not be the case of Android 4.1 "Jelly Bean" as there is no Flash player designed for this operating system.

"Beginning August 15th we will use the configuration settings in the Google Play Store to limit continued access to Flash Player updates to only those devices that have Flash Player already installed. Devices that do not have Flash Player already installed are increasingly likely to be incompatible with Flash Player and will no longer be able to install it from the Google Play Store after August 15th," Adobe said.

For many years Flash has enabled the richest content to be created and deployed on the web by reaching beyond what browsers could do. It has repeatedly served as a blueprint for standardizing new technologies in HTML. Nonetheless, a lot of developers and executives all around the industry has criticized Flash for being inefficient, closed and caused glitches on various devices. Meanwhile, HTML5 is now universally supported on major mobile devices, in some cases exclusively, which makes HTML5 the best solution for creating and deploying content in the browser across mobile platforms.

As a result, Adobe's 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 as generally Adobe wants to concentrate on tools for HTML5 tech.

Tags: Adobe, Android, Windows Phone, Blackberry, QNX, HTML