MWC: Adobe suggests that Android 3.0 is also for smartphones

Adobe has announced that Flash 10.2 will be available “within weeks” for Android 3.0 on both tablets and smartphones. This could mean that Android Honeycomb will also be available for mobile phones.

That concludes Engadget cautious following an Adobe presentation at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona about the mobile versions of Flash 10.2. The latest Flash Player, which recently became available for Windows, OS X and Linux, is expected to come to Android 3.0 “within weeks” according to Anup Muraka, head of technical marketing for mobile and devices at Adobe.

Remarkably, Muraka also stated that Flash 10.2 for Android 3.0 will not only be available on tablets, but also on smartphones. Until now, Google officially announced that Android Honeycomb is only intended for tablets. Yet, in addition to the statements by Adobe, there are more indications that Android 3.0 can also be used on smartphones. For example, references to interface elements for smartphones were found in the Honeycomb SDK emulator. However, there are also rumors about the arrival of some Honeycomb elements to Android 2.4 for smartphones.

At the WMC, Adobe indicated that Flash 10.2 for Android would have the same improvements as the desktop version, including improved hardware acceleration of h.264 video. For example, 1080p content could be played smoothly on Android 3.0 devices, but then the new Stage Video API must be applied on the server side.

Adobe also announced that there are now 84 million smartphones and tablets in use that can run Air applications. The software manufacturer expects that approximately 200 million mobile devices will be suitable for Adobe Air applications by the end of this year. Furthermore, Adobe expects the number of mobile devices running Flash Player 10.1 or higher to rise to 132 million this year. Among the devices would be fifty different types of tablets.