Appnoodle

A couple of days ago we reported that Adobe would be bringing Flash Player 10 to a host of mobile plaforms, including Android, in October. It seems it’s all go on the Flash front at the moment because today, hot on the heels of that story, comes a press release from Adobe to coincide with the launch of the new HTC Hero handset announcing that it’ll be the first Android device to ship with Flash support. The press release includes a link to a video of Flash running on the Hero handset. Really, really exciting stuff.

Of course, if you’re keeping up to date with developments you’ll know that Orange have announced they’ll be launching the  Hero  in early July in the UK. October? July? What gives? We were a bit confused too (easily done) so we got in touch with Adobe and received this reply from an Adobe spokesman.

The Flash technology implemented in the HTC Hero supports content built using ActionsScript 2 targeting Flash Player 9 or earlier. Web content containing ActionScript 3 or using Flash Player 10 is not supported on the HTC Hero. Sites that work include YouTube, DailyMotion, Yahoo Movie Trailers, as well as many games on miniclip.com, Addictinggames, etc. Additionally, Flash is often used to provide an enhanced experience in sites like Expedia.com, Yahoo Finance, and Lonely Planet.

As a contributor to the Open Screen Project, HTC is collaborating with Adobe and more than 25 other industry leaders to bring Flash Player 10 and full Web browsing to the next generation of Android based smartphones and other mobile computing platforms and devices. The current implementation on Android in the HTC Hero is a good first step in this direction and provides a more complete browsing experience for viewing popular sites with Flash applications, content and video.

So there you go. Flash for Android is coming to a handset near you in less than a month (so long as you’re near an HTC Hero). And Flash 10 will start to appear towards the end of the year.