Tuesday, Feb 17, 2009    Text size: 

According to a recent announcement, Adobe plans to bring a fully functional version of Flash to the Palm Pre, Nokia S60 phones, Android phones and Windows mobile devices by 2010.

And the iPhone isn't even on the docket, even though Adobe and Apple recently pledged to bring the popular media-delivery platform to the device.

Tech analyst Erick Schonfeld said that despite some recent efforts to expand its presence on handheld devices, the clock is ticking for Adobe.

"Adobe cannot afford to continue to be invisible on mobile phones," he wrote for MobileCrunch.com. "To spur developers to create mobile Flash apps, it also announced a new $10 million fund in conjunction with Nokia around its Open Screen Project. The fund will provide grants to developers who create mobile apps that run on the Flash platform [including Adobe Air apps], Nokia phones, and other devices."

Adobe's announcement came in conjunction with another statement from top brass that they, and not Apple, are working on an iPhone-compatible version of Flash.

"We would love to see it on the iPhone, too," Adobe's Anup Murarka said. "But it's Apple's decision on when and how they support any new technology. So we will continue to work on it."

This follows from earlier statements that Apple has left it up to Adobe to make their product with the iPhone. Apple chieftain Steve Jobs has long derided Flash as being too heavy and cumbersome to run properly on the iPhone.