Adobe to end new Android Flash installs on August 15

Following up on the announcement last November that it was discontinuing development of Flash for mobile browsers, Adobe published (via The Verge) a blog post on Thursday detailing deprecated support for the player on Android.

"Beginning August 15th 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," the post read.

Adobe also said that there will not be any Flash-certified Android 4.1 devices. Though in the past unsupported devices were sometimes able to get Flash Player working, the company said that this is "no longer going to be the case" because it has not developed or tested the player for the upcoming version of Android and its browsers.

Android users who want to keep running Flash as legacy software will need to download and install Flash before the August 15th deadline. Adobe also recommends that they stay on Android 4.0, as Flash Player on 4.1 Jelly Bean could exhibit "unpredictable behavior."

"We recommend uninstalling Flash Player on devices which have been upgraded to Android 4.1," the company wrote.

Last year, an Adobe manager put part of the blame on Apple for the demise of mobile Flash. Mike Chambers acknowledged that the software would never reach "anywhere near the ubiquity" of its install base on desktops because Apple would not allow Flash Player in the iOS browser.

"No matter what we did, the Flash Player was not going to be available on Apple’s iOS anytime in the foreseeable future," he said.

Late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs set off an intense debate about the merits of Flash in 2010 with his open letter criticizing the format as outdated and needlessly proprietary.

Android makers decided early on to advertise Flash as a differentiating feature of their devices as compared to Apple's own. The move ultimately backfired on companies like Motorola, as Flash support ended up being postponed due to technical issues.