Is the future of Flash mobile?

Recently I started to get interested in the future of Flash. Given all the Apple fueled hype of HTML 5 I wondered where will Flash be most useful. One massive problem with mobile and tablet development is that when a client wants an application to run on mobile then it has to be remade at great expense on each platform. I would have to find an Objective C developer for the mandatory iPhone version, a Java programmer for the Android version and so on. The images have to be remade and the projects have to managed. Not an ideal scenario...

This is where AIR comes (is coming?) in. I find that mobile apps are often 'addons' to the main web offerings. If the web app is already done in Flash/Flex then it seems like a good idea to create all the other versions in AIR, as most the code is already done.

I had a friend who has a Flash game that he wanted to put onto Android, so I thought this would be the perfect time to have a look at how Flash Mobile is getting on. I downloaded the Flex Hero SDK, the Android SDK and after looking around the web a lot managed to get it all working with FDT. I found a beautie ANT script that will output multiple versions to iPhone, Android and Blackberry Tablet (of which I know nothing about). Anyway I only got to test the Android version on a Galaxy Tab and it worked straight off the bat.

I tried the same project, compiling from Flash CS5 as well, which was super super easy to set up and run.

Also I had a look at Flash Builder Burrito, which has some nice project templates for mobile apps and the Hero components, which are Flex components for use on all mobile platforms to try and keep the interface consistent.

The main downside to using AIR is that it will not run as fast as natively programmed apps and that there is no access to native componenets (sliders, buttons and so on) so the app will not look like a native app.

Juding by what I played around with, it looks like Adobe have really targeted mobile development for the next phase of the future of digital communication and I think there will be real benefits for AIR in the mobile market place.