Posts Tagged flash lite

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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Nokia 5800 updates to Flash Lite 3.1

Posted by Mark Doherty in Devices, Flash Lite on May 29, 2009

As some of you have noticed Nokia have begun the process of updating the Flash Lite 3.0 player to our latest version Flash Lite 3.1. There are a number of benefits with this update but in all this brings the Nokia 5800 all the way up to Flash 9 support (AS2 only), some features are outlined below:

  • Flash Lite 3.1 builds on our support for web browsability
  • 92% of the top 500 sites (plus a few strategic ones)
  • HTML Text coloring, <img> tag support in text fields
  • Streaming audio support
  • Much more memory
  • It adds new support for hardware acceleration for graphics (hardware dependant)
  • Bitmap data is also now exposed
  • Security Model and obviously version, is now aligned with the Distributable Player
  • Various bug fixes to enhance extensions for packaged applications

This update is a huge step forward because it signifies the beginning of Open Screen Project commitments to keep the Flash Player up-to-date.  It’s also the first time that this has been tried out from an OEM and so there were a few glitches, notably:

  • SetSoftKey FSCommand support broke
  • The Flash version string included a new character “AFL” instead of “FL”
  • Security Model wasn’t entirely fixed

In all for all the features added I think that this isn’t so bad, and I can say that Nokia will update FL3.1 and release this new version soon.  So if you were in the Day1 gold rush then I suggest hitting update in a week or so.

*NEW – More soon on this*

  • Flash Lite 3.1 also provides support for Flash Remoting
  • HTTPS and AMF support

As for the Flash Remoting features I’m wildly excited about this, and I’m working to produce a simple demo.

Update: Unfortunately Remoting doesn’t work on S60 :-( however I’m informed that this should work on WM6 devices, so feel free to give it a try!

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Flash Lite Developer Challenge – 4 Days to go!

Posted by Mark Doherty in Flash Lite, Industry News, Mobile Content on May 26, 2009

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The Flash Lite Developer Challenge is closing in 4 days 7 Hours, so I hope you’re finalising your submissions.  Remember that we’re looking for a number of different things including innovation, user experience, commercial viability and best use of Flash Lite features.

I can’t wait to see the entries :-)

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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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Announcing Flash Builder 4

Posted by Mark Doherty in , Flash Lite, Industry News on May 16, 2009

During the past year we’ve been focussing on branding around the Flash Platform’s tools and runtimes.

For example Flash Platform for the Digital Home is how we refer to the optimized Flash Player that runs on set-top boxes.  Under the hood it’s Flash Lite 3.1, but that’s a Flash Player optimized for TVs, get it?  You’ll notice that in the coming months I’ll be referring to Flash Lite as Flash Player across the board, and you should too.

To be clear though Flash Lite is still the name of the product.

So today we announced that one of our key products Flex Builder will be renamed Flash Builder in the next release.  It makes a lot of sense when you consider Flash Catalyst is on the way and we need a way to tie them together, they both rely on the same open source Flex SDK.

In terms of workflow you could create your assets in Photoshop, use Flash Catalyst to turn these assets into a interactive experience.  Then in Flash Builder you tie up the underlying functionality and hook up the data services etc.

Flex doesn’t disappear as a brand, you still call yourself a Flex Developer because you’re using the open source Flex SDK.  The only difference is that you do your development in Flash Builder.

So that’s all clear then, but Serge has a nice post on this.

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