Apple hires...

Adobe has unveiled the first full version of its Flash player for mobile devices. Smartphones have, until now, been left to use a stripped-down Flash Lite player. Now the company is set to deliver full Flash functionality to a series of mobile devices over the coming months, as part of its drive to "reach users wherever they are".

Adobe says it hopes to bring Flash Player 10.1 to Windows Mobile and Palm WebOS devices before the end of the year, with support for Symbian S60 and Google's Android arriving in the early part of 2010. The company has also signed a deal with RIM to develop a BlackBerry version of the software. The elephant in the room is, of course, Apple's iPhone OS, which is the only major smartphone OS that has been omitted from the announcement. Adobe has said in the past that it's working hard to persuade Apple to include support for Flash on the iPhone. The arrival of the fully-featured Flash player will, according to Adobe, bring "uncompromised web browsing of expressive applications, content and high definition (HD) video" to mobile devices. The software will tap the device's GPU to help accelerate graphics performance, although Adobe insists this won't have a hugely detrimental effect on battery life. The software will include support for multitouch, gesture controls and accelerometers, so that mobile users aren't tied to desktop-like interfaces when using web applications, for instance. In addition to mobile phones, Flash Player 10.1 will be rolled out across netbooks and standard PCs. It's the fruition of Adobe's Open Screen Project, which aims to achieve a consistent experience across different devices.