Google's VP of Engineering Andy Rubin has recenlty confirmed that Android 2.2 will include full Adobe Flash Support - making the google mobile plafform the first to incorporate full Flash compatibility. This is in stark contrast to the stance that Apple is taking with Flash. According to a post by Steve Jobs on the subject of Flash support, Flash suffers from a number of problems:

"Besides the fact that Flash is closed and proprietary, has major technical drawbacks, and doesn’t support touch based devices, there is an even more important reason we do not allow Flash on iPhones, iPods and iPads. We have discussed the downsides of using Flash to play video and interactive content from websites, but Adobe also wants developers to adopt Flash to create apps that run on our mobile devices"

Jobs claims that Flash includes a level of abstraction from the underlying software which "ultimately results in sub-standard apps and hinders the enhancement and progress of the platform".

Now, I'm not Apple's biggest fan ever, but neiter am I Adobe's. I preferred Flash when it used to be made by Macromedia. Adobe defended it's product by saying that if Flash was the biggest cause of crashes on Macs, then perhaps Apple should fix it's OS to be more resillient.

Google's announcement on Flash support comes just at the time when Apple and Adobe seem to be at a stalemate, and Google siding with Adobe means that if consumers want a flash enabled mobile device (I know I do!) then its time to ditch the iPhone and take up the Android devices like the excellent HTC desire, or the Google Nexus One which will be available in the UK very soon from Vodafone.

I think it's too early to say is Flash support will the be iPhone killer, but if consumer demand requires flash integration, it will be very had for Apple to integrate it - for both technological and political reasons.