Mobile Hulu 6 months away?

With the exception of Apple’s iPhone, all major mobile operating systems will get Flash Player 10 support in October, Adobe said in an earnings call.

But Adobe’s "Flash Platforms Evangelist" Mark Doherty suggested — in a YouTube comment of all places — that support for Hulu is still six months away.

Doherty’s FlashMobileBlog explains that the beta is a developer release that Adobe will use to gather feedback and make improvements. It makes sense, then, that the programs everyone’s waiting to use on smartphones, such as Hulu, won’t be immediately available.

Adobe CEO Shantanu Naraye said in the earnings call that "Google’s Android, Nokia’s Symbian OS, Windows Mobile and the new Palm Web OS will be the first devices to support web browsing with the new Flash player" this fall, Talk Android reports. Some partners have already received an early version, and developers will get a beta version during October’s Adobe MAX conference.

The obvious angle here is that Apple’s iPhone isn’t included in the mix. Back in November, when Adobe first unveiled Flash 10 for mobile phones, Wired noted that Flash software isn’t allowed under Apple’s terms of service, even though Adobe said as recently as February it’s working on an iPhone version. Video sites such as Hulu and Joost, along with free gaming Web sites such as Miniclip and AddictingGames, will go a long way towards making Android phones and the Palm Pre more attractive to prospective smartphone owners.