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by whughes 5965 days ago
Bizarrely, Flash Player has been available for Windows Mobile for years and nobody has noticed. Windows Mobile also has a YouTube app and most of the other major apps, but they're all terribly neglected and have virtually no users. Microsoft had every advantage even before the iPhone came out and yet they managed to squander them.

I predict a Zune phone/PDA which will add even more confusion to the brew of brands Microsoft has managed to concoct. Windows Live Bing Connect Mobile CE XP Pro .net System 8 2010 for Home Users, Enterprise Edition, anyone?

2 comments

Sure, but the Flash on WinMo was not made available as a web plugin.
Yes, it was (how else do you use Flash, anyway?).

It worked in IE mobile and I believe there were tricks to get it to work in other browsers (Opera). There was Flash Lite and a normal Flash plugin -- the whole thing was pretty confusing, I admit.

There are also apps like Skyfire ( http://www.skyfire.com/ ) hanging around which claim various degrees of Flash support built-in. In any case, as far as I'm aware all Flash support was and is via web browser.

> How else do you use Flash, anyway?

To play back standalone SWF files and WORA applications. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Flash_Lite

But you're right, I just noticed there is indeed a web plugin: http://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer_pocketpc/ - I stand corrected. It's based on Flash 7, which I think explains why it didn't work for most users (including myself, owning a WM 2005 and WM6 device).

"... Windows Mobile ... has been available ... for years and nobody has noticed."

Fixed? It's questionable at this point whether WinMo can maintain relevancy in the mobile devices market even over the next 1-2 years, let alone over the next 5-10.