Android Becomes Flash

Moving With FP 10.1 for Mobile

Flash Player 10.1 for Mobile was redesigned from the ground up with new performance and mobile-specific features, Adobe said.

It offers accelerometer support, letting mobile device owners view Flash content in landscape and portrait modes. Its Smart Zooming feature lets users scale content to full-screen mode.

Adobe has also optimized the platform jointly with "virtually all" major mobile silicon and platform vendors to optimize CPU use and battery performance.

A new Smart Rendering feature ensures that Flash content runs only when it becomes visible on the screen, to cut CPU use and battery consumption. FP 10.1 for Mobile has a Sleep Mode that automatically slows it down when the mobile device it's running down goes into screen-saver mode.

An Advanced Out-of-Memory Management feature lets FP 10.1 for Mobile effectively handle non-optimized, resource-hungry content. An automatic memory reduction feature cuts the RAM usage of by content by up to 50 percent. Further, FP 10.1 for Mobile pauses automatically when a phone call comes in or the device user switches from the browser to other functions. It resumes where it left off when the user switches back to the browser.
The Remaking of the Smartphone

"This addresses one of the big problems Flash has faced -- that it hasn't run very well or at all on cellphones," Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group, told TechNewsWorld. "It opens up an era of cheap computing for cellphones," he said.

"Now, the PC will have to redefine its value, because the vast majority of the standard things we do for mainstream computing involve the Internet and don't require the PC anymore," Jim McGregor, chief technology strategist at In-Stat, pointed out.

"Mobile apps, which are changing the structure, the usage models and everything we've associated with the Internet, replace the browser, the website and content applications you're trying to get to," McGregor told TechNewsWorld. "With Flash Player 10.1 for Mobile, smartphones are drastically changing what we thought of the Web."

FP 10.1 for Mobile will enable smartphone owners to download rich Internet applications, games, data presentations and visualizations and other rich content on their devices. This will boost the fortunes of graphics processing unit (GPU) makers.