We’ve talked about Adobe Flash on iDB quite a bit. The absence of the platform plugin in iOS products has been a hot button issue since the original iPhone was released. For those who have been living under a rock for the last few years, let me break it down for you.
Adobe’s Flash is used in close to 80% of the top 100 most visited websites, so needless to say, it’s pretty popular. Apple, the maker of some of the hottest portable electronics right now, has barred Flash from its mobile platform for several reasons. And now it looks like after years of watching home-grown tweaks bring Flash content to iOS devices, Adobe might finally have an answer of their own…
Adobe has been previewing new video streaming technology at the NAB (National Association of Broadcasters) all week. The Las Vegas event saw several companies come and showoff their latest technologies, but obviously all eyes were on Adobe’s booth when they saw what they were advertising.
Adobe’s new technology is called HLS, or HTTP Live Streaming, and uses an MPEG2 stream that is used in devices like the iPad. They even had Flash video running on an iPad 2 via HLS at their NAB booth this week. Adobe announced multiple new methods for delivering Flash to devices that didn’t have the plugin installed.
Although it’s not full Flash support, it is a step in the right direction for Adobe. With over 100 million iDevices currently in use, what company would want to miss out on such a big market?
It might all be too little too late, though. Content providers have found other ways over the years, such as HTML 5, to deliver their media to iOS. It’s possible that when Flash does finally arrive to iDevices, the announcement will fall on deaf ears.
What do you think?