Mobile and Devices Developer Center

We Listened: Flash Player 6 for Pocket PC Is Available Again

The Pocket PC is a versatile device that has evolved over the past five years into something more than just a personal organizer. As one of the first consumer devices to support Macromedia Flash technology, we’ve seen a lot of great examples of Flash content.

On October 3 we decided to remove the free Flash Player 6 for Pocket PC from our site for various reasons. After doing so, however, you—our developer community—let us know that you were not happy with the decision. You gave us your feedback by contacting us directly, expressing your opinions in our forums and other Pocket PC developer forums. Some of you spoke with me directly about this topic. Thanks to everyone who voiced concerns and contacted us. We appreciate your feedback and perspective, and most importantly, we appreciate your taking the time to let us know.

The developer community as a whole is very important to us, and it's essential for us to listen to your requests and provide the best resources and support we can to help you focus on expressing your ideas using our technologies.

As of October 11 we are making the free Flash Player 6 for Pocket PC download available for developers again. I wanted to share some information about that with you.

Availability

The free Flash Player 6 for Pocket PC download is once again available to developers from our Flash Player 6 for Pocket PC 2003 page. We're making the player available so that developers can view Flash content in Pocket IE or full-screen using third-party solutions. If you're a developer and you plan on creating Flash content to sell, we encourage you to purchase the Flash Player 6 for Pocket PC Distribution Kit.

Flash Player 6 for Pocket PC was released back in 2003 when Microsoft released their Pocket PC 2003 revision. In the two years since then, there have been several revisions of the Pocket PC OS, now referred to as Windows Mobile 5.0. Because of changes to the operating system and hardware of new devices, we cannot guarantee that Flash Player 6 for Pocket PC will work consistently when playing Flash content.

These inconsistencies and limitations exist on noncertified devices, many of which come from OEMs producing new Pocket PC devices. We have worked closely with our OEM partners (HP and Toshiba) to ensure the proper operation of Flash Player. Because they have integrated it into their devices, there is no need to offer a separate download.

When you download the free player, it is provided "as-is"—which means that Macromedia will support it only for Pocket PC 2003 OS devices through available online resources on our website. If you experience any problems for noncertified devices, you should discuss them with other developers in various forums.

Flash Player 6 for Pocket PC Distribution Kit

In 2003 we began to offer the Standalone Flash Player 6 for Pocket PC (now known as Flash Player 6 for Pocket PC Distribution Kit) in our Online Store. This allows you to distribute the Flash Player 6 for Pocket PC with your Flash content. If you're a developer, you can use this product to deploy your Flash content to consumers with supported Pocket PC devices.

Because developers can distribute the Flash Player with their content, we offer the Flash Player 6 for Pocket PC Distribution Kit for US$499. This product is not intended for end-user consumption. It is meant only to be a solution for developers to distribute their content with Flash Player 6 for Pocket PC to end users. As long as it provides value for developers who build commercial products using Flash, we will continue to make it available to them.

Future Development Plans

We are updating Flash Player for Pocket PC to support a newer version of Flash Player. Although we cannot comment on timing or distribution details, you can expect that when this update is available, it will be distributed in a way that is more closely aligned to the distribution model we've created for Flash Lite.

Feedback from You

We are constantly working to improve the mobile experience—from user interfaces to content production in mobile phones to PDAs to televisions. We will continue to work with Pocket PC OEMs to broaden the distribution of Flash Player on their devices and at the same time support our developer community to test and create Flash content for this platform.

If you have any additional questions, please e-mail them to mobiledeveloper@macromedia.com.

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