Adobe demonstrates Flash and Air on Android tablet

Even though Steve Jobs has said Apple has no need for Flash on the iPad, we’ve known for some time that Adobe’s interactive-video technology would eventually show up on competing Android tablets. Now it looks like they’re one step closer. Yesterday at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco, Adobe showed off Flash and Air, a platform for Mac- and PC-compatible desktop applications, running on prototype Android tablets.

The Air demonstration is particularly significant, in that developers should be able to write applications for conventional desktops and laptops as well as tablets running Android. Developers of iPhone and iPad apps must rewrite the code of desktop apps to run on Apple’s mobile devices, a sometimes laborious process.

Adobe demonstrated the tablet version of Wired, which is built on its Air technology, a layer of software known as a “runtime environment” which sits atop operating systems and allows developers to build standalone applications with Flash, HTML, and other Web-friendly tools. The electronic version of the magazine appeared as fast and elegant as iPad magazine apps like Popular Science (see video below).

By building its tablet magazine with Air, Wired initially hoped to bring it to multiple tablet platforms with little fuss. Now with Apple’s refusal to bring Flash and Air to the iPhone and iPad, Adobe is beginning the difficult task of rewriting the Wired tablet app into Apple-approved Objective C. The Air version of the app will still offer some cross-compatibility, though. Adobe plans to bring Air and Flash to Palm’s WebOS and Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 Series. Any future tablets based on those platforms will be able to run the Air version of Wired without much trouble.

Adobe also showed off a typical YouTube video running in Flash on the Android tablet, and it seemed to function without issue as well (see video below). It’s notable that the prototype tablet featured a much wider screen than the iPad, which makes reading the Wired app more like reading the paper version of the mag, and hints that it will be better suited to viewing movies and TV as well.

Adobe has made it clear over the past few months that it’s next big push for Flash and Air will focus on mobile. If it can successfully bring its technology to Android and other mobile platforms without making it a massive battery and resource drain, perhaps even Steve Jobs would be willing to give it a second look.

[Image and videos via Zedomax]

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