It’s only been a few days since Adobe launched Flash Player 10.2 for Windows, Mac, and Linux desktop computers. But the company is already talking about bringing Flash 10.2 to mobile devices including phones and tablets.
The updated version of Flash is designed to be less taxing on the CPU when playing web video and other Flash content which could lead to improved performance and longer battery life on mobile devices. Adobe isn’t providing many details yet, but in a press release the company does say that it will support Google Android 3.0 Honeycomb and BlackBerry tablets (which right now pretty much means the 7 inch BlackBerry PlayBook.”
Engadget reports that this may confirm that Android 3.0 Honeycomb is coming to smartphones soon, since Flash Player 10.2 doesn’t support Gingerbread or older versions of Android — but I think there might also be a mixup in the naming. There’ve been reports that Google will soon launch Android 2.4, a new version of Android for smartphones which has some, but not necessarily all of the features of Android 3.0 Honeycomb for tablets.
Either way, it’s a safe bet that older devices running Android 1.6 through 2.3 may not be able to run Flash Player 10.2. The good news is that Engadget reports that Flash Player 10.2 should be available in the next few weeks… so it should ship soon after the first Android 3.0 tablets start to hit the streets.
I hope not, it’s a bloody disaster on Linux, just had to disable it to stop chrome locking up