Rubenerd

It's just hearsay in the press for now, so let's not celebrate prematurely!

Ah why not? *throws confetti, then vacuums it up*

From a report in Wired:

In an abrupt about-face in its mobile software strategy, Adobe will soon cease developing its Flash Player plug-in for mobile browsers, according to an e-mail sent to Adobe partners on Tuesday evening.

I'll be waiting for official confirmation from Adobe on this before getting too excited. If a journalist receiving the email misinterpreted it or jumped the gun in a desperate attempt for a scoop, it wouldn't be the first time.

Still, if its true Adobe really is ceasing development of Flash plugins for mobile devices, it's absolutely fantastic news and hopefully signals the end of this whole sordid debate that has been raging for years.

"Sordid" sounds like a "soggy sword", which makes no sense. Unless they were made of cardboard, which makes even less sense. Why would you have a cardboard sword?

We’re being open by facilitating closed plugins!

Apple of course famously didn't include Flash in its iDevices, and copped more heat for it even than folks like me who defended their decision on our blogs. Never mind that Adobe didn't have a working prototype for mobile Flash for years after the iPhone's release, or that half the user interactions weren't possible on capacitive touch screens, or that when it was finally released it worked poorly. As far as the tech press was concerned, this was just Apple being all control-freaky.

Control freaky. Super freak. Super freak. She's super freaky!

Still, that didn't stop the competition advertising their support for it in an attempt to differentiate their iClones, even when they predictably failed to deliver (surprise, surprise!). Google even went as far as to advertise their platform as being more free by including Flash, presumably employing the same reality distortion field that allowed them to claim Android was open source. Hey, they're not Apple, so it's okay!

If this story is true and Adobe are ending mobile Flash plugins, I have new found respect for them. I can haz Flash removed on the desktop too now? :D

Madoka Flashica

As an addendum, I started putting Kyubey in all my posts about Flash; not entirely sure why, he just seemed to fit XD. Anyway, with the end of mobile Flash, we can presume it will cease to be included in Android soon, which means I may need to revert my Kyubey/Android icon too. Darn, more work to do!