Adobe pulls Flash Player support for Android 4.1

Adobe

(CBS News) Let's be clear, Flash is not dead. Nor is Adobe Systems planning to kill Flash anytime soon. However, the company announced Thursday that the Flash Player web browser plug-in will no longer be supported for Android 4.1 - also known as Jelly Bean.

Adobe encourages anyone who wants to access Flash Player on their Android 4.0 on smartphones or tablets, should do so on certified devices that have Flash Player pre-installed from the manufacturer.

The company explained the timeline for discontinuing the support on its blog:

Beginning August 15 we will use the configuration settings in the Google Play Store to limit continued access to Flash Player updates to only those devices that have Flash Player already installed. Devices that do not have Flash Player already installed are increasingly likely to be incompatible with Flash Player and will no longer be able to install it from the Google Play Store after August 15.

There has been much speculation that Adobe is planning to kill Flash. Last November, the company discontinued support for the mobile Flash Player, instead focusing on PC browsing and mobile apps.

It's easy to understand the confusion, considering all of the diverse ways we use Flash in computing. For instance Flash Pro CS6 is an authoring tool that developers can use to build apps. Flash Player browser plug-in is how we view content created by the authoring tool.

Adobe's announcement will mainly affect mobile web browsers. Flash Player for desktop computers is alive and well.

"Flash is nowhere near being dead," Rich Lee, product marketing manager for Adobe Flash Professional told CBS News. Adobe is still developing Flash for creative professionals and focusing on use cases for high-definition video and gaming.

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I'm with Jobs on this one in that Flash needs to go away. I am, for example, so tired of the following scenario:

1. "I'm sorry, you need Flash to see this content. Please install Flash.".
2. Install Flash and everything looks great.
3. Navigate back to where I started and "I'm sorry, you need Flash to see this content. Please install Flash.".
4. .... but I just installed it .....AGAIN!

HTML 5 for the win.