Und er hatte doch recht: Laut dem offiziellen Adobe-Blog wird Flash ab dem 15.08.2012 nur noch für den PC-Bereich weiterentwickelt. HTML 5 (was ist HTML 5) wird die ganze Geschichte für die Mobilsparte dann übernehmen.

Android Jelly Bean (= Android 4.1, Wiki) wird offiziell von Adobe nicht unterstützt. Zwar kann man mit Jelly Bean weiterhin Flash nutzen, da es dafür seitens Adobe keine Anpassung dafür gibt und der Hersteller sogar empfiehlt Flash unter 4.1 zu deinstallieren, sollte man zumindest davon ausgehen, dass der Player unter dem derzeit neuesten Android “Mukken” machen könnte…

Android-Nutzer, die den Flashplayer weiterhin nutzen möchten, sollten also bis zum 15.08. den Player aus Google Play downloaden. Wer den Player besitzt kann dann ab dem festgesetzten Datum nur noch anstehende Sicherheitsupdates laden.

iOS-Nutzern dürfte damit das letzte Hindernis zum perfekten Betriebssystem aus dem Weg geräumt sein. Wobei Kenner der IT-Szene bereits über die vielen Nachteile von Flash auf einem Smartphone bescheid wussten (Beispiele: Sicherheit, Akkuverbrauch etc…).

Meine Persönliche Meinung ist, dass Flash-Webinhalte, vor allem im Mobilen Bereich immer mehr in der “Senke”verschwinden werden. HTML 5 wird der neue Standard werden, der sich dann nach und nach vollends durchsetzen wird.

Update: 28.09.2019

Der Adobe-Blogeintrag ist nun öffentlich nicht mehr einsehbar. Er wurde wohl archiviert. Anbei der Originaltext:

We announced last November that we are focusing our work with Flash on PC browsing and mobile apps packaged with Adobe AIR, and will be discontinuing our development of the Flash Player for mobile browsers.  This post provides an update on what this means for ongoing access to the Flash Player browser plugin for Android in the Google Play Store.

The Flash Player browser plugin integrates tightly with a device’s browser and multimedia subsystems (in ways that typical apps do not), and this necessitates integration by our device ecosystem partners.  To ensure that  the Flash Player provides the best possible experience for users, our partner program requires certification of each Flash Player implementation.  Certification includes extensive testing to ensure web content works as expected, and that the Flash Player provides a good user experience. Certified devices typically include the Flash Player pre-loaded at the factory or as part of a system update.

Devices that don’t have the Flash Player provided by the manufacturer typically are uncertified, meaning the manufacturer has not completed the certification testing requirements. In many cases users of uncertified devices have been able to download the Flash Player from the Google Play Store, and in most cases it worked. However, with Android 4.1 this is no longer going to be the case, as we have not continued developing and testing Flash Player for this new version of Android and its available browser options.  There will be no certified implementations of Flash Player for Android 4.1.

Beginning August 15^th we will use the configuration settings in the Google Play Store to limit continued access to Flash Player updates to only those devices that have Flash Player already installed. Devices that do not have Flash Player already installed are increasingly likely to be incompatible with Flash Player and will no longer be able to install it from the Google Play Store after August 15^th.

The easiest way to ensure ongoing access to Flash Player on Android 4.0 or earlier devices is to use certified devices and ensure that the Flash Player is either pre-installed by the manufacturer or installed from Google Play Store before August 15^th. If a device is upgraded from Android 4.0 to Android 4.1, the current version of Flash Player may exhibit unpredictable behavior, as it is not certified for use with Android 4.1.  Future updates to Flash Player will not work.  We recommend uninstalling Flash Player on devices which have been upgraded to Android 4.1.

For developers who need ongoing access to released versions of Flash Player for Android, those will remain available in the adobe archive of released Flash Player versions.  Installations made from the archive will not receive updates through the Google Play Store.

As always this and other Flash runtime roadmap updates can be found in the Adobe roadmap for the Flash runtimes white paper.

If you are using the mobile browser with Flash for video playback, please see our blog post here about various options available to help with this change.