Adobe may be ending development of Flash Player for mobile devices, but the company had at least one more update planned… and today it’s available. Adobe Flash Player 11 for Android has been updated to support Google Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.

You can grab the latest version from the Android Market.

Up until this week Flash Player only officially supported Android 3.2 and earlier. But with the Samsung Galaxy Nexus smartphone now available, Adobe updated its software so that you can view Flash-based video, games, and other content on the latest Nexus phone and other upcoming Android 4.0 phones and tablets.

Adobe may still offer the occasional security update here and there, but this is probably the last time we’ll see a major update to Flash Player Mobile for Android.

via Droid Life

Adobe has released the last major update to Flash Player for mobile devices. Flash Player 11.1 is now available for download for Android devices and for the BlackBerry PlayBook. The update promises better performance and security and stability improvements.

From here on out, Adobe is only promising to fix bugs and provide security updates. We won’t see any major performance improvements or new features… and I wouldn’t be surprised to see Adobe abandon even those minor updates in another year or two.

A few days ago Adobe announced it would cease development of Flash for mobile devices. Instead the company will focus on supporting HTML5 and offer Flash developers tools to create native apps for Android, BlackBerry and other platforms by using Adobe AIR, which is basically a platform for turning Flash apps into apps that don’t need a web browser to run.

Part of the nail in mobile Flash’s coffin was probably delivered by Apple. The company has never allowed Flash to run on iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad models — and since those devices are kind of popular, the move has helped spur the growth of alternatives to Flash including HTML5 and other web technologies that allow for rich media on the web without the use of browser plugins.

Adobe will continue to develop and support Flash Player for desktop operating systems.

The Skyfire web browser for iOS offers an alternative to Safari which features social sharing features and easy access to web video — even Flash video. That’s unusual, because the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad don’t actually support Adobe Flash. But Skyfire gets around that little problem by using a remote server to convert Flash into a format your device can handle and streaming it to you on the fly.

But if you’re not looking to switch web browsers just so you can watch The Daily Show on your iPhone, there’s another way. Today Skyfire released a new app called Skyfire VideoQ. It’s a standalone app that lets you watch internet video on your device. Here’s how it works with Safari or other web browsers:

1. Register your email address in the app.
2. When you’re surfing the web and find a page with a Flash video you want to watch, open the share option and email a link to the page to [email protected]
3. When you open the VideoQ app you should see a list of videos you submitted, ready for viewing on your device.

It seems like a lot of work to go through to watch the occasional video — especially since videos from some sites (such as Hulu) won’t play anyway. But I suppose it’s better than running a whole different web browser if Flash support is the only feature you’re intersted in.

On the other hand, you don’t need to use a web browser at all to use Skyfire VideoQ. The app also includes a list of hot videos as well as video channels for technology, news, sports, and more. This allows you to simply fire up the app and find interesting web videos to watch at any time.

Skyfire VideoQ is available from the App Store for $1.99.

Yesterday Google released a new tool called Swiffy which allows Flash developers to upload a SWF file to convert it to HTML5. This allows people to access web apps, ads, and videos in browsers that don’t normally support Adobe Flash… such as the iPhone or iPad web browsers. Today a company called appMobi has gone a step further with a tool called appFlash that allows developers to convert Flash apps directly to native iOS apps.

The idea behind appFlash is that you can first upload a SWF file to Swiffy to convert it to HTML5 code. Then you can input the HTML5 version to appFlash and get an app that can run on an iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad.

The project didn’t take long to build because appMobi already offers a platform for creating HTML5 web apps which can be converted to native iOS apps.

Swiffy is still a work in progress and not all apps can be converted at the moment. While Swiffy and appFlash together could make it relatively simple for anyone who has already coded a Flash app to create apps that can be submitted to the App Store without learning a thing about programming for iOS, I don’t really expect to see many high quality, bug-free apps anytime soon.

Say you’re a Flash developer and you don’t want to bother figuring out how to manually recode your app in HTML5 just so that it will work on an iPad or iPhone just as well as on an Android device or desktop web browser. Google’s got a new tool called Swiffy designed to make your life a lot easier.

Swiffy lets developers convert SWF files to HTML5 so that they can be accessed in web browsers including Chrome and Safari.

The tool is still under development and there’s no guarantee that it will convert every file you throw at it. But there are already some examples online showing advertisements and games that have been converted from Flash to HTML5.

You also can’t use Swiffy unless you have access to the original SWF file. So this isn’t a tool that would let you access Hulu or other Flash-based content on an iPhone. But if it gains widespread acceptance, it could make that whole “Android supports Flash and iOS doesn’t” thing a whole lot less important.

via Google Code and ReadWriteWeb

Adobe has pushed out an updated version of Flash Player 10.2 for Google Android. The latest version is Flash Player 10.2.157.51 and it includes a few bug fixes and security enhancements for all users running Android 2.2 and up. But the biggest improvements are for users with tablets running Google Android 3.0.1 Honeycomb.

For Honeycomb, the latest version of Flash Player offers hardware accelerated video and enhanced integration with the Android web browser which should improve web page scrolling and interaction with Flash in web pages.

Adobe Flash Player for Android is available as a free download from the Android Market. You can read the release notes at Adobe.

Opera has released updated versions of its mobile browsers smartphones. Opera Mobile 11  is available for Android, Symbian, and MeeGo, while Opera Mini 6 supports BlackBerry as well.

So what’s new in Opera Mobile 11 and Mini 6… and why does the company offer two browsers? In a nutshell, Opera Mobile is a full-featured browser with its own rendering engine and support for JavaScript, HTMl5. Opera Mini looks a lot like Opera Mobile, but it’s designed for phones with slower processors or users with limited bandwidth. Opera Mini relies on remote servers to compress some data before sending it to your phone for speedier browsing on less powerful devices.

Opera 11 packs a whole slew of updates. The Android version of the app now supports Adobe Flash and has a new user interface for tablets with large displays. The browser also features improved text reflowing when you zoom in, faster panning and zooming, and faster JavaScript performance. The browser also now supports Archos tablets and the Motorola Atrix 4G smartphone.

Unfortunately every time I tried to view a page with Flash content, Opera Mobile 11 crashed on my Google Nexus One. The safest thing to do for now might be to keep the default setting of click-to-load Adobe Flash.

Opera Mini 6 adds support for pinch to zoom, improved panning and zooming, and a tablet-friendly user interface. You can also now open links in the background and share web pages. Opera says the startup time has also been shortened.

Both browsers also support key Opera features including a Speed Dial page with thumbnail icons for your favorite web sites, an excellent tab switching user interface, and support for Opera Link which lets you synchronize your data between the desktop and mobile versions of the Opera browser.

You can download Opera Mobile 11 and Opera Mini 6 from opera.com/mobile or by visiting m.opera.com with your phone’s browser.

Opera Mini and Opera Mobile are also available from the Android Market.

Opera is also officially dropping support for Windows Mobile with the latest release, which doesn’t come as a huge surprise… but it’s a bit disappointing for folks still using phones with Microsoft’s older operating system. The company may eventually offer Windows Phone 7 apps. Opera Mini 5.1 and Opera Mobile 10 are still available for Windows Mobile.

Adobe’s Flash Player isn’t the only app that’s been updated to play nice with tablets running Google Android 3.0 Honeycomb. Adobe also launched AIR 2.6 for Android 3.0 today.

The latest version of AIR offers improved performance for all supported Android platforms including smoother video and faster rendering of animation and games. There’s also support for the latest Android system gestures, which should make it easier to interact with AIR-based apps on Android tablets.

Adobe AIR is a platform that lets developers code native apps fro Android and desktop computers using the same tools as they’d use to write Flash-based apps for the web. The folks at AppBrain maintain a directory of Android apps that rely on the AIR runtime.

Adobe AIR 2.6 is available as a free download from the Android Market.

via Droid Gamers