An Adobe employee over in the company's official forums dropped a bomb earlier this month that they've now decided to pass on releasing Flash 10.1 for Windows Mobile 6.5, instead moving straight to 7. The official explanation is that "WinMo6.5 does not support some of the critical APIs that we need," but frankly, this sounds like a load of crap -- since the project was
announced last year, there's no way it took them this long to figure out that an official cut for 6.5 wouldn't be technically possible. If we had to guess, the real justification also explains why Adobe has been so quiet on the matter: 6.5's now viewed as a dead-end platform since 7 represents a clean break for Microsoft, and the company feels like it can't be bothered to invest the necessary time, energy, and money to see the project through. In all likelihood, Adobe was briefed on 7 prior to its official announcement at
MWC, and that's when the decision was made. Of course, that's all pure speculation on our part -- but regardless, don't get your hopes up,
HD2 owners (unless you
get an upgrade, that is).
posted February 25th 2010 12:22PM
now see i think this is a valid thing to do. who wants to spend time and money making the one for the outdated or soon to be outdated version.... when u can just arive with the newly fresh version! i dont really like adobe that much as a company but i stand hehind there disicion to do this whether or not their photoshop isnt that great!
@emopoops too bad for the millions of users. Did Steve Jobs call them lazy? Are they really that lazy to leave all those users behind?
@Ridgecity
If Adobe wants to at least make a case that Flash should be used instead of HTML5 they better get their butts moving. Otherwise, they better not cry when the percentage of Flash Player on users' browsers slowly drops.
@Ridgecity i dont understand. does steve jobs have naything to do with winmo?
@emopoops
It's decisions like these that undermine Adobe's credibility in its statements about Flash. Like, Adobe going after Apple for functioning as an obstacle between millions of iPhone users and Flash, all while continuously referring to Flash 10 without releasing it. It just gives Adobe Flash this air of desperation, while creating all of this anxiety that makes people wish someone would just do away with Flash entirely somehow.
@Ridgecity
Actually, I think its pretty smart. Microsoft set the bar pretty high on what the hardware requirements had to be for Windows 7 Phone devices and chances are that flash will run ALOT better on windows 7 phones (Better graphics, processor, memory, screen, etc) than it would on 6.5 (HD2 excluded).
This way, you won't see posts everywhere saying how flash is crap on winmo 6.5 devices. At this point you just have to hope that you can get the upgrade, but with the way it looks, doubtful even with the HD2
@cobaltage well isnt that what so many people aim to do? run adobe out of business bcause their products are not good enough?
@emopoops
They are a bunch of LAZY bastards!
For example, there is *still* a bug with the PDF preview handler for the 64-bit versions of windows since June 2007!
Here's the Adobe forum discussing this:
http://forums.adobe.com/thread/303008
There's a fix (by 3rd party people---not Adobe), but after every Acrobat upgrade it needs to be reapplied because Adobe breaks it again!
@MAS well they must have more important things to worry about besides the pdf previewing! i mean more importantly, they have to worry about the next version and how to deal with banruptcy when there company fails.
Adobe REALLY likes to procrastinate!
@One Love hey i aint kiddin around here! i think adobe isnt prcrastinating i think its jumping ahead of the mgame spending more resoreces on a vershion that really matters! im not all for adobe but im saying they have the uppserhand in the dicision with these win!
im not sure that procrastinating is a good term for adobe, more like deperate! before they go bankrupt
@emopoops Adobe say it's too much work focusing on Windows Mobile 6.5 and 7. They said optimizing a flash version for the iphone was too much work also, that's why I mention he already called them lazy publicly.
They just started supporting video cards, and that version is still a beta. Isn't that lazy considering web developers (flash is now mostly ads and games) are moving away from flash and big sites like youtube are doing that too?
If I was Adobe, I would get to work...
@emopoops Troll, I have seen you on every one of the engadget articles talking shit on whatever it is go find something else to do
@Ridgecity web devs arent mving away from flash believe me. its rediculous how many people think flash is an internet necessity! adobe is going out o business for sure!
@Ridgecity
Let's face it, most winmo 6.5 phone out there wine like a little girl (doesn't have the hardware to run).
@cdf74dc9 Firstly you spelt whine wrong and secondly my HD2 can run it.
Well if they truly just did not want to invest the time and API support isn't the major issue here then I would say look for some home brewed ROMs over on XDA with flash 10.1 support in the near future.
Some? More like, the FEW.
After Skype, then Adobe. Wow, 6.5.x ain't getting any love. Don't blame them though. Everybody wants the hottest platforms these days.
@SetThemStraight cant disagree with you there except i still on the brink of why someone would downgrade a vista platform to xp ;[
@emopoops
I'm more on the thought of why wouldn't you upgrade to 7 if you haven't already?
@SetThemStraight
This is just stupid, ive been waiting forever for this and they pull it at the last. W**kers!
@dansus Are we not allowed to say wankers anymore?
@scots79 You know.. I'm really not sure about swearing on engadget these days, since the great comment outage of oh-10 I think the engadget team are a little more itchy to swing the ban hammer..
Example: I got banned for a couple of days (I think.. No Email, no message, could log in, just couldn't use the comment box) and I assume it was because I referenced Austin powers with "Shat on a turtle.." (YouTube it if you don't know what I'm talking about) on the recent Microsoft Turtle post..
Then there seems to be the odd dissapearing comment.. no " Removed by Engadget" or "User Banned because of - Insert Reason -"... just random child replies with no parents..
I'm confused as well..
Adobe needs to realize two things: that 6.5 is going to co-exist with 7 since 7 has some very specific requirements. So its worth doing flash for 6.5 AND the fact that it needs all the mobile platforms it can get.
Makes sense to me. Why would anyone bother with expending new time/energy/money on new stuff for 6.5 now?
@OneHungFeller
I agree - they should also drop flash support for Windows XP and Vista, given that they aren't 'fresh' anymore.
Just before they are going to release flash for WP7 they will announce that they have decided to give up and focus on the up and coming WP8 available in 2015.
@thunderbollock Correct me if I'm wrong, but I didn't think the fully version of Flash was ever supported on WM 6.5. So that wouldn't be the same thing as dropping support for Flash on Windows. Also, I didn't read anything about "dropping support"' for the existing Flash Light on WM 6.5.
Lazy.
BS, since the API for Wimpy7 hasn't been published, how does it have more of the "critical APIs"?
@NuShrike Just because its not public yet does not mean its not out there.... I think you can assume quite a few people are working on phone 7 apps right now but are all working under NDA's.
Will they do one for the Zune HD, all 3 of us would really appreciate it if they would!
@timmy2000
4!! I have one too!
@Dorf Still 3. He was counting you!
=P
@timmy2000
Youtube HD acceleration on the zune hd would be SICK!
so putting flash on windows mobile is not technically possible, yet browsers like opera mobile and skyfire support the current version
@mmoylan Opera and Skyfire don't render on the phone. Can't really compare those two to browsers like IE or webkit based ones.
@lostincake
Opera Mobile =/= Opera Mini
http://tv.adobe.com/watch/industry-trends/htc-hd2-and-nexus-one/
Looks to me like an HD2 with 6.5 running flash 10.1... hmmm
I just want flash for my iPhone. Screw windows 7 series.
@purge68
And I would like Apple to release Snow leopard for the PC.
hey, it's just as likely.
@purge68 .. I'm still hoping for a decent version on the Mac. Let them fix that first and THEN do something for the iPhone.
@purge68
flash on the iphone....
eh, could go either way.
would be sweet for streaming video, audio, whatever, but would be sooo much better on Android with full keyboard and tackball/optical pad.
i'm not 100% convinced on flash using touch only input...
For 'smartphone-class devices'? What does that make the iPhone, a dumbphone? :)
@Alan Smithee yeah most likely.
@Alan Smithee
maybe, but does iPhone 3.0 OS run on G1 iPhones? I spent over 1k on win mo phones between my tilt, xperia x1 and tilt2 and the upgrade support was horrible. I'll never buy windows mobile products.
@jaffreywali iPhone OS 3.0 works on every iPhone OS device released to date. Moreover, it is instantly available for every iPhone OS device released to date at the same time without the involvement of communities like XDA Developers.
@Alan Smithee, actually it does. The first distinction between dumb/feature phones and smartphones was ability to install and run 3rd party applications and to multitask between them. That was long before Apple even stepped in the cell phone arena, since then they've skewed the perception of smartphone from more-like-a-computer to a touch-screen with fancy graphics (one could argue that all those touch-screen Samsungs are also smartphones because they have the same features as theiPhone, yet are always listed under `feature phones` lists). The first iPhone couldn't even run 3rd party (native) apps for a whole year (then Apple cracked under the pressure and made arguably the best move with the iPhone - the AppStore). Things that smartphones had 5 years before the iPhone even showed up, like copy/paste, came to the iPhone even later. So, yes, in a strict sense, iPhone is not (yet) a smartphone. It's a category for itself...
Adobe just can't get ANYONE to give them access to necessary APIs these days, can they?
@bibulb I was thinking the exact same. First OS X, now WM6.5... they must be up to some really hardcore coding.