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