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Adobe drops all Android Flash support, removing Flash Player from Google Play

Jelly Bean won't support Flash, either

Adobe drops all Android Flash support, removing Flash Player from Google Play
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The future is looking bleak for Flash Player on Android devices. From August 15th, Flash Player will no longer be available to download from the Google Play Store.

That's not all, though: it's been confirmed that Adobe's Flash plug-in won't be supported in the upcoming Android OS update, Jelly Bean, meaning pages, banners, and games written in Flash may not load properly when viewed on a device running Jelly Bean.

Abode said that the required certification of each Flash Player implementation by each separate partner program for Android means that Flash doesn't always work on every device, and, thus, fragmentation ensues.

As a result, Adobe is looking to drop Flash support for Android devices altogether. However, if you own a device that currently has Flash installed on it, you will continue to receive security patches for it.

The maker of Photoshop and Dreamweaver warns that if you upgrade your device to Jelly Bean but don't uninstall Flash, it may "exhibit unpredictable behavior", as 4.1 Flash simply isn't supported.

Is this such a big deal, then? Well, Apple's mobile devices have never supported Flash content, and they've got by just fine, with The Big A preferring to focus on supporting web standards such as HTML5 on its iPhone and iPad platforms, instead.

Mike Rose
Mike Rose
An expert in the indie games scene, Mike comes to Pocket Gamer as our handheld gaming correspondent. He is the author of 250 Indie Games You Must Play.