Opera Software vice president Tatsuki Tomita has confirmed that his company is developing a replacement for the Adobe Flash plug-in for use with future versions of the Opera Mini mobile web browser.
Tomita explained that the reason for this move is that the traditional Flash plug-in uses a large amount of CPU and memory resources, limiting speed and battery life on mobile platforms. The problem is exacerbated when the Flash plug-in is not well-optimized for the platform it is running on; Macintosh users can attest to this firsthand. "You cannot execute and provide a good user experience," Tomita told InfoWorld, referring to running the Flash plug-in on mobile devices.
The new technology will add video capability directly into the Web browser so that users can see and play back video content directly in Opera. As of yet, Opera has not commented on whether or not the new native playback ability for Opera Mobile will be able to play existing Flash content.
Flash playback has often been a sore point for Opera users on various platforms. Earlier versions of Opera had difficulty playing back fullscreen versions of YouTube videos, for example, until Opera fixed that particular bug. Users of Opera on the Wii have noted that not all Flash content is playable on that device.
Tomita did not give a date for when the Opera Mini Flash replacement would be available. He said that he expects the web browser to continue to gain functionality as more and more companies move towards making web-based versions of their applications. He said that the limitations of web-based applications can be overcome if browser providers work with individual mobile device makers to control the hardware and software capabilities natively. In this case, it seems like he is referring to phone manufacturers who want to deliver their own premium video content to users, which he believes the new Opera native Flash replacement will do better than existing solutions.
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