Pocket Flash

Okay I’ve banged on about this enough, it’s time for a show of hands.

Q1, If a service were available that would take your Flash Lite content (including a menu icon bitmap/vector) and return to you a fully tested Symbian Signed .sis file, would you be:

1. Very interested in this service, please contact me now
2. Interested in this service
3. Not interested
4. Are you mental, I can self-sign

Q2, Would you expect to pay

1. £10 - £50
2. £50- £100
3. £100 - £200
4. More than £200

Q3, If this service were available to you, which S60 edition would you most likely require:

1. 1st edition
2. 2nd edition
3. 3rd edition
4. 2nd and 3rd editions
5. All of the above

Q4, If a service were available that would deliver to you, a keyword and shortcode for example “TEXT ‘pocketflash’ to 60999″ which would then deliver your content Over-The-Air, would you be:

1. Very interested in this service, please contact me now
2. Interested in this service
3. More interested in this service if it could detect whether the end user had a version of Flash Lite
4. Not interested

Ironically I was reading AdMob’s blog when I cam across this post about Googles Mobile AdSense.

I’m really interested in the idea of generating revenue for via mobile and how this could affect Flash Lite developers. I’ve not looked into it enough (yet) so I don’t even know if it’s possible.

Pitch currently offers free downloadable content for all those who agree to receive marketing messages, which I must say actually works, partly because it’s very upfront about the whole trading eye-balls for content and partly because Pitch understand the importance of “Permission marketing” and how it’s the only way marketeers can cut through the noise they have themselves created.

Renaun Erickson has posted the keynotes from ApolloCamp

This pretty much sums up what I’ve been thinking since I watched Christopher Brichford’s Apollo presentation

“But the idea is that Apollo builds on tools and technology that is already out there and move it further into Desktop RIA and phones (Apollo, Flash list).
Interesting note about reasons for choosing WebKit as the HTML engine. It was small, had a mobile version, Nokia has ported it”

Surely it’s only a matter of time before we get to develop Apollo mobile apps?

At last the gap between Flash / Flash Lite developers and a professional .sis file has been bridged. Orison have just announce Swf2go, the all in one package that enables developers to create a .sis file from one application, including:

· Professional SIS Installer and SWF Launcher toolkit
· Supports versions 1.1, 2.0 and 2.1 of Adobe Flash Lite Player
· Supports Symbian S60 platform editions 1st, 2nd & 3rd
· Auto sign SIS installer with provided certificate
· Supports developer certificates
· Built-in Intelli-Launch Technology
o Automatically detects and starts SWF with the latest on-device Flash Lite player
o Shows an info-note with URL to download Flash Lite from adobe’s website, if Flash
Lite is not detected on user’s cellphone
o Allows to launch multiple Flash Lite applications simultaneously *
o Flicker free SWF launch
o Guaranteed launch with Flash Lite 1.1 (on S60 1st & 2nd Editions)
· Command-Line compiler support
· Supports build automation by XML project files
· Quick compile SWF2Go Project file with right-click context menu

Interestingly there is a place for a readme.txt file which could be substituted for a privacy statement required by symbian signing if you application uses and of the following features:

Bluetooth to connect to other Bluetooth-enabled devices
Sending SMS messages
Sending MMS messages
Making phone calls
Making a connection to the Internet
Allowing you to add or edit contacts
Reading existing information from your contacts database
Recording sounds using your phone’s microphone

Criteria CON-02 -
“Mode 1: Privacy Statement is displayed at the first ever launch of the application and after user confirmed the statement, it will not prompt again for subsequent runs.”

The app generates .sis for s60 1st 2nd and the all important 3rd edition, for Flash Lite 1.1, 2.0 and 2.1

Well that’s my guess anyway.

Why? here’s what happened today-

I read Alessandro Pace’s post about Device Central at Biskero.org and re-opened Device Central to do some mooching around (see screencast) I also noticed the welcome page has Flash, Illustrator and Photoshop icons to open new documents in each. When I clicked Flash I got this message.

A bit randomly I was looking at the new Adobe icons at John Nack’s site as I wanted to see the difference between the Flash and Flash Lite icons.

And finally I saw Richards post about Adobe’s viral marketing video ala youtube linked from this site ‘What’s in the box’

I my opinion the most likely six are listed below, judging by the colours on the side of the box in the video, and bit of common sense (I’ll miss you ‘freehand’, and ‘go live’…well I just never liked you)

- Photoshop
- Dreamweaver
- Illustrator
- In Design
- Fireworks
- Flash

I’m not 100% about fireworks, but as it’s a country mile better than image ready I reckon it’s likely to make it in their.

We’ll just have to wait and see.

It’s official, Mobisite is being developed on Rails. In fact it’s being built on one of Media Temple’s shinny new Grid Containers

In short
Ruby on Rails Rocks
David Heinemeier Hansson is a legend in his own lifetime
(just don’t tell him I delevloped early parts of Mobisite in a live production environment… well you can’t pull a feed from a Rails app onto a mobile unless it’s on a server, I really had no choice)
Mobisite is mobile blogging, by mobile users, for mobile users.

“What is Flash Home and who is it for?
Flash Home is a solution for the creation, discovery, and delivery of rich, Flash based home screens across multiple devices. The solution benefits mobile operators and OEMs alike.
Sold as a white-label solution to mobile operators, Flash Home combines customizable home screens with live data services to provide subscribers with a personalized, engaging experience. Flash Home is easy to promote, discover, and use and provides operators with an opportunity to both extend their brand and generate new revenue opportunities.”

I always wondered how Adobe managed to receive incoming sms notification, and call logs when there is nothing in any of the Flash Lite 1.x and 2.x documents, shown in this MAX 2005 video (Day two mobile UI - Josh Ulm)

News from 3GSM is that Flash Lite 3.0 is on it’s merry way.

The main focus of the press release is video, with the .flv format in particular “delivered by the Adobe Flash Media Server”. You could speculate other potential opportunities, such as multiuser environments that would open up all kinds of intersting avenues for developers, though we’ll just have to wait and see.

Tomi T Ahonen does an amazing job on adding context to the shear volume of mobile phone users there are today. I’ve stripped out the list for those who fall asleep after reading more than ten words.

THE CAR AT 800 M
TELEPHONE 1.3 B
TV 1.5 B
CREDIT CARDS 1.4 B
PC 850 M
INTERNET 1.1 B
THE GOLIATH, MOBILE PHONES 2.7 B

For the Flash Lite developer, or anyone who has attempted to sell Flash Lite as a concept to any client, the crunch always comes when the client asks “so how many phones will this work on”. You see if you said 17, as it is today (or back in 2004 when it was 2 devices and only if they had T-mobiles newsExpress) then your client may loose interest fast, which has been the case on more than one occasion. But if you include that if they managed to get their content in front of just 1% of mobile phone users, then they would be looking at 27,000,000 units, then you can start to make some headway.

It’s this kind of information / ammunition that helps us educate clients about the position of Flash Lite content within the “mobile eco system”, so that they will be comfortable enough to allow you to take their brand / product onto mobile devices.

I only wish I had the time to put in as much effort as guys like Dimitry