It’s probably every gadget freak’s dream to go CES in Las Vegas. Last year I “happened” to be in Vegas as a tourist during CES and so obviously I also visited the Consumer Electronics Show. While last year was mostly about 3D and Internet connected TVs this year we’ll see a whole range of new tablets being introduced. Some analysts are even saying that no less than 70 new tablets will see the daylight at CES.

We already saw teasers from Motorola and Vizio. Various techblogs are reporting on rumors about new tablets from Toshiba, LG, HTC, HP, Samsung, and more… You can already feel the buzz, can’t you?

Now wouldn’t it be cool if there was this one technology that could work on all those different tablets? Well… As it turns out, there is! No no… I’m not actually confirming anything here. I’m just saying that there is a technology out there that does run on multiple devices. You’ll have to wait and see which new devices will support the Flash Platform… That said… You do know that just about everyone is part of the Open Screen Project, right?

It’s going to be a great year for Flash developers! Flash on!

Today Mobile World Congress kicks off in Barcelona. If you follow my Tweets or are a regular reader of my blog, you already knew we had some big announcements coming to the show. I’m so happy we can finally talk about this ;-)

Adobe AIR for mobile devices
If you are in Barcelona for MWC, make sure you drop by our booth! We are demoing AIR applications running on Android devices. This is fantastic news for Flash Platform developers who can now build applications that not only run across different desktop operating systems but can now also be deployed to Android devices. It’s obvious that AIR for Android takes full advantage of the improvements and new features we added to Flash Player 10.1. Those include multi-touch, gesture inputs, accelerometer input, GPS and screen rotation. My fellow evangelist Kevin Hoyt recently recorded a demo showing a couple of AIR mobile apps (Tweetbox, Southpark, Acrobat Connect) on the Motorola Droid. For more information, visit www.adobe.com/go/airmobile.

Flash Player 10.1 for mobile devices
I’ve been using Google’s Nexus One for a week now. One of the perks of working for Adobe is having access to the prerelease bits of new technology we are working on. The Nexus One I’m using actually has Flash Player 10.1 installed on it. It is extremely refreshing to be able to use the full web on your mobile device! Just the other day I wanted to view a video on Qik.com. While Qik has a mobile HTML5 site, the Nexus One didn’t seem to have the correct video codec. So I opened the normal Qik site which uses Flash Player to play the video… I pressed play and the video played. No blue Lego blocks, no missing plugin headaches. It just worked and that’s the way it should be. So far, I haven’t seen any Flash content that didn’t work on my Nexus One. I think that’s pretty impressive seeing as this is still a prerelease version. So yes… We are still working on it and no… you can’t download it today. But it’s coming soon and it truly is the missing piece in the mobile web puzzle. Whether you are addicted to Farmville or Bejeweled or if you’re like me and don’t want to install an app for every single news site you visit, you’ll be able to use those games and watch those videos in your mobile browser soon!

While most of the content just works, you should really think about tailoring your content to deliver the best possible user experience on mobile devices. Get a head start and learn how to do just that on Adobe Devnet.

I’m also really excited to see the Dell Mini 5 Tablet in action. In the video below Alan Tam shows a sneak peek of Flash content running on Dell’s upcoming touch-based tablet.

We’re demoing Flash and AIR content on a number of different devices at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this week but if you can’t make it, make sure you don’t miss these demo videos. I’ll also record a few demos at the booth today and post them to my blog later… If there’s anything specific you’d like to see, don’t hesitate to leave a comment. Stay tuned!

It’s a great time to be a Flash Platform developer! Flash on!

Dear Steve,

After working on Windows PCs for over 15 years, I switched to Mac about 6 years ago. I was sick and tired of spending more time keeping my system up and running than being creative. I remember it well. I actually borrowed a G5 to test both Mac and Windows head to head… and I never looked back. I immediately fell in love with OS X and the simplicity of using a Mac. Everything just worked and I could finally be creative again without worrying about crashes or driver conflicts. It wasn’t long before every single PC in the house was replaced by a Mac. I got a G5 to work on, bought a Power Book for work on the road, an iMac for my girlfriend and even an eMac for my mom.

When you announced the iPhone, I had my credit card in my hand somewhere halfway through your presentation. Sadly you only released it in the US at first and so I had to wait a little bit. I’m not ashamed to say that I “imported” one and hacked it so I could use it in Europe. You did a fantastic job with the iPhone and you truly changed the mobile industry. I could even live with the fact that the first version did not have the Flash plugin in the mobile Safari browser. I didn’t think I would, but I was standing in line the day you launched the iPhone 3G in Belgium and yes… I was also in waiting in line the day you launched the iPhone 3GS.

It was definitely harder to swallow that you still didn’t allow Flash on the 3GS. I totally found it plausible that the original iPhone’s CPU was struggling with Flash content but you said that the 3GS was a lot faster than the original iPhone. Add to that that Flash runs just fine on Android, WebOS, WinMo and Symbian smartphones… Together with the Open Screen Project partners, Adobe is working very hard on making sure that Flash Player 10.1 runs smoothly on these devices.

Yesterday, you announced the iPad. I recently bought an HP TouchSmart TX2 tablet (running Windows 7, which allows me to install both Flash Player, AIR and any other plugin) because you are right. There is room for something between the iPhone and my MacBook Pro. There definitely is room for a tablet to browse the web, play games, watch movies or read books on. However… this time you failed to enthuse me.

While the iPad’s form factor seems spot on, the limited operating system isn’t. When you demonstrated the web browser, it was very obvious that the browser did not support Flash (or any other plugins). When you showed the New York Times website, the video player was missing and a big missing plugin icon showed up on screen. Surely this is not the experience you wanted to demonstrate. You said you can browse the full web on the iPad but it clearly isn’t the full web… Isn’t that exactly why you would use a beautiful device like this? To watch video on sites like Facebook, CNN, ESPN, ABC, Fox, Hulu, MSNBC, Epix, … while you’re on the road? But it’s not just about video. What about those hundreds –maybe thousands– of sites that rely on advertisers to pay their bills? Sure… web ads can be really annoying but the reality is that advertisers like to use Flash for their ads. And what about games? Millions of people play Flash games on sites like Facebook, Miniclip, Kongregate and Disney every single day. Flash is a big part of the web today and when you promise “the best way to experience the web” I expect it to be the full web and not the crippled version you demonstrated on stage yesterday.

I’m sure Adobe would welcome you with open arms if you decided to join the Open Screen Project and help us to build an optimized version of Flash Player for the iPad. Some of our OSP partners have already demonstrated full HD 1080P Flash Video on a netbook so I see no reason why it wouldn’t work on the iPad.

I’m sorry to say that even though I am a Mac-head, I won’t be standing in line to get an iPad if I can’t browse the full web on it.

Serge

To anyone reading this: Make sure you blog your thoughts and/or leave a comment.

Update: Also read Ralph Hauwert’s and Mike Chambers’ post.

Mobile World Congress in Barcelona is just around the corner and you can already feel the excitement building.

2010 is going to be an amazing year for Flash developers who want to create mobile applications. Not only did we announce the Flash CS5 iPhone compiler but we’ve already demoed Flash Player 10.1 on a variety of devices from Android to WebOS to Windows Mobile. At Mobile World Congres in Barcelona we will be demonstrating uncompromised rich web experiences in Flash on the latest smartphones, netbooks, and smartbooks with some of the Open Screen Project partners. If you plan to attend the show, come visit us in Hall 1 and experience them firsthand.

We’re also offering Flash Platform developers a limited number of complimentary exhibition visitor passes (a value of € 599 per person) on a first-come, first-served basis. Email us with your name, company name, and email address (for each pass) if you’re interested. For more details, visit http://www.adobe.com/go/mwc2010.

From the evangelism team, Mark Doherty, Tom Krcha, Enrique Duvos and I will be there to answer your questions. Hope to see you in Barcelona!

CEOs from ARM, Broadcom, DoCoMo, Google, HTC, Motorola, NVIDIA, Palm, QUALCOMM, and RIM talk about how they’re bringing Flash Platform technologies to their devices and platforms as part of the Open Screen Project and why they think it’s important to have Flash on their devices and platforms.