Archive for category Distributable Player Solution

Adobe and HTC Bring Flash Platform to Android

Posted by Mark Doherty in Android, Distributable Player Solution, Industry News on June 24, 2009

Today we announced with our partners HTC that we’ve extended Adobe® Flash® to the Android platform for the first time. We really excited to finally enable rich web browsing to the open source Android platform, and particularly to such a great smartphone. As a top of the range device it sports multi-touch HVGA, accelerometers, GPS, Compass, WIFI, a 5MP Camera and the incredible Android Webkit Browser. With Flash the web browsing experience on the device is fantastic, rich and gives you access to a more complete Internet.

What will Flash on Android do for me as a user?

If you’re a user of the HTC Hero you’ll be able to view much of the available online video, of which 85% is played through Flash Player. In this mobile optimized runtime we also have support for streaming audio, and with it’s Actionscript 2.0 support we believe that you can view around 80% of the Flash content on the web today.

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You’ll be able to interact with games and rich Internet sites, widgets and of course the HTC Hero is a touch device with a huge HVGA (320×480 px) screen. As a nice addition, you can run Flash content in full screen simply by double tapping on it in the browser. As Flash is scalable you’ll find that this works exceptionally well, and the experience is really solid.

In the near future we’ll be shipping full Flash Player on the Android platform, enabling the richest possible web experiences. Android is a fantastic open platform for users to consume content under your terms, happy Flashing!

I’m a developer, what does this mean for me?

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As part of this announcement HTC has announced their membership in the Open Screen Project, an industry initiative led by Adobe. HTC and Adobe will work together with 25 other industry leaders to deliver the full Flash Player on a huge range of devices and platforms moving forward. As a developer this should give you some indication of the level of support that we’re seeing for the initiative. We’re really happy to see an industry leader such as HTC commit to delivering a consistent Flash Platform on their devices, and working with us for a more consistent web experience on devices.

There is no doubt that HTC have been shipping some of the most stunning devices available today, they led the charge with the first Android platform device the G1. For you as a developer this translates to significant sales to end users, and an opportunity for content distribution as the platform and devices scale. HTC reaches deep into the US, European and Asian markets and in fact we support many of their Windows Mobile smartphones with the Distributable Player which is now available in 29 countries (and counting).

As you’ve read above this device ships with Flash in the browser as a plugin, but it is accessible for immersive full screen playback. Distribution through content aggregators such as Playoo, GetJar and GamesPlaza should work really well and naturally. Another potential opportunity is to use the Android WebView class, which is essentially a way to create air like applications that use webkit. Don’t bank on this though, but do tell me if you get it to work :-)

To read more, and see the new device in action go here.

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Distributable Player Expansion – 45 Countries

Posted by Mark Doherty in Distributable Player Solution, Flash Lite, Industry News on June 18, 2009

This application is created by interactive maps. You can also have your visited countries map on your site. If you see this message, you need to upgrade your flash player.

We’ve been hard at work enabling support for new countries with the Flash Lite 3.1 player, enabling you to use the most recent player with the Adobe Mobile Packager 1.1. I’m happy to announce that we’ve continued to accelerate the addition of new countries around the world adding 16 countries, and bringing the total to 29.

The countries are: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, India, Indonesia, Ireland Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Philippines, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey, UK and the USA.

Right now we’re looking at how to enable support for new devices on a platform level, so rather than certifying each device we can certify whole platforms.  It’s not an easy task but we’re very confident that the player won’t start breaking.

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Adobe Mobile Packager 1.1

Posted by Mark Doherty in Devices, Distributable Player Solution, Flash Lite, Industry News, Mobile Content on June 11, 2009

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As you know we’ve been working very hard on the next version of the Adobe Mobile Packager.  In fact a little harder than we anticipated as I’m sure you’ve noticed that I posted the sneak peek more than a couple of weeks ago.  Ultimately I wasn’t happy with some features including the Symbian and Windows Mobile signing workflows.  I think you’ll agree that the engineering team have done a wonderful job in making it easy to Create->Package->Sign->Distribute packages.

One of the features that cost some extra time was multi-byte support for install packages, which is a hard task.  Now, with the new Mobile Packager you can change your Application Name to use any accents and characters in any language.  This enables us to expand globally without restriction moving forward.

Symbian S60

With Mobile Packager 1.1, it has never been easier to get through SymbianSigned.  I have also been working with the Symbian Foundation to streamline their ingestion process and a new policy for the purchase of Publisher Ids.  The good news is that this has now been announced, and soon (2 months?) you’ll be able to purchase a Publisher Certificate cheaply, and with nothing more than a credit card.

Signing of SIS packages has been vastly improved and we’ve aligned with AIR packaging workflows from Flash Builder, it’s the same security after all.  No more tcp12p8.bat and multiple certificates, keys and passwords.  You can simply use your pfx file straight out of the browser, technically you may also use a p12 file from Firefox too.  If this sounds like Star Trek talk then don’t worry, just watch the 5min video :-)

Windows Mobile

The downside is that Microsoft would not allow us to integrate a key component required for signing cab files called SignTool, a 74kb file.  Hopefully in the future Microsoft will see the value in helping the Flash community and provide easy access to the tools necessary for everyone to distribute on “Open OS” Windows Mobile devices.  For now though we won’t be stuck, as they say “there’s an app for that” with easy instructions in the tutorial.

OVI

With regards to OVI support, we continue to work with Nokia to enable support for the Distributable Player.  There are some minor hurdles to overcome but the focus is very much on getting OVI up and running, and I support that fully.

Tutorials

I think the tutorials were a huge success for the first version of the Packager 1.0.  Liz and I worked our socks off building out the content and this time round we’ve raised the bar, in the process we killed her hard drive, then her OS, she literally rang every corner of the globe.  So in compensation I urge you to go and watch all of them, there’s lots of valuable information condensed into no more than 30mins.

Spread the word about these tutorials, it will help us all to build on the knowledge (and pain) that we went through on this.

As we move forward you’ll notice new countries coming online for OTA distribution, we’ll see more devices and wider coverage for devices.  For example, we intend to enable all S60 3rd Edition devices for Flash Lite 3.1 giving you the choice on which devices to target.  Windows Mobile is somewhat more fragmented but our goal is to enable those devices also.

Of course all the pieces will go up on Adobe Labs, but they’ve been somewhat busy with Flash Builder, Flash Catalyst and Flex4.  So in lieu of that you can download the new Packager tool from here, and I’ll update the link afterwards.

Mobile Packager 1.1 – English

Mobile Packager 1.1 – Italian

Mobile Packager 1.1 – Spanish

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Distributable Player Update – 13 countries, 31 devices

Posted by Mark Doherty in , Devices, Distributable Player Solution, Flash Lite, Industry News on May 20, 2009

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I have some great news on our Distributable Player availability and our plans to scale the solution.  For the past couple of weeks I’ve been working with some of you to test the download of Flash Lite 3.1 over-the-air in your home countries.  That process has gone pretty well and collectively we’re confident that our solution can now scale quickly, we plan to add countries in batches of eight on a monthly basis.

We have added support for the player download in the following countries (I tried to enable the Flash version of this but WordPress is having none of it):

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We’ve also been working hard on device certification and accelerating that program by adding the most popular S60 and Windows Mobile devices.  The list is now 31 strong and will grow continually at speed.

S60 Devices

  1. Nokia N78
  2. Nokia E65
  3. Nokia N95 8GB
  4. Nokia N95
  5. Nokia N73
  6. Nokia N81
  7. Nokia 6120 Classic
  8. Nokia E51
  9. Nokia N81 8GB
  10. Nokia E71
  11. Nokia N96
  12. Nokia N82

Windows Mobile Devices

  1. HTC-Pro S621(Same as T-Mobile Dash)
  2. HTC S740
  3. HTC Touch Cruise P3650
  4. HTC Touch Diamond
  5. HTC Touch P3452
  6. HTC TyTN II P4551
  7. Motorola Q
  8. Motorola Q9c
  9. Motorola Q9h (CDMA)
  10. Motorola Q9m
  11. Motorola Q Norman (same as Moto Q 9h(GSM))
  12. Palm Treo 700w
  13. Palm Treo 750
  14. Palm Treo Pro
  15. Samsung SGH-i607 BlackJack I
  16. Samsung SGH-i617 BlackJack II
  17. Samsung SGH-i780
  18. T-Mobile Shadow
  19. T-Mobile Wing

The Mobile Packager 1.1 release is now out on private pre-release with a few select developers to get some feedback before launch.  Last week the reigning packaging queen Liz Myers signed her first SIS and CAB files using the new tool.

Exciting times!

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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.

Pikkoo Create

Once I’m done I can create a simple thumbnail for the website, download the SWF as a screensaver or wallpaper to my computer.

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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.

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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!!

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