Today is the day Flash for mobile effectively dies. As revealed by Adobe in June, August 15 was set as the date the company would “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”. Any devices lacking a Flash Player install subsequently won’t be able to do so. Adobe also warned at the time that newer devices using Android 4.1 may exhibit unpredictable behaviour should they continue to run the plug-in, and Adobe’s recommendation is to uninstall it.
The Flash-for-mobile battle was fought over a number of years, largely over Apple’s reluctance to allow plug-ins for the iOS version of Safari, and competitors therefore using Flash as a differentiator to the likes of the iPhone and iPad. Then-Apple CEO Steve Jobs outlined his problems with Flash in 2010, arguing it was proprietary and caused problems with reliability, security and performance relating to responsiveness and battery life.