Early Android 4.0 "Ice Cream Sandwich" adopters must do without Flash, as Google confirms that current versions are incompatible. However, Adobe says they won't wait long: a compatible Flash release should be available by the end of the year.
Adobe announced earlier this month that it would end support for mobile versions of Flash, a move that acknowledges the shift towards HTML5 among mobile developers. Indeed, Adobe confirms that its port of Flash for ICS will be its last: future versions of Android will not be compatible.
There is one reality that Adobe must face with Android, and that's fragmentation -- thus some users could still be on versions of the OS that are still Flash compatible. Adobe will still provide updates for those users, but only to address "critical" bugs and security issues, it says.
In related Flash news, the company remains committed to Adobe AIR, its application runtime used to create Internet-based applications. That platform uses a variety of technologies -- including Flash -- and Adobe still plans to support it for the foreseeable future. The company also intends to support Flash for desktop applications, but even there HTML5 has made inroads.
A survey released in September by JavaScript and HTML5 consulting firm appendTo claims 84 percent of developers plan to employ HTML5 within the next six months. Another survey conducted by Appcelerator and IDC found that 66 percent of mobile developers are "very interested" in developing for the platform.
