The biggest complaint from iPhone owners to date has been the inability to access sites that use Adobe’s Flash player. Adobe spent years appealing Apple’s decision without success. Now the company is throwing in the towel.

Adobe has announced plans to cease developing its Flash Player plug-in for mobile browsers – a move that may well signal the end of Flash. The company instead plans to focus on HTML5.

It’s a loss for the company but could be a win for the entertainment and gaming communities, since it puts an end to the dueling protocols in the growing mobile world. Companies that sided with Flash will have to retrench, but in doing so, they’ll be able to offer their content to a much wider audience.

While Adobe is retreating in mobile, it’s standing behind Flash on the desktop PC, where it has a much bigger footprint.

As television and other entertainment industries battle video games for people's free time in today's environment, they might want to keep their eyes on future generations as well.

A study by Common Sense Media finds that 17 percent of five to eight year olds are already gaming on a daily basis – while 81 percent have played games through their lifetime.

That's a higher percentage than the number of parents who have played.

Television still chews up the majority of a child's screen time, coming in at 74 perent. Home computers weigh in at 13 percent and games are coming up fast with 10 percent.

Mobile media is also showing huge gains. In a typical day, the study found, 11 percent of all 0- to 8-year olds use a cell phone, iPod, iPad or similar device for media consumption.

Boys were more likely to play games than girls (by a 56 percent to 46 percent margin) – and were much more likely to play on a daily basis (14 percent for boys vs. 5 percent for girls).

(Disclaimer: I write app reviews for Common Sense Media.)

Richard Kerris, the former chief technical officer of Lucasfilm who hopped over to Hewlett-Packard in February, is on the move again.

Kerris, who was head of worldwide developer relations at the Silicon Valley firm, "has decided to leave HP to pursue an opportunity outside of the company, effective immediately," according to a company spokesperson.

The departure isn't a complete shock. Kerris, who was named by Variety in 2008 as one of the entertainment industry's 10 Innovators to Watch, joined HP to boost developer interest in creating applications and programs for the company's webOS platform – including the now-infamous TouchPad and Pre 3, devices that were cancelled within months of their launch and less than six months after Kerris' arrival.

While at Lucasfilm, Kerris led an effort to streamline the way the company's divisions worked together – sharing assets and, in essence, getting filmmakers, animators and game makers to speak the same language.

It was his Apple experience that HP coveted, though. While at that company, Kerris was responsible for convincing developers who were working on other platforms to make the move to Apple's operating system.

No word, as yet, on where he's headed next.

Looks like Google's plans to take its movie rental service on the road are about to get rolling.

The Android App marketplace briefly offered a Google-branded movie rental app for a short period last Friday, according to published reports. It was yanked quickly, but that still seemingly indicates an imminent widespread release.

Google hasn't made any secret of its plans to relaunch the app, dubbed Google Videos. It first showed off a prototype at its Google I/O developer conference in May – and let Motorola Xoom owners have first crack at it in June. The pending launch would be for other Android devices.

The app gives users access to over 3,000 premium titles, which can currently be rented via Google on the PC.

At long last, Zynga has confirmed its plans to go public.

The company on Friday filed an S-1 form with the Securities and Exchange Commission, announcing plans to raise $1 billion through publicly traded shares. That wasn't the interesting part, though. The really fascinating stuff was in the details.

Here are a few of the highlights from Zynga's S-1 (which you can read in its entirety here):

Current number of employees: 2,268

Global player base: 232 million

2010 profits: $90.6 million

First quarter 2011 profits: $11.8 million

Amount of time players spend in Zynga games per day: 2 billion minutes

Year the company's terms of service contact with Facebook expires: 2015

CEO Mark Pincus' 2010 salary: $300,000

CEO Mark Pincus' 2010 salary (including bonuses): $520,239

EVP Owen Van Natta's 2010 salary (including bonuses): $43.2 million

Odd bonuses: Reggie Davis, the company's general counsel, was given a paid two-night trip to see a concert out of town in thanks for his long hours.

Number of shares owned by Mark Pincus: 105.6 million

Rent Zynga pays for office space: $28,000 per month

Owner of that office space: Mark Pincus

Amount paid to use private aircraft for business trips in 2009-2010: $145,000

Owner of that aircraft: Mark Pincus

Apple's legal team is certainly off the leash these days.

On the heels of suits filed against HTC and Nokia, Apple has filed suit against Samsung, accusing the company of using Apple's intellectual property in several of its devices, including the Galaxy S 4G phone and Galaxy Tab tablet computer.

The suit was filed Friday in the Northern District of California.

"Rather than innovate and develop its own technology and a unique Samsung style for its smart phone products and computer tablets, Samsung chose to copy Apple's technology, user interface and innovative style in these infringing products," Dow Jones quotes the lawsuit as saying.

At issue is everything from screen icons to the under the hood tech. Apple's seeking an injunction as well as cash damages.

An interesting twist to the suit is that Apple uses Samsung parts in its devices. While the legal battle is unlikely to end that relationship, it will certainly make it more delicate.

Variety tech guru David Cohen answers your questions about the industry. Chat starts at 10 a.m. PST.

The worst kept secret in the cell phone world has finally been formally acknowledged. Sony Ericsson has taken the wraps off of the Xperia Play, better known as the PlayStation Phone.

Verizon will be the sole distributor of the device starting this March. The phone will be supported by a catalog of up to 50 games, with four titles preloaded onto the device.

The phone, which uses the Android operating system, will ship with "Asphalt Adrenaline 6," "Bruce Lee," "Star Battalion," "The Sims 3," and "Tetris" included, says the company. Games available through the recently announced PlayStation Suite (a downloadable store of PlayStation games for Android devices) will include "Guitar Hero," "Assassin's Creed," "Dead Space" and "Reckless Racing".

Android gamers who have been hungry for a richer catalog of games might be excited, but they were hardly surprised. The Xperia Play has been written about extensively and one tech side even offered a hands on preview long before Sony was ready to talk about the device. The company also gave the world a sneak peak in an especially creepy commercial during this year's Super Bowl.

So far, Sony isn't talking pricing for the phone, which looks similar to the PSP Go, comes with a four-inch touchscreen and offers a 5.1 megapixel camera. Look for that to be announced in the coming weeks. Battery life will range from five-and-a-half hours of game play to nearly eight-and-a-half hours of talk time.

Steve Wadsworth, president of Disney’s Interactive Media Group – the division overseeing video games, online virtual worlds and the company’s mobile efforts – has resigned after an 11-year tenure with the company.  

The departure leaves a vacuum at one of the company’s most important - but often troubled - divisions. 

"For many reasons, now is the right time for me to move on," Wadsworth said in an email to staff. “While it is difficult to leave a great company, an exciting business and a wonderful group of people, my desire and excitement to pursue other opportunities is too great to ignore.”

Disney’s expected to announce Wadsworth’s replacement soon. One leading candidate is John Pleasants, CEO of Playdom, the social gaming company Disney recently purchased for $563.2 million (along with a performance-linked earn out for investors of up to $200 million).

Wadsworth has never been a favorite of Wall Street due to his penchant for pricey acquisitions that failed to achieve breakout success, but his unit has been showing signs of strength recently and is poised to have a banner year with titles like “Epic Mickey” nearing release.

Windows Mobile 7 might be the most radical (and promising) operating system from the company’s mobile division in years, but the road to retail isn’t going to be perfectly smooth.  

Verizon, which was famously burned by Microsoft with the Kin earlier this year, has announced it will not carry phones using the service at launch – or at all this year. It will be some unnamed date in 2011 before the company begins supporting the OS.

Brenda Raney, a spokesperson for Verizon, made the announcement in an interview with Bloomberg Thursday.

The announcement that the nation’s largest cellular provider was bypassing the launch came as a surprise to onlookers – but is a positive for AT&T, which has already been identified as a premiere partner for the phones.

Windows Mobile 7 is the company’s best bet for regaining some of the marketshare it has lost in the mobile space to Android and Apple’s iOS. Analysts don’t expect it to be a market leader, but have praised its unique design as well as its coordination with other Microsoft units, including the Zune media player and Xbox Live.