Adobe Ships Flash Player 10.1 Mobile

Adobe has (at last) introduced a version of Flash it swears is suitable for mobile devices, Flash Player 10.1, and in an attempt to prove it isn’t sitting alone whistling its multimedia software’s song, claims HBO, Sony Pictures, Turner, USA Network, Viacom, Warner Brothers and others are already creating Flash Content for MObile.

Adobe promises the software — which we all know has been heavily-criticized by Apple CEO Steve Jobs — offers performance and mobile specific features.

If you’re on a Windows Mobile, Symbian, Palm or Research In Motion smartphone, I’m afraid you’ll have to wait for a while before you get what Adobe calls “the full Web” of Flash-based advertising and useless trivia games on your smartphone.

Android gets it first…later…

Flash Player 10.1 will be available as a final production release for smart phones and tablets once users are able to upgrade to Android 2.2 “Froyo.”

There’s new mobile features, such as accelerometer support and Smart Zooming. You should see some performance improvement thanks to the software making more efficient use of the processor, Adobe promises.

Battery performance is improved by, well, by not running Flash.

I’m not being harsh, here’s what Adobe says: “The new Smart Rendering feature ensures that Flash content is running only when it becomes visible on the screen, further reducing CPU and battery consumption. With Sleep Mode, Flash Player automatically slows down when the device transitions into screen saver mode.”

Flash Player also pauses automatically when you get a call or switch to another device function.

The company promises better memory management and lower memory demands. There’s more details here.

Don’t fret if you are using one of the more veteran smartphones out there, Flash Player 10.1 was “also released to mobile platform partners to be supported on devices based on Android, BlackBerry, webOS, future versions of Windows Phone, LiMo, MeeGo and Symbian OS,” said Adobe.

Expect it to be made available for download and introduced pre-installed “in the coming months”, the company said.