Adobe's Flash Player not certified for use on Android 4.1
The company says that its Flash player might still work on the platform, but it might "exhibit unpredictable behavior."
The end is very, very near for Adobe's Flash Player on mobile devices.
Adobe Systems announced in a blog post yesterday that its Flash Player will not be "certified for use" with Google's upcoming update to its mobile operating system, Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean). The company said that users might still be able to access the Flash Player on their Jelly Bean devices if they had previously run the service on Android 4.0, though it could "exhibit unpredictable behavior."
"Future updates to Flash Player will not work [on Jelly Bean]," Adobe wrote on its blog. "We recommend uninstalling Flash Player on devices which have been upgraded to Android 4.1."
Devices that come with Android 4.1 preinstalled won't support Flash.
Adobe also said that beginning on August 15, it will limit access to Flash Player updates only to those products that are currently running it. As of that day, devices not running Flash will be banned from installing it.
Adobe's announcements spell the end for the company's Flash Player on mobile. Back in November, Adobe announced that it was abandoning its work on the mobile version of its Flash Player, deciding instead to focus on HTML5. Flash support had been a key distinguishing factor for Android-based devices competing against Apple's iOS, which has never supported Adobe's technology.
Google announced Jelly Bean at its I/O Conference earlier this week. The operating system includes a host of improvements, including improved notifications. The operating system will launch next month.