Adobe Flash and AIR Show Wide Adoption on Smartphones

Adobe took the Mobile World Congress as the appropriate venue to announce that its Flash player and Integrated Runtime (AIR) software have achieved a widespread presence on mobile devices.

Adobe Flash Player 10.1 was released for smartphones only last summer, and at that point, could only be found on Android OS models. It has flourished, however; over 20 million smartphones have been shipped with Flash or received an upgrade to the software after launch, and today Flash Player can be found on HP webOS, BlackBerry Tablet OS, and Android OS devices.

Apple iOS devices support AIR, an element of the Adobe Flash Platform, but the operating system does not support the Flash Player.

Through 2011, Adobe projects that 132 million phones and tablets worldwide will support and feature Flash, even with the player being excluded from Apple's mobile devices.

AIR Doing Well, Too
Aside from Flash Player's success, AIR, software that gives developers a way to leverage existing code for internet applications for use in creating standalone applications has shown even more growth. It is supported by most major operating systems, and is projected to be a feature on 200 million smartphones this year.

AIR includes support for accelerometer, camera, video, microphone, multi-touch gestures, and geo-location, and with these capabilities, can be used to create a multitude of different applications.

Adobe, aside from announcing the success of current applications, is also showing off new ones. The developers have been demoing Flash Player 10.2 at MWC. The next version will feature better video performance, although no details about mobile availability are currently being announced.

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