Archive for category Conference
Adobe and RIM to simplify the delivery of rich content and applications
Posted by Mark Doherty in Conference, Devices, Flash Player, Industry News on November 9, 2009
Today our Open Screen Project partner RIM kicked off their annual Blackberry Developer Conference in San Francisco. This year we’re seeing a central theme from the conference and that’s Blackberry as a web platform, and announced more details around the support that you can expect for the Blackberry platform within the upcoming tools in Creative Suite 5.
This year Adobe’s CEO Shantanu Narayen was there to talk about our upcoming support in Creative Suite 5 for the Blackberry platform. This builds on the vision for our joint collaboration in the Open Screen Project and the work we’re doing to get Flash Player 10.1 running in the Blackberry browser.
Today RIM & Adobe also announced that we’ll be optimizing Adobe AIR and the Flex Mobile Framework for the Blackberry platform , making RIM the first OEM to announce support for Adobe AIR and Flex Mobile.
From developers the most obvious integration point will be in Adobe Device Central CS5, which enables the easy development and testing of content for Dreamweaver, Illustrator, Photoshop, After Effects and Fireworks CS5. These new tools aim to enable the production of content for use in Blackberry’s Java Plug-in for Eclipse, BlackBerryWidgets, and the BlackBerry Theme Studio tools. In fact the new Theme Studio supports Flash and Photoshop files through its handy import mechanism, so you can easily create themes alongside SVG support in Illustrator.
Additionally, for consumers we’re also going to enable use of our Photoshop Elements and Photoshop.com products for sharing and editing videos and photos taken on Blackberry phones.
(The BlackBerry Bold runs a 624Mhz Marvell CPU)
So let’s have a look at Blackberry in more detail to give us an idea of where the opportunities are. Recently we’ve seen the launch of Blackberry App World back in April, the addition of a new Widgets SDK, the Blackberry Theme Studio tools and of course the continued work on their Java platform for applications. These strides toward a more open web platform have enabled users to access rich Internet content like never before, and as you’ll see below; they love content.
From an addressable market view, Blackberry devices are sold in vast numbers in the US market. So let’s look at some key stats from Comscore on their behavior there, I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised:
- 14.2m devices
- 50/50 male and female audience
- 25-34 age range
- 43% earn over $100k
- 64.7% of RIM users are browsing the Web
- More than half a million are using dating services
- 15% are interested in Tech news
- 20% are accessing Maps (they travel more than most users)
- 14% are downloading games (triple the norm!), with card, casino and arcade prevalence
- 20% have changed their theme or wallpapers, 3x higher than normal
- 1/4 are using online media storage / facebook etc
So on average a Blackberry user earns, spends, travels and browses the Internet about 3x more than users of other platforms. This makes them a high value target in your development of applications and services, and important customers for niche and business oriented content. With the Blackberry App World growing steadily (200,000 developers) in partnership with Verizon I can see a clear opportunity there with their joint customers, and one really nice feature is the $2.99 minimum price for a paid application!
You can watch the Keynote recording here, and yes it’s done with Silverlight for some reason 
Why not drop on over to www.adobe.com/go/blackberry to learn more and see some videos previewing the upcoming tooling integration announced today.
Creating Graphics Optimized for BlackBerry in Adobe Creative Suite
Further to the announcement of the alliance between Research In Motion and Adobe, this video illustrates the creation of graphical assets optimized for BlackBerry smartphones using Adobe Creative Suite. (6:17)
Building BlackBerry Widgets Using Adobe Dreamweaver
Further to the announcement of the alliance between Research In Motion and Adobe, this video illustrates the creation of a BlackBerry Widget using Adobe Dreamweaver, the industry-leading web content authoring tool. (2:38)
FITC Mobile – Toronto (with Sneaks ;-)
Posted by Mark Doherty in Conference, Flash Lite, Industry News, Mobile Content on July 29, 2009
This September I’m going to travel to Toronto to present at the FITC conference. It’s set to be an exciting show with all of the major mobile platforms being supported including Android, Palm, Windows Mobile, Flash Lite, Blackberry, OpenGL ES and of course iPhone development. There’s even going to be a session on SMS Applications, something that is probably a lot more interesting that you’d think!
Flash Sessions
- Martin Barclay & Robert Burdick from Nokia: Develop and Distribute for Nokia smartphones
- Scott Janousek: Practical Design and Development with Flash on Mobile Devices
- Scott Janousek: Leveraging Accelerometers on Mobile Devices
- Thomas Joos: Tips and Tricks for Flash Lite Optimization
- Weyert de Boer: Android for Flash Developers
- Mark Doherty: Flash Lite Distribution and the Open Screen Fund
So as you can see there are going to be a number of presentations on Flash topics. In my session I’m going to probably break the rules and just sit and have a chat with everyone. Distribution is a complex topic and one where many misunderstand where money is made.
On top of that I’ll also be showing off sneak peaks, so if you’re in the Toronto area and not coming to Adobe MAX then I suggest you start booking 
Prices are very low at $209 and $89 for students.
Flash Player 10 Beta for Smartphones at MAX
Posted by Mark Doherty in Conference, Flash Player on June 20, 2009
This week Adobe’s CEO Shantanu Narayen announced during our earnings call with investors that we will release a beta version of Flash Player 10 for smartphones. Predictably this will happen during Adobe MAX 2009, where mobile will be front and centre.
It will be a developer release and for web browsers, this will enable us to collect feedback, fix bugs and give you a chance to get started and speaking with your customers about this new technology.
So, like I said in my previous post during the slow summer season it’s a perfect opportunity to begin learning AS3 and Flash Player 10 features. I have already started learning more and more over the past few months, and the good news is that life is much much easier with AS3!
I’ve also began to learn Flex, which is such a great product and I can recommend these to get started:
Flex in a Week (very optimistic!)
As we move through the summer you’ll start to hear more about my experiences as I find out new tips and tricks.
Pikkoo Launches – Flash Lite with Social Networking
Posted by Mark Doherty in Conference, Device Central Updates, Distributable Player Solution, Flash Cast, Flash Lite, Industry News, Mobile Content on May 12, 2009
Today Pikkoo was announced in Beta form enabling a new form of social personalization for Flash content. Pikkoo is a Finnish company based in Oulu (very cold) who focus on rich content production, by users and for users.
The Flash Player itself is used to produce rich wallpapers and screensavers within your desktop browser using a host of dynamic tools and images. Of course you can roll your own and create highly personal content to share with your friends.
In the example below I’ve used a beautiful background image, a clock widget and a another clip of a snowboarder from this theme. Themes allow you to produce your content using assets that are perfectly suited, so no more searching randomly. Pikkoo has been designed to enable users to create the best possible looking content, with minimum design knowledge. I can resize each of them movieclips, change their colour, animate them and group them when I want to use effects.
Personalization content using Flash Lite is rich and dynamic, so the clock and network signal widgets are live on my device. Notice also that the stage here is 320×240 pixels because that’s the resolution of my device, making it easier that ever to produce relevant content.
Once I’m done I can create a simple thumbnail for the website, download the SWF as a screensaver or wallpaper to my computer.
Pikkoo also has aS60 3rd Edtion and 5th Edition Screensaver Manager to help me download, share and setup my screensavers.
Here are some screenshots, check out the stunning user interface created with Flash Lite.
One of the great features of this product is that Brands and Agencies can use the service to produce Themes, so that end users can create their own experiences using assets from their favourite brands. You can imagine Disney and Nike being great candidates for user generated content created with Pikkoo.
So what are you waiting for? Get over there and start creating!!
Adobe Mobile Packager Beta 1.1
Posted by Mark Doherty in Conference, Distributable Player Solution, Flash Lite on April 29, 2009
At the Nokia Developer Summit my colleague Andrew Shorten showed attendees the new Mobile Packager Beta 1.1. We intend to release it up on Adobe Labs very soon and I thought it would be nice to give you all a sneak peak of the new features.
In this release we focused our efforts on created a cleaner installation, creation and signing workflow for the tool. We received a lot of feedback regarding the difficulties in getting setup and producing your mobile applications, and I’m really excited to see those answered in this upcoming release.
Installation
Many users found it difficult to install the various SDKs and associated technologies to enable them to build SIS and CAB files. This was due to a number of issues, for example the Microsoft CAB SDK ironically is distributed as a zip file. In Mobile Packager 1.1 we have integrated this SDK completely so alleviate these difficulties. To make the installation of the S60 SDK and Perl easier we have linked directly to those distributions, and we’ve provided a useful “Test Configuration” button to provide feedback on your setup.
Creating a Package
One of the great things about the Flash community is that many of you are great with interaction and design. The Create Package workflow is a direct result of your input, it’s now easier than ever to create a package for S60 or Windows Mobile quickly.
You simply pick a platform from the selector, select and Main SWF and the fields shown below will pre-fill with your project data. If it’s a new project then they will pre-fill with defaults based on the file name of the Main SWF, you can easily change the defaults. Notice that you no longer have to create a self-signed certificate or specify UIDs until you’re ready to sign.
Symbian Signed Ready
One of the biggest concerns from developers is getting through the signing processes. So in the new Mobile Packager 1.1 we focussed on simplifying the steps before you go through Symbian Express Signed. This step is where you apply your developer certificate and assigned UID to your application. We’ve also provided helpful links to help you get UIDs and these and your Publisher ID will be remembered for the lifetime of your project.
note: Experienced developers will see that we don’t use CER and KEY files, but simply the Publisher ID, exactly the same as Adobe AIR signing.
I think this is huge help for productivity and for new developers who would find it impossible to create CER/KEY combinations. Though as well as driving these new features I have been quietly working with the Symbian Foundation to streamline their workflow. Those of you that have been through this will notice the changes, there are more to come later in the year that can only be described as game changing.
Preparing for SymbianSigned
Once the Packaging process has completed all you have to do is zip up the SIS file, pkg file and a Readme.txt. You can simply rename the metadata file for that purpose since it holds all of the relevant information.
Finally you click on the SymbianSigned button on the Packager and you’ll go to their website for the final online signing steps.
As before our reigning packaging queen Liz Myers is hard at work producing video tutorials on our new workflow. In these new tutorials we’ve focused on covering all the nasty (and boy were they nasty) unknowns like attaining Publisher certificates. We’ll also have a really interesting video on icon production and design with Adobe Illustrator, and ideas for marketing your applications.
Like I said, it’ll be with us soon and 40,000 of you need to remember to update.