Get Flashed

Filed in archive Mobility on August 24, 2009

Mobile browsers still have a long way to come. They slow down based on your bars and battery. You can only do a few functions at a time. Not every website renders correctly. In fact, flash based sites and applications don't rendered at all.

Adobe, maker of Flash, announced that in 2010 most cell phones would have the capacity for Flash. Right now about 40% of smart phones use a less capable version of Flash called Flash Lite. This allows them to see streaming video and interactive sites like YouTube. Mobile users look up their daily news, music videos, even TV shows from their phones now. But they can't watch them with Flash's full capacity. Flash 10.1, however, will be launching in most smart phones next year. This will give mobile phones the ability to surf the web more like they do on a computer.

Mobile video streaming is already becoming more common. Youtube saw a huge increase this year in its mobile uploads. In fact, mobile video continues to increase across the board. The consumer expects better, faster flash in their phone, so Adobe will have to provide it.

Flash doesn't just provide video. Many plain websites are built in flash, or contain flash elements. Users now expect to have the same experience with a cell phone as they do on their desktop. They should be able to access a fantastically cool site, like the one for the movie Coraline, if they want to-on the go.

Oddly enough, the Apple iPhone has not said it will support flash in 2010. Apple uses its own browser, called Safari. Right now Safari will not interact with Flash 10.1 and it doesn't look like Apple is doing anything to make the process simpler. Could this be the real iPhone killer? Its at least worth watching.

Get more information about Flash for cell phones from the BBC News story.

What do you use your mobile browser for?