Full flash players are coming to mobile phones. There is no two ways about that. For the most part, this is a feature that cell phone users do want on their mobile phones. However, it should be noted that there are both pros and cons to having flash players become a part of your mobile web experience. While the negatives of flash are outweighed by its benefits, users who are new to the flash-on-phones experience should be aware of some of the problems that they are going to be dealing with as more and more phones incorporate this updated video technology.
Why People Want Flash Players on their Mobile Phones
Flash players are something that cell phone users, specifically smartphone users, tend to want on their mobile phones. The reasons for that include:
• Flash offers a more complete video watching experience. Many people use their smartphones to watch videos from the mobile web. Phones that don’t have Flash are limited to watching videos on YouTube and can’t handle accessing videos on a lot of other sites. With full Flash enabled on your handset, you would be able to watch Flash video on all kinds of different sites on the mobile web.
• Flash is fun. There is a lot of content that uses Flash which is more fun and entertaining to view than what you can see on just the regular web. That’s why we want Flash players on our desktop and home computers. People are starting to use their cell phones as entertainment devices in general so there’s a push to bring full flash to the mobile web experience. Flash games are a particularly popular example of this.
• Flash is good for animation. One of the reasons people like Flash on regular computers is because it’s a great tool for creating online animation. That’s true for mobile flash as well so if this is an area that you’re particularly interested in then you’ll like the developments being made in the area of mobile Flash.
• Developers are interested in Flash on phones. A specific group of people who want to see Flash widely enabled on all phones is developers. Flash would allow developers to more easily create certain phone apps. These apps could be written in a single code and deployed across a variety of web-access devices rather than having to be re-written for each kit like must be done now.
The Bad News About Flash on Mobile Phones
That all sounds terrific right? And it is. But that doesn’t mean that things are all peachy keen when it comes to Flash on cell phones. There are some major issues with Flash on phones that you need to be aware of:
• Full-flash means more mobile ads. The main problem that you’re probably going to notice as full flash players start to become the norm on smartphones is that your mobile web experience is going to slam you with more and more mobile ads. Right now if you look at certain websites on your phone you will see blank spaces there where something should be. That “something” is a Flash-based ad that you don’t have to deal with because your cell phone doesn’t use a Flash player. Get ready for those pop-ups and loud annoying ads on your mobile phone that you’re already dealing with on your home computer or laptop.
• Flash slows things down. Do you want your mobile web browsing experience to become slower? That’s what is going to happen when you use a full Flash player on your phone. Flash puts an additional strain on your cell phone’s processor. And unfortunately, mobile content developers will use Flash where it isn’t necessary. You may only want to access a simple document but if the developer has created it using Flash instead of a more basic option then it’s going to take much longer than necessary for you to get to it on your phone. A bigger issue here is the fact that Flash strains your actual cell phone network. Until we have better networks, Flash is going to create problems with a slower mobile web experience.
• Flash currently drains your battery. The use of full Flash players on your cell phone is going to drain your battery more quickly than if you’re on websites that don’t use Flash. That may change as both mobile Flash players and mobile phone batteries improve. However, it’s a problem on most handsets today.
Flash Players Have Been Updated for Modern Phones
Many handsets have offered a version of a flash player for awhile. So why is this big news right now? It’s because we’re starting to see more and more handsets developed which offer the full flash experience. Flash players on handsets prior to now have offered “light” versions of Flash whereas full flash is now becoming possible on mobile phones. This coincides with the development of better smartphones which make it easier to view Flash on the mobile web. However the big reason for the update is because Adobe has been able to develop a full Flash version of the flash players that they’ve been using for mobile phones for awhile. The new product works better and causes fewer problems for Flash mobile phone users than in the past. That’s why it’s inevitable that we’re going to see Flash on more and more phones in the years to come. As phones improve, networks get bigger, new cell phone batteries are developed and Flash becomes more suitable to the mobile phone environment it’s going to be something that we expect to have on our mobile phones. Until those things occur, though, we’re going to have to experience some drawbacks along with our benefits in terms of Full flash players on our phones. That is, unless you happen to be an iPhone user which means you won’t have access to Flash at all for probably a long time to come!
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