Adobe puts another nail in Flash's coffin

Flash has been on the way out for a few years, becoming increasingly relegated to desktop and laptop devices. A combination of the move to HTML 5 and the increasing importance of ARM processors that struggle to run the software has been pushing it more and more towards irrelevance.

Apple has already famously abandoned Flash, and Adobe formally announced late last year that it was focusing development on PCs and ceasing development of its mobile version. Now comes the next phase of that process.

Adobe announced via a Blog post that it will not be certifying any Android 4.1 (Jellybean) devices for Flash player. Further to that it will effectively be removing the downloadable Flash Player from Google Play. From the 15th of August the App will disappear, and only those who already have it installed will be able to receive software updates.

It seems that you’ll still be able to get updates and run flash if your device is already certified and comes with it installed from the factory. However Adobe points out that the software will behave unpredictably if that device is upgraded to Android 4.1 and will stop recieving updates. If you do upgrade to 4.1 you’ll need to uninstall Flash and move towards an App and HTML 5 based future.