“To explain, smartphones have a typical lifespan that is less than half that of a desktop computer, and so hardware choices are made by planning for the future.  Over the past few years we have shipped over 1.5Billion devices with Flash Lite using this simple rule.

Therefore the choice to target the ARM Cortex-A8 chipsets will result in greater efficiency, and most importantly a wider range of consistent experiences as uptake grows.  To be clear, that uptake is already happening, and it will expand rapidly just like it does every other year.

It’s like a Moore’s Law of mobile phones “Flash Mobile Blog

So there you go early adopters. All those Flash demos on the G1 were just a tease. Adobe decided to skip all 1st generation Android phones to deliver a consistent experience. I guess they have every right to do that (and maybe it is a good thing in the long run), but the early indication from Adobe was that these devices would be supported with Flash 10.1.

Thankfully, it looks like most phones will have access to a version of Flash Lite. A new version of their optimized runtime (Flash Lite) will be used to fill the gap. Details are still limited so we do not know which features Flash Lite will be missing. The last version Flash Lite 3 was based on Flash 8.

Adobe also detailed the upcoming installation processes for Flash 10.1. Some new phones will come with Flash 10.1 preinstalled and older phones should be able to download it from the Android Market or via the browser.

Flash 10.1 will come in several ways.

The video even caught the eye of Adobe and they felt a response was justified. In a post on the Flash Mobile Blog, they noted the leaked HTC Desire ROM actually included an alpha version of Flash Lite and not Flash Player 10.1.

The HTC Desire will eventually support Flash 10.1 when it is made available sometime in the first half of 2010 via an over the air update.

Adobe also took the chance to address the claim that Flash kills battery life on the Nexus One. To prove their point, they uploaded a 17 minute video to Vimeo and reported their tests show that “video can be played for well over 3Hours over WIFI from YouTube in H.264 (Baseline 1.2)”.

Battery Performance with Flash Player 10.1 on the Nexus One from Mark Doherty on Vimeo.

Android users will have to wait until early 2010.

The Android version of Adobe Flash 10 will be tied to Android 2.0 (Eclair) and require at least a 500-MHz ARM11 processor. Most Android phones include this requirement so we can expect to see Flash 10 eventually available on the G1.

If Adobe is waiting till 2010 to release a beta for Android, does this mean Android 2.0 has been delayed till 2010?

According to Adobe, “Android is taking longer because Adobe needs some programming interfaces that will be available with the Eclair release of Android, due later this year.”

This leads me to believe we might not see any Android 2.0 phones in 2009. Motorola has said they planned on delivering two handsets this holiday season, but has yet to announce their second phone. InformationWeek reported that Verizon is planning to announce their first Android phone in the coming weeks. The phone is widely believed to be from Motorola, but HTC is also rumored to be producing phones for Verizon.

Motorola is holding a developers event this week, but I think the focus will be about their new Motodev Studio and upcoming application store. If we get lucky, maybe we can get our hands on an early unit, but I would not be surprised if the highly anticipated device was a no show.

[via PCMAG]