If a company launches a public beta of software that only runs on a platform that isn’t officially available yet… does it make a sound? In this case, the answer is kind of. Adobe has launched a public beta of Flash Player 10.1 for Google Android 2.2. The only problem is that Android 2.2 isn’t available on any devices today.
Google introduced Android 2.2 earlier today, but it won’t be available to OEMs for a few more weeks and it’s not clear how long it will be before you can download an over the air update for existing handsets such as the Google Nexus One. So while Adobe introduced Flash Player 10.1 beta for Android today, you can’t actually run it.
But a few developers, tech bloggers and journalists have been running Android 2.2 and Flash Player 10.1 beta for at least a few days. And reports are starting to show up around the internet.
Engadget reports that Flash Player seems to work reasonably well, but that the pre-release version doesn’t support hardware acceleration, which means that the phone gets pretty hot pretty quickly and that the battery runs down at least as quickly. Engadget also notes that Hulu doesn’t work on their demo unit.
Laptop Magazine reports that Flash Player 10.1 will support a number of existing phones including the Google Nexus One, Motorola Droid, HTC Evo, Incredible, Desire, Milestone, and Galaxy. While Adobe admits that Flash is a battery drain, the company apparently says you should be able to get about 3 hours of battery life on a Nexus One while watching video over a 3G connection.
Laptop Mag also confirmed that Adobe has built in support for touchscreen displays including multitouch gestures, proving that you don’t need a mouse to use Flash.
Gizmodo reports that Flash 10.1 will be generally available to the public on June 17th. That’s not just for Android, but also WebOS, Symbian, Windows Phone, and BlackBerry as well as Flash Player 10.1 for Windows and Mac computers.
According to Gizmodo, sites optimized for mobile browsers looked great, but standard web sites were a mixed bag, with College Humor working well, but ABC.com failing to play video.
You should be able to download Flash Player 10.1 from the Android Market come June 17th, but only if you have a phone running Android 2.2 by then.
Comments are closed.