Samsung Galaxy Nexus not getting Flash… yet

Those who've managed to get their hands on the just-launched Samsung Galaxy Nexus may have spotted that it doesn't come with the Adobe Flash Player installed -- and that it can't even be downloaded from the Android Market.

Don't worry though, because that's the way it's meant to be -- at least for now. Google has informed SlashGear that Adobe has yet to update Flash Player for the Galaxy Nexus' Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich operating system. Until it does so, you won't be able to use Flash on the phone at all -- not even an older version designed for older Android operating systems.

At first glance, that might suggest we'll never see Flash on the Galaxy Nexus (or indeed any other Ice Cream Sandwich phone that follows it). After all, Adobe recently announced that it would be ditching development of Flash for smart phones and tablets, instead focussing its attentions on HTML 5 and Adobe Air for mobile devices.

However, that doesn't appear to be the end of the road for Flash on Android. Google has stated that it believes Adobe will indeed release an edition of Flash for Ice Cream Sandwich. Whether the average user will care or not, given the general shift towards HTML 5, is another matter.

The lack of Flash certainly didn't bother our own Luke Westaway too much when he recently put the Samsung Galaxy Nexus through its paces. He liked the raw, un-TouchWiz'd up version of Ice Cream Sandwich it runs, citing its user-friendly browser (which now lets you save pages for offline reading, while cycling through tabs is a lot easier), ability to resize widgets and neat multi-tasking button (hit it to bring up a scrollable stack of all your currently-running apps). Take a gander at the full hands-on preview here.