Flash video on mobile devices
Adobe has announced Flash 10.1 for a plethora of mobile devices – but there is still no iPhone support. The news came out of the Adobe MAX Conference which is being held in Los Angeles this week. This is part of the Adobe lead Open Screen Project which aims to provide a uniform media rich Internet experience across all devices.
According to Adobe, Flash Lite is currently installed on 40% of all new mobile phones. Video delivery is limited by the processing power of the device however, hindering access to Internet video content, 75% of which is delivered through Flash.
Adobe aims to have Flash supported directly by device hardware, reducing the load on the CPU and preserving battery life. Flash 10.1 will utilise GPU acceleration on mobile platforms with supporting hardware, and will be capable of full HD video (1080p) on netbooks and smartbooks.
On the server side of things, Adobe is working to reduce the amount of data used to push video content to a mobile device. The intention is to scale down video resolution on the fly, in order to fit a device’s capabilities, reducing server load and transfer times.
RIM (a recent addition to the project), Nokia, Nvidia, and Qualcomm all intend to enable Flash support directly on their chipsets. Intel recently joined the party by announcing hardware Flash support on their Atom based chipsets by way of a Broadcom video processing chip.
Features brought by Flash 10.1 include support for multitouch, gestures and accelerometer input, perfect for current and future waves of smartphones.
Whilst the announcements focused on video delivery, 10.1 will also open up new avenues of interactivity for mobile games and mobile Web portal developers.
Although Apple still refuses to climb on board with Flash, and the Open Screen Project, they may be forced to change their stance as practically every other portable device manufacturer will soon be able to offer hardware supported Flash driven content on their high end products.
Public betas of Flash 10.1 for Windows Mobile and webOS will be out before the end of the year. Android and Symbian versions are rumoured for early 2010.
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