Android Multi-Touch Tablet Prototype Hands-on Review! [Web 2.0 Expo]
Today, I was at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco as soon as it was open (as I blogged about it several hours before). Upon walking around the exhibit floor, I quickly found Adobe. — Oddly, they were displaying …
Context & Ripple Effects
Two years after the first Android prototype drew a 'fast but not there' verdict from reviewers, Adobe is using the Web 2.0 Expo floor to argue the platform has caught up where it counts for Adobe: a multi-touch tablet running Flash and Air, hands-on at the show and picked up the same day by outlets like Electronista. The demonstration lands weeks after CEO Shantanu Narayen committed to shipping Flash on Android, WebOS and BlackBerry smartphones and tablets in the second half of 2010 — a timeline he had already admitted was slipping.
First-order effects
- The prototype is Adobe's public proof point for Narayen's 2H 2010 Flash-on-tablet promise, aimed squarely at developers deciding whether to build for a post-iPad market that excludes Flash.
Second-order effects
- With Apple holding its Flash ban amid a rumored lawsuit threat, Adobe is effectively handing Android, WebOS and BlackBerry device makers a differentiation pitch against the iPad — 'your tablet runs the web' — while multitouch work like Stantum's pressure-sensitive interface demos sets the bar for what those devices must feel like.
Third-order effects
- If Flash and Air ship on schedule across three rival mobile platforms, tablet software splits into two ecosystems — Adobe-runtime apps versus native app-store-only — making Adobe's cross-platform runtime, not any single handset maker, the swing player in which creative workflows survive the shift to touch.
The trend: Mobile platforms are consolidating around competing runtimes and gatekept app stores, with Adobe betting its cross-platform Flash/Air layer can keep it relevant as computing moves from WIMP desktops to multitouch tablets.