Ironically, I had a hard time finding demo cases. Streaming video is the most popular application for Flash today, so I tried that first. I wanted to see how Flash Player behaved in real-world browsing scenarios, so I skipped Adobe's canned demos and went looking for Flash content on my own. I doubted these carefully vetted showpieces would give me the whole picture, however. The installer simply adds Flash support to the existing Android Web browser, much like the Flash plug-in does for desktop browsers.Īdobe also offers a separate app called Adobe Flash Showcase, which is nothing more than a list of links to featured Flash-enabled sites. There's no stand-alone Flash app for Android. Honeycomb tablet owners who want to run Flash Player will need the Android 3.0.1 update, which Motorola pushed out for the Xoom in March. Video, because you demand it Installing Flash Player 10.2 is easy enough it's available for free from the Android Market. Unfortunately, my results weren't particularly encouraging. Would Flash be a game-changer for Android, giving Honeycomb tablets a clear advantage over the iPad at last? I wanted to find out, so I grabbed InfoWorld's demo Xoom and set off on a journey through the Flash-enabled Web. Adobe has since released a beta Flash Player 10.2 for Android 3.0, making Honeycomb the first tablet-centric platform to support Flash content. But both reviews were conducted back when neither platform supported Flash. When InfoWorld compared the Xoom to the original iPad, we found Motorola's tablet to be a credible yet inferior competitor, and it paled still further when pitted against the newer iPad 2. The Xoom is the first device to ship with Google's Android 3.0 OS, code-named 'Honeycomb,' which features a new UI 'designed from the ground up for tablets.'

Right now, the iPad's top competitor is the Motorola Xoom, which has been available in the United States from Verizon since February. This creates an ideal opportunity for competing tablet makers to step in and fill the void. But Apple famously won't allow Adobe Flash on its iOS mobile devices, including the iPad. With their larger screens, long-lasting batteries, and powerful CPUs, tablets seem well suited for the kinds of rich multimedia applications that confound ordinary smartphones.

Android browser with flash player