At the CTIA Wireless conference, Adobe and Texas Instruments (TI) announced a technology collaboration to optimize Adobe Flash Player and Adobe AIR for the TI OMAP mobile applications platform.
TI’s collaboration with Adobe will allow manufacturers and developers to fully leverage the benefits of the OMAP platform to reduce time to market while increasing performance and reducing power on devices. A pre-release of the optimized Adobe Flash Player 10 for devices is expected to be available to manufacturers this summer with an official production release expected in Q1 2010. OMAP solutions supporting the pre-release of Adobe Flash Player are expected to be available for manufacturers and developers in the second half of 2009.
This engagement furthers TI’s commitment to supporting Flash technology and will make it easier for manufacturers to enable uncompromised web browsing on their devices. It also lets them quickly update and run Flash technology based third-party content and applications while reducing time to market on smartphones, mobile Internet devices (MIDs) and other mobile computing devices. TI will also provide Adobe Flash technology support on the Zoom OMAP34x-II Mobile Development Platform (MDP), with future support for additional planned OMAP processor-based reference platforms, allowing developers to create rich, Flash technology based content that enhances the overall user experience for a variety of markets.
By optimizing Flash technology for the OMAP solution, manufacturers and developers can exploit offerings of the platform when accessing content developed with Flash technology. For example, leveraging the OMAP platform’s hardware acceleration capabilities allows for improved video and graphics performance at lower power.
“TI has a long standing history of shipping devices with Flash technology and we are pleased to incorporate Adobe Flash Player 10 for devices and Adobe AIR into our portfolio, enabling our customers to deliver a desktop-compatible Internet browsing experience on the OMAP platform,” said Remi El-Ouazzane, vice president and general manager for TI’s OMAP Platform Business Unit. “The collaboration allows our customers and partners to advance the user experience, expanding the accessibility of Flash technology from the PC to the mobile environment. This ability will open the door for the creation of new smartphone, MID and other OMAP processor-based devices that deliver full Internet browsing functionality without sacrificing power consumption, performance or cost.”
TI also participates in the Open Screen Project, a broad industry initiative to deliver a consistent runtime environment across devices. Announced in May 2008, the initiative is dedicated to enabling web content, standalone applications and web browsing across televisions, desktops, mobile devices and other consumer electronics that take advantage of capabilities of the Adobe Flash Platform, including Adobe Flash Player and AIR.