Dale Rankine - Archive Blog

Upcomging Adobe Webinar: Mobile for Flash Developers

2009-04-27T18:26:00.000-07:00

Via Mark: You can now register for an upcoming Adobe webinar featuring David Brown from AgencyNet (the guys who built Atlantic Records Fanbase), talking about mobile development for Flash developers:

Mobile for Flash Developers
Thursday, April 30, 2009 11:00 A.M. PST
In this session David Brown from AgencyNet will uncover the key factors to consider when developing and deploying content to multiple devices with Adobe’s distributable player solution. Topics include Multilingual content, multiple input types, and consistent user experiences across screens.

Register here!

Developer submits Flash Installer to iPhone App Store.

2009-04-27T18:15:00.000-07:00

** UPDATE. Seems my friend "WL" has either scammed me and everyone else, had his app rejected and didn't want to fess up, or has been contacted by Adobe Legal :) Either way, his blog post has now been removed. **

I received a comment on my InsideRIA blog this morning from a developer ("WL") who has posted on his own iPhone-related blog that he has created a custom installer for "Adobe Flash mobile" for Safari ...

Great news everybody. For the past few months I have been working on an app called “Flash Installer” that does exactaly what you would think it does. Installs Adobe Flash mobile for use in Safari and all UIWebViews (when a web page opens up in an app). It does this by targeting files in the webView and tweaking a .plist and installing my custom made plugin. It was extremely hard to do this and not break any rules. After a lot of thinking, I have decided to make Flash Installer free.

More than a few questions sprung to mind when I read this, not the least was Apple's response to this submission. The developer claims that this doesn't break any SDK guidelines or rules (and I don't know all of them personally) but I fail to see how Apple would allow a third party application to modify Safari on an iPhone to run a third party player that they have been very vocal about not needing (as far as I can tell, Apple seems determined to keep Flash OUT of the iPhone browser)

Going on the comments made after this post, there's more than a few of us that are sceptical about the success of a submission to the App Store of this nature. Even with the App Store's absimal record with their submission process, I can't see this one slipping through the cracks. Will try and follow up anyway and see what happens.

Moket becomes Premium Publisher for Nokia's Publish to Ovi

2009-04-19T17:04:00.000-07:00

***UPDATED - Seems that I should have read the documentation more closely, but it seems that Ovi at this time does not support the sale of Flash mobile personalisation content, but just the standard JPG, GIF, PNG and SVG image formats instead. Funny that in our conversations with Ovi and Nokia, and through the application process, no one pulled us up on this when we were asking to sell Flash mobile wallpapers as well as applications and games? Anyway, we'll sell the static content we have in the meantime, and hope that the Ovi system expands to accommodate Flash mobile personalisation in the future (although for the life of me I honestly can't work out why this isn't the case right from the start!?) ***

For those of you who haven't heard, Nokia's new Ovi "app store" will be launching in May, giving developers of Flash, Symbian, Java and WRT applications a new global distribution channel to 10's of millions of devices (estimated 400 million by the end of 2010). Moket, along with many other Flash mobile developers that we know, have been accepted as publishers for the initial intake of application/game content. However, we've also become a Premium Publisher which means that we can also sell mobile personalisation content.

Some may be wondering why selling wallpapers would come under a "premium status" and selling full blown applications and games is the easier option. Good question I guess :) My guess (and it's just a guess - am prepared to be given more info from a Nokia person if they would like to comment) is that Nokia want to be seen competing on the "app store" front first and foremost. This means a good QA system and a steady stream of targeted applications and games at various price points. These are not the types of content that are generally "mass produced".

On the other hand, personalisation content is much more common with a huge gap in what is "good" and what is "not so good", if you know what I mean :) Nokia would be wanting to keep a tighter grip on what kind of content they populate the store with, to avoid it becoming another over-stocked portal with a million "hot babes" or "glowing skull" wallpapers!

Anyway, you can watch a recent Nokia webinar from Bill Perry to learn more about Publish to Ovi, and stay tuned for the launch in early May.

Give Adobe your thoughts on the future direction of Mobile Packager and Distributable Player

2009-04-17T16:45:00.000-07:00

Mark has opened up a blog post for comment, asking for input on the future direction of Adobe Mobile Packager and Distributable Player (and perhaps more broadly, Flash Lite).

It's important for the developer community to make their voice heard at these times, so please drop some thoughts into the comments box on Mark's blog so that Adobe get a real sense of what we think.

Flash Mobile - Be Loud. Be Proud.

Disabling Virtual Keypad in FL3 on Nokia 5800

2009-04-09T03:12:00.000-07:00

Just a quick tip for those Flash mobile developers out there playing with Flash Lite 3.0 and the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic touch screen device. By default the 5800 (and presumably other future S60 5th Edition touch screen devices) displays a virtual keypad in the Flash Lite 3.0 standalone player. Even if you have included the ActionScript for playing the SWF at fullscreen [ fscommand2("FullScreen", true"); ], the virtual keypad will break full screen and take up screen real estate in the player, as you can see in the image below.

The way to avoid this is to add another line of ActionScript immediately before the fullScreen command -

fscommand2("DisableKeypadCompatibilityMode");

I personally don't think this is an ideal solution for Flash Lite on touch screen devices. I understand the use case for where a virtual keypad (which includes the 4-way directional keys, enter key and 2 soft keys) might be required with touch-based apps, but why not have it so that you can toggle it on an off, and also have it float over the top of the full screen content rather than making it look broken?

Anyway, in the meantime, if you're developing cool touch-based Flash Lite 3.0 apps for the Nokia devices then keep this code snippet in mind and don't get caught out.

Teaser for Upcoming Green Lantern Animated Film

2009-04-08T02:46:00.000-07:00

Something of interest to those of you who might read my other blog (www.toytragic.com) - the first teaser trailer for the upcoming Green Lantern animated feature film (straight to DVD mid 2009) - "Green Lantern: First Flight".

Go Hal Jordan!

Twouble with Twitters

2009-04-01T21:29:00.000-07:00

At one point I did actually "de-Twitter" for several months, and then for some reason got back on (and haven't jumped off again). More and more people I speak with though (and by that I mean REALLY speak with in person and not just on Twitter) are becoming overloaded and overwhelmed with the amount of social media they involve themselves with and that surrounds them. Perhaps at some point social media will implode, kind of like a Web2.0 tech crash? Anyway, until that time comes, watch this funny comment on social networking ... and yes, I did tweet this on Twitter (@dalerankine or @toytragic if you want to follow me ;)

ActionScript Support Matrix for Flash Mobile

2009-03-31T20:20:00.000-07:00

Via Scott: Adobe have published a document (work in progress?) that outlines the various class, function and API support for various versions of the Flash Lite and Flash Mobile Client players that exist on devices today. I know the documentation guys at Adobe are currently working on how to improve this information for developers as well as for future Help docs, etc (for current and future Flash mobile run times), so I guess this is the first step.

March Poll Results + New Poll

2009-03-31T17:14:00.000-07:00

Been interested to see the amount of traffic that has come though my blog based on the post made about the App Store approval process (i.e. a lot!). [expression="zoolander blue steel"]It's so hot right now![/expression]. That being said, it seems from the people who voted on March's poll question, there's also some interest in Nokia Ovi and also the opportunities surrounding Adobe's Flash Lite Distributable Player. I understand that most readers of this blog are Flash Lite enthusiasts, but there is a large section of the Flash mobile communmity who are equally interested, and active, in iPhone development. Unfortunately it's been noted that Ovi will not distribute content that uses the Distributable Player solution, which I think is a massive opportunity lost for all parties involved (especially developers). Anyway, onto the results ...

"What app stores / distribution channels are you interested in selling (Flash and non-Flash) mobile applications through?"

Apple App Store - 2 votes
Nokia Publish to Ovi - 3 votes
Android Market - 1 vote
FL3.1 Distributable Player Aggregators (Thumbplay, Zed, GetJar) - 3 votes
GetJar Ad-funded downloads - 1 vote
Operator Portals - 2 votes
Web-based Portals - 2 votes

And so now for this month's new poll question ..."Do you expect that ActionScript libraries such as the new AS3.0 Facebook Client Library will increase the amount of social mobile apps built with Flash?" Your time to vote starts now!

Haven't you heard? It's easier to build Flash apps for Facebook now!

2009-03-31T04:54:00.000-07:00

This had to have been one of the more coordinated releases that I've noticed through the blogosphere/Twitterverse - it seems just about everyone on the Platform team at Adobe as either blogged or tweeted about Adobe's announcement today regarding the new ActionScript 3.0 Client Library for the Facebook Platform API ... and did so very quickly.

Either this means that a lot of these guys had some spare time today, or that they're all very excited about the announcement. Facebook is arguably one of the biggest social media sites in the world (in case you've just crawled out from under that rock!) and so Facebook officially supporting an ActionScript library in collaboration with Adobe is a pretty big deal.

I've tried a few Flash-things in Facebook before and it's been a little tricky. And while I haven't cracked open this new Library yet, from all accounts this has made the jump for Flash devs into the world of Facebook apps a whole lot easier. In particular, I see this being a major announcement for the many game studios who are investing heavily into social casual games for Facebook - and many of them are using Flash to do it.

Danny Dura from the Platform Evangelism team has done a quick intro video you can check out, which is is the newly created Facebook DevNet section on Adobe.com.

Some recent Flash mobile stuff!

2009-03-29T23:03:00.000-07:00

I've been in the tail end of a couple of projects recently and have just realised how long it's been since I last blogged! My Toy Tragic site is also in need of some new content, but that one will have to wait for the time being. Thought I would just link to some recent stuff that's been in Flash Lite recently and that's been making its way through the blogosphere ...

The Flash Lite Developer Challenge is still open for entries but you don't have heaps of time left to submit your entry, so if you're interested in sharing in $100k proze money, you better get crackin'
Pasi has posted a quick sample application for the new Nokia S60 5th Edition devices that run S60 Platform Services with Flash Lite - taking information from the Contacts list and opening a Google Map for that Contact's address. Nice simple app to take a look at if you're getting started with Platform Services.
Darren has been at GDC Mobile in San Francisco (following on from Evan's wedding!) and I'm looking forward to hearing some news from him.
Matt Pollitt, now of ustwo fame, shared some details on their recent exploits on the iPhone AppStore, and the results may suprise you ...

I also have some some news to share shortly about a new Flash mobile developer community project I'm going to be working on ... stay tuned :)

YouTube Improves Mobile Video Site with Flash Lite 3

2009-03-16T17:06:00.000-07:00

Via All About Symbian: Flash Lite 3 has gotten some favorable feedback via a recent upgrade by YouTube to its mobile internet site.

YouTube has finally, finally, done something about their low-grade 176 by 144 pixel mobile video interface. For Flash Lite 3-compatible phones (which means most S60 phones made in the last couple of years, provided firmware is kept recent), videos are now served up from the mobile YouTube interface in Flash format. Once the video starts playing, you tap to bring it up full screen in Flash Lite's video player. Most significantly, the quality's miles better than the original QCIF version - 480 by 320 pixels for many videos.

Go to m.youtube.com in S60 Web (on a FL 3 device of course) to try out YouTube Mobile.

Adobe Mobile Client running on the LG "Cooky"

2009-03-15T16:19:00.000-07:00

Via Mark: Weird nickname for a phone (especially following up names like Prada and Renoir), by the LG KP500 touch screen device is running some cool stuff, including Adobe Mobile Client. Mark explains how this runtime is different from Flash Lite - basically the same reason we needed Flash Lite MMI (may ring some bells for some of you other long-timer Flash mobilists out there).

There's a tonne of work that goes on between Adobe and OEM partners that the general developer community never sees, and will never get a chance (or really have a need) to play with directly. Many OEMs need custom solutions for particular devices and use cases, and the on-flow effect of this for the wider community is that, as Mark mentions, Adobe learn more about how to solve particular problems and are able to bring new features or enhancements to the main Flash Lite client and subsequent technologies such as Flash Lite Distributable Player.

Great to see OEMs like LG continuing to invest heavily into Flash as the presentation layer for new and more powerful devices.Cool video of the device on Mark's post also.

Reminder - Mobile Monday Brisbane Tonight

2009-03-15T16:08:00.000-07:00

Quick reminder that Mobile Monday Brisbane is on tonight. See my previous post for all the details. Along with other info and demos from other members of the MoMo family, I'll be doing a quick overview of Adobe Mobile Packager and the money that's being splashed around at the moment for Flash mobile developers. Beer and mobile - what a great way to spend a Monday night!

New Nokia Devices with Hands-on Videos

2009-03-11T22:52:00.000-07:00

Head on over to the Nokia Conversations website for some new hands-on "marketing" videos of three new XPress devices - 5730 XpressMusic QWERTY (S60), 5330 XpressMusic slider and 5030 XpressRadio. You can also follow Nokia Conversations on Twitter.

The Credit Crisis - Animated

2009-03-11T22:51:00.000-07:00

It's fairly safe to say that many of use have been affected in one way or another by the current economic downturn. Whether it's through loss of jobs, slowdown in customer spending or shrinking marketing budgets, or just paying more for a loaf of bread. Well, if you've never had the whole situation explained clearly and in basic, easy to understand language, "The Crisis of Credit" animation is for you! A very well produced story of why the world economy is in the toilet :)

The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

Mobile Monday Brisbane on next week

2009-03-10T22:36:00.000-07:00

Mobile Monday Brisbane is on next week!

When: Monday the 16th of March, 6pm
Where: i.lab - 80 Jephson Street, Toowong. Click here for a map.
Featuring a review of Mobile World Congress
I'll be presenting Adobe Mobile Packager, as well as discussing the Flash Lite Developer Challenge and Open Screen Fund opportunities
Open floor for demos, discussions, and Q&A about all things mobile.
RSVP to rsvp@mobilemondaybrisbane.com so we can manage numbers

Afterwards, the discussions can keep going downstairs in the Jaz Bar. If you’d like to demo or profile a specific mobile product, please drop us a note before the meeting!

We also have a new website, so check out www.mobilemondaybrisbane.com for all event information and ways to keep in touch.

Hope to see you there!

App Store approval process a nightmare for developers - an opportunity for Ovi?

2009-03-10T18:26:00.000-07:00

Via The iPhone Blog: The rumblings and grumblings over Apple's App Store approval process are growing louder with the news that the recently submitted update to the Tweetie Twitter client was rejected for returning offensive words in the search results of the public Twitter "Trends" rankings.

There's been a lot of complaining about the quality and consistency of the approval process for new and updated apps in the App Store, but this one seems to be potentially very damaging to the lure of the App Storefor developers. The business model is the best thing going for it - 70% cut of the sale price with no additional charges from telcos being taken off, but with the glut of content already in the App Store (see Mobclix' stats on the makeup of the 27,000+ apps now online) time-to-market is very important for developers.

Having an uncertain approval process only makes it less enticing for developers to have a go. When some apps get approved and similar ones don't, or when updates to previously accepted apps are rejected because of functionality that was already there, or content that is brought in from the web and not controlled by the developer (nor could it be by Apple with it's own tools like Safari!), it makes new developers particularly more cautious.

This is a message that Nokia and Ovi should be listening to. The business model for Publish To Ovi looks similar to the App Store, but because customers can still pay by SMS, the operators are still entitled to a slice of your 70% rev share. Given my experience with Nokia Download, I have some idea as to what operator involvement can mean to the end revenue for developers, but I'm going to give Ovi a go regardless.

As Ovi's publisher approval process has yet to be completed, I can't comment on what that looks like, but if I were Nokia right now, I would be making sure that the message I was sending to developers was reassuring them that the approval process was a lot smoother than "some other app stores" out there. After investing blood, sweat, tears and in some cases real cash, developers don't want to be tripped up in the process of just getting it our to customers through these types of channels.

Who knows, perhaps we'll see the same trend with Ovi, Android Market and other OEM-driven app stores that we saw with the iPhone App Store - those who got in early were the biggest winners because content discovery for them was easier with less content cluttering up the deck. Perhaps with the wider variety of devices (and sheer greater number of devices compared to the iPhone) Ovi publishers will find it easier to cut through and achieve some "real" sales and generate a reasonable return on investment. Time will tell ...

Full Version of Series 40 6th Edition SDK Now Available

2009-03-03T15:58:00.000-08:00

The Series 40 platform SDK has been updated and is now available from Forum Nokia. This latest version of the SDK provides developers with additional support for Series 40 6th Edition platform features. Also, a greater proportion of testing can now be undertaken using the emulator on a PC.

The full version of the Series 40 6th Edition SDK adds many new features, including:

Flash Lite Player 3.0 in the emulator — an update to the Flash Lite Player 2.1 of the initial release
Content Packs, including collections of copyrighted wallpaper, screensavers, and themes
Update of the Advanced Multimedia Supplements (JSR-234) API to v1.1
Support for NetBeans 6.5 with Java™ ME pack and Eclipse IDE 3.4.1 with EclipseME 1.7.9 or Eclipse Mobile Tools for Java (MTJ) 0.9.1

Download the new SDK here.

Symbian Signed moving to Symbian Foundation

2009-03-03T15:56:00.000-08:00

For anyone who has signed Flash Lite applications for Symbian S60, this is something you need to know.

Symbian Signed will soon be managed and owned by the Symbian Foundation. As part of the transfer, all services currently provided by Symbian Signed will be transferred to the Symbian Foundation, and all users will need to allow their account data to be transferred to the Symbian Foundation. To do so, log in to the Symbian Signed site, and select the big button that says 'Consent'. This will ensure that your data remains available through the Symbian Signed site. All your account data will continue to be available when the changes are made. Then, following the transfer of Symbian Signed to the Symbian Foundation, you will need to accept a new set of Terms and Conditions.

The iPhone. Will It Blend?

2009-03-03T15:26:00.000-08:00

Via Mark - "Will It Blend?" is a great YouTube series but this particular one you'll get a kick out of ...

webDU 2009 - It's like a rock concert for geeks

2009-03-02T19:27:00.000-08:00

My only suggestion would be that these guys don't look much like the rock stars most geeks want to be ... but that's just me :) Watch for new videos as we get closer to the big event

Update for Device Central CS4 Now Available

2009-03-01T16:47:00.000-08:00

Hopefully if you're a Flash Lite developer you know by now that the Online Library in Device Central CS4 contains device profiles that can be updated over the internet (rather than the old way of having to install a patch file). There have been some new profiles added recently, including the Nokia 5800 Music XPress touchscreen device, which will come down to your system the next time the Online Library is updated.

In the Preferences dialogue you can set the Online Library to check for new profiles each time you start Device Central, or else you can manually do an update as well from the actual Online Library panel itself.

February Poll Results and the new March Flash Lite Poll

2009-03-01T15:57:00.000-08:00

The regular monthly Flash Lite poll has finished up for February, and here's what the voters had to say on the question "What aspects of the Flash Platform on mobile are most important to you?"

Compatibility with the desktop Flash player (AS3/FP10) - 2 votes
Performance - 1 vote
Cross-mobile-platform compatibility (build once, play everywhere) - 1 vote
Frameworks for monetisation of products and content - 5 votes
Access to device APIs - 2 votes

Seems it's clear what is really important here, and it's not necessarily the technology itself. I think over the past few weeks we've seen some good steps forward by the mobile ecosystem to improve this monetisation aspect of the business for developers, since certain other late-comers to the party seem to have demonstrated that it's very doable now with more devices accessing data and services away from the operator-controlled portals. If you haven't checked out what's been announced recently, you can read more about Flash Lite Distributable Player here, and don't forget the cash that flowing through the Flash Lite Developer Challenge and the Open Screen Fund.

So to follow up on the obvious winner from the last poll, let me put to you this month's poll question ... "Which app stores /distribution channels are you interested in selling (Flash and non-Flash) mobile applications through?" Give us your answer in the form down on the right hand side of the blog!

I am a Toy Tragic

2009-02-27T05:21:00.000-08:00

Some of you will know that my hobby outside of all things mobile, is collecting toys, comics and general items of pop culture. My dad doesn't get it, my wife puts up with it and my kids are super jealous of what you can find in my man cave - but it's fun :) Anyway, I've launched a new blog today that'll be the outlet for some of my thoughts on being a grown up toy collector, as well as posts about items in my collection, product reviews and interviews with other toy geeks around the place.

It's called Toy Tragic. Visit the website (has a custom iPhone template for iPhone and iPod browsers). Follow us on Twitter. Facebook and mobile applications coming. Enjoy!

New Inside RIA Post - What the recent Adobe mobile announcements mean for RIA

2009-02-18T14:23:00.000-08:00

There's been a lot announced in the past week about the Flash mobile platform, and with Flash Player 10 and AIR being the next big advancement, I thought I'd write up a post on my Inside RIA blog to discuss those announcements and what they mean if you're working with Flex or AIR at the moment.

Read the full post here, and also cast your vote in the recent Inside RIA Poll - "InsideRIA plans to increase its coverage of mobile development and design. How involved are you in mobile?"

New Nokia Sales Channel through OVI

2009-02-16T15:05:00.000-08:00

More news from Nokia at Mobile World Congress - developers will be able to publish their content for sale through Nokia's Ovi service later on this year. It seems that they are looking to trump Apple's App Store through additional features such as location-based and "intelligent" content offerings, where the store can suggest content to you based on where you are, where you've been and what your freinds are doing. The N97 will be the first device with this all baked-in, but expect to see this roll right down the full line of devices from high-end S60 smartphones down through to S40 feature phones.

Using the publishing to Ovi service, third party software and content developers will have easy access to a single Nokia channel – the Ovi Store – to reach millions of consumers worldwide. With a 70% revenue share (less applicable taxes), all of the applications and content distributed through this new service creates instant revenue opportunities for the developers involved. Applications, games, personalisation content, and more will be offered to consumers.

Comprehensive resources and support from Forum Nokia are available to help developers get their applications ready for commercial distribution through the Ovi Store.

The Ovi Store is a scalable media distribution network unrivaled in size and opportunity, with advanced content targeting capabilities that will offer consumers relevant content through their social connections and their physical location information.

The Ovi Store consolidates the best experiences from Nokia’s current content services, including Download!, MOSH, and WidSets, into a single channel. Additionally, it expands upon Ovi Services to deliver media influenced by the people and places that matter to the end user.

To sign up to distribute your applications and content to millions of Nokia users globally, visit publish.ovi.com. Applications are being queued up at the moment, and full access will start to be given to approved developers in the coming months. Bill Perry has also started a Facebook group for Ovi Publishers.

Adobe announces Flash Lite Developer Challenge

2009-02-15T22:54:00.000-08:00

From Adobe @ Mobile World Congress

It's obviously dawned on technology companies recently that the best way to get developers creating things with their software or for their devices or platforms, is to throw money at them - and who am I to complain?!

Adobe have announced a Flash Lite Developer Challenge, with entrants competing for a chance to win cash prizes (totaling $100k), software and distribution deals with leading aggregators.

Head on over to www.flashlitedeveloperchallenge.com to find out more (although when I posted this, the site didn't seem to have been switched on ... timing between press releases and availability a little off)

Adobe Mobile Site Live with new Featured Applications

2009-02-15T22:47:00.002-08:00

From Adobe @ Mobile World Congress

In what is sure to be just an initial foray in time for Mobile World Congress, Adobe have launched m.adobe.com with some featured mobile applications available for download. I would expect that beyond Mobile World Congress, this mobile site will be developed further to be used for more extensive marketing of the opportunities for Flash developers on the mobile platform. It's targeted at the Flash Lite Distributable Player solution, so it currently is only targeting those supported countries - US, UK, India, Spain and Italy. If you're outside these locations, you can though download the Flash Lite 3.1 player from Adobe Labs so that the OTA player doesn't need to be downloaded.

The featured applications currently on the site include:

Adobe Mobile World Congress "Concierge"
Tower Bloxx
Bone Comics
Dolce & Gabbana
Finetune
Nespresso
Disney Digicomics
Zed Catalogue
and more localised content for some regions ...

Adobe's new Flash Lite Numbers - Flash Lite shipped on 40% of new handsets in 2008

2009-02-15T22:47:00.001-08:00

From Adobe @ Mobile World Congress

Some more numbers out of Mobile World Congress from Adobe - "Flash Lite has shipped on 1 billion devices (cumulative), and shipped on 40% of all new handsets in 2008".

I've said before how I think the 1 billion mark is a good number for marketing, but in reality is still a long way from representing a "standard". I think though for developers who are pitching Flash mobile application concepts and ideas to potential customers, the "40% of all new handsets on 2008" line provides an excellent counter point to the cumulative number, demonstrating that it's not a niche platform and is in fact picking up adoption speed very quickly. Expect these numbers to be significantly higher by next year with the introduction of Distributable Player.

Adobe Announces Open Screen Project Fund

2009-02-15T22:47:00.000-08:00

From Adobe @ Mobile World Congress

The Open Screen Project Fund is a $10 million market development fund that will provide grants to developers in order to accelerate the creation of apps, content and services that leverage the Adobe Flash Platform and run across mobile, desktop and consumer electronics devices.

Developers around the world are invited to submit their ideas. Proposals will be reviewed by an Open Screen Project Fund steering committee. We are seeking applications that work across devices, and showcase the key features of Flash Lite, Flash Player and AIR. While the apps do not have to run across all three screens (desktop, mobile and CE devices), at a minimum a mobile version is required. Additional criteria can be found in the FAQ on the website.

You can apply now via the website.

Adobe Announces Public Beta for Flash Lite Distributable Player

2009-02-15T22:37:00.000-08:00

From Adobe @ Mobile World Congress

Public Beta now available for Flash Lite Distributable Player
Adobe now have the Flash Lite Distributable Player out as a public beta that can now be accessed by developers. The Flash Lite Distributable Player solution allows developers to:

target the latest version of the Flash Lite player (3.1), leveraging the content-triggered download model people are familiar with on the web, but for standalone applications.
and reach millions of open OS smart phones through direct-to-consumer distribution, new off-deck aggregator partners (GetJar, Thumbplay and Zed), or existing distribution channels.

OTA distribution of the player is currently available in US, UK, India, Spain and Italy with more following quickly, but anyone can download the player from Adobe Labs if OTA is not available. This has been the case because of the aggregator arrangements that have been put in place, and which regins they currently exist in.

Selling Distributable Player content through Aggregator Partners

Developers get 67% (Thumbplay) and 70% (Zed) of net revenues when selling their applications, an typical application sells for $4. Applications distributed by GetJar are free and can be supported by advertising, useful for projects where free/wide distribution is required.

This represents a shift in the thinking from Adobe on how to best enable and support the developer community. Developers have been asking for assistance in creating a Flash mobile ecosystem for many years now, and this is all the beginning of that starting to fall into place.

There's more information here on how to get started creating, packaging and distributing Flash Lite 3.1 applications.

Nokia WRT Aptana Plug-in now available

2009-02-15T22:30:00.000-08:00

Nokia have released the 1.0 version of their Web Runtime Widget plug-on for the Aptana authoring IDE. Nokia WRT widgets are light-weight web applications designed with common technologies (HTML, JavaScript, CSS, Ajax, and even Flash) which can be distributed and installed like native mobile applications.

Nokia have been looking to strengthen the tool set and workflow for web developers to take their existing skills and start creating these WRT widgets, and so have been looking at ways to engage the developer community through the tools they already use. Aptana is a commonly used authoring environment for creating Ajax-based web applications, and being based on Eclipse it was a good first target in this strategy. Well done to the Nokia team!

Here are some useful links to help you get started:

WRT Plug-in info page at Forum Nokia
WRT Plug-in page at Aptana
WRT Technology page at Forum Nokia
List of WRT devices
WRT plug-in discussion boards at Forum Nokia and Aptana
Forum Nokia Web Developer Library
Widgets code examples

Palm Joins Open Screen Project - Flash Player 10 coming to devices

2009-02-15T22:29:00.000-08:00

From Adobe @ Mobile World Congress

Palm have joined in the Open Screen Project, and have committed to brining Flash Player 10 to their devices. The number of times I have been asked over the past few years, "I have an application that I want to build with Flash, but my customer base all use Palm" has almost been as many as the iPhone questions! There's certainly a resurgency of interest in this platform since the Pre was announced, and great to see that Flash is going to be part of its future.

Three new Flash Lite 3.0 Nokia S40 Devices

2009-02-03T17:51:00.000-08:00

Three new Flash Lite 3.0 devices have been announced on the Nokia S40 6th Edition and S40 5th Edition FP1 platforms (which also will support NFL packaging for Flash Lite).

Appearing as Guest Speaker at Brisbane Pitch Club

2009-02-03T17:43:00.000-08:00

I've been asked to come along as the Guest Speaker at the next event for Pitch Club in Brisbane on March 26th. Pitch Club provides an opportunity for 9 ventures (+ 1 drawn on the night) to step into the ring. Business owners can 'pitch' their idea for 90 seconds to a crowd of investors, business angels, VCs and other entrepreneur enthusiasts (and a few more minutes if the crowd vote them through to Finals).

I'll be sharing my experiences with Moket over the past 4 years - both success stories and failures. I'm hoping to pass on some tips to other early-stage entrepreneurs and those looking to begin down the path of the technology start-up (but be warned ... I am far from the 'font of all knowledge' and certainly don't have all the answers!).

Visit the Pitch Club website for more details and to register your attendance.

New recordings and slides added to training resources

2009-02-03T17:39:00.000-08:00

I've just added the slides and recordings of the last two Adobe eSeminars that I presented in January - "Mobile Workflow in Adobe CS4" and "Create Mobile Wallpaper with Illustrator for Beginners". Check out the list of resources here on the blog for these and other topics.

Blog now on Mippin

2009-02-02T15:04:00.000-08:00

Just been playing around this morning with Mippin's service for creating mobile versions of your blog. You can now read my blog at mippin.com/dalerankine on your mobile device.
Mippin feed validation KEY=3edba2da

Speaking at upcoming "Online and New Media Marketing" workshop

2009-02-02T02:30:00.000-08:00

If you're in Brisbane on Feb 25th, I'll be participating on a panel at the monthly Networx Marketers Meeting, discussing "Online and New Media Marketing".

My fellow panelists are Yaro Starak (Entrepreneur and Professional Blogger, Entrepreneurs-Journey.com) and Anthony Dever (Blogging and Social Media Strategist, The Blog Project).

Online and New Media Marketing is still an unknown arena for many business owners, marketing and communication professionals. With the explosion of new media communications and the pace of technological change, it has been a challenge to establish hard fact amongst all the hype. This event promises to delve into the sometimes mysterious world of blogging, social networking (Facebook, Twitter), mobile technology & marketing, and virtual worlds through a panel discussion between three enthusiastic new media professionals.

Further details on the event and speakers are on the website. Should be a lot of fun.

Monthly Flash Lite poll results and new topic

2009-01-30T20:50:00.000-08:00

Well January has come and gone quite quickly, and here are the results of the Flash Lite poll question for the month. We asked "What style of Flash Lite training eSeminars would you like to see more of?". The answers are:

Business and industry topics - 10 votes - WINNER
Highly technical topics and code - 7 votes
Beginner technical topics - 3 votes
How-to-build XYZ topics - 3 votes

We'll be making sure the relevant people have this feedback and we'll see what can be done to address this. Thanks to everyone who voted.

So now the new question for the February poll is "What aspects of the Flash Platform on mobile are most important to you?". The answers are in the poll on the right side of the blog. Look forward to your votes!

webDU 2009 is Taking Shape

2009-01-28T02:12:00.000-08:00

The annual and always-awesome webDU Conference is taking shape, and the line up of speakers and sessions this year is already looking great. webDU is the premier APAC web technology conference, held each year in Sydney, Australia. Now in its seventh year, it always provides a fantastic atmosphere for developers, designer, business/managers and all-round geeks to mix and mingle, be inspired and to have a lot of fun.

This will be my 6th conference, and I'm very honoured for it to be my fifth as a speaker. This year I've got a session called "Gift Wrapping Flash for Mobile" - looking at the ways that you can package Flash content for mobile installation and distribution, and will be focusing heavily on the Adobe Mobile Packager solution. Not sure if the karate suit will make it again this year ... I think I'm going to have to come up with something else! I'm very grateful to Geoff and the webDU team for continuing to give Flash mobile some platform time at the conference (next year Geoff, it'll fit right into the Flash Platform stream, no worries!).

More info to come as it's ready ...

Register now for Adobe Refresh 2009

2009-01-27T05:09:00.000-08:00

Now in its third year, Adobe Refresh is a developer-focused event run in APAC off the back of the Adobe MAX conferences. It's a great opportunity for the Australian and New Zealand developer communities to get a close-up look at a lot of the demos and key product features that have been shown recently to international audiences (let's face it, it's a fair trip to make it to MAX from down here!)

Join Adobe in a dynamic live presentation to REFRESH your understanding the most recent initiatives in the areas of content creation, collaboration and distribution.The Adobe team will showcase the Flash Platform, whether its purpose is for web animation, video, rich internet applications or documents. During the course of the day, the Adobe team will walk through a typical cross media/cross discipline project process/workflow process as we move from concept design to development and integration.

The agenda for the day looks something like this:

Keynote -A summary view of the Adobe Flash Platform and related technologies including the recent announcements from Adobe MAX 2008
Prototype / Design - Deep dive on workflows for new media showcasing Flash Catalyst and the Creative Suite 4 family
Develop - A look at taking design assets and “making it real”. This session includes AIR 1.5, Cocomo and an early look at Flex 4 (Gumbo)
Integrate - Most projects don’t stand in isolation, so we’ll look at how to hook our creations into other systems using technologies like Blaze DS, ColdFusion and Flash Media Server 3.5

Dates and locations for the 2009 Refresh events are:

Thursday 5th Feb - Melbourne
Tuesday 10th Feb - Brisbane
Thursday 12th Feb - Sydney
Thursday 5th March - Auckland, New Zealand

Visit the Adobe Pacific Events site here for more information and to register.

New Flash Lite 3 Training Video up on Adobe Dev Centre

2009-01-26T16:09:00.000-08:00

Late last year I helped to develop a video-based intro to working with Flash Lite 3 for the Adobe Mobile and Devices Developer Centre. I'm pleased to say that this has now gone live.

This video tutorial was produced as a kind of "getting started" resource for mobile designers and developers coming across to Flash. Here's what we cover:

Introducing Flash Lite 3.0

Understanding Flash Lite’s Functionality
Understanding the Mobile Landscape
Types of Content Suited for Flash Lite Development

Getting Started

The Flash CS4 Interface
Device Central CS4
Transferring Files to a Mobile Device
Comparing Mobile Specific Issues with the Desktop Flash Player

Using Adobe Device Central

Understanding the role of Device Central CS4
Using Device Profiles and Device Sets
Interacting with content through Panels
Snapshots and Video Presentations
Automated Test Scripts

Mobile Development Workflow

Planning a mobile application
Storyboarding and concept development
Skeleton code development
Putting it all together

Adding Flash Video to a Flash Lite 3 Mobile Application

Using Video in Flash Lite
FLV Encoding Settings for Mobile
Delivering Video to a Device

Familiar content for some of you, but I think good knowledge for those newcomers who are arriving on Flash mobile's doorstep every day. I recently gave an eSeminar to a room full of designers who had very little understanding of what you could with Flash on mobile devices. As I normally deal mostly with people who are long time Flash mobile designers/developers, it was very satisfying to talk to these people and see their excitement at the possibilities and I hope that this new video content will be of benefit to them and others who are starting to explore the world of Flash on mobile.

A big thanks goes to Suzanne Nguyen for getting me on board with the project, Gabriel Gasca (video guy you may have seen dashing around many of the mobile events and sessions at MAX San Francisco last year) from Fuego Creative for the production, to Darren Osadchuk of Ludicrous Software for helping me with the static slide content, and of course the ever-professional George Fox at Adobe for putting it all together on the Dev Centre.

Mobile eLearning content development with Adobe Captivate 4 and Device Central CS4

2009-01-21T19:44:00.000-08:00

Via Steve Howard: A nice and quick demonstration of creating eLearning content with Adobe Captivate 4 and Device Central CS4 that is optimised and exported for delivery through Flash Lite 3. Interesting to note that eLearning customers are asking for this kind of feature because delivery to mobile is becoming more important to them. View the demo here.

Mobile Entertainment's Game Developer Special

2009-01-21T14:27:00.000-08:00

Here's the opening article in a series which I think will be quite interesting. Over at Mobile Entertainment, they are taking an in-depth look at the growth and decline of the mobile gaming industry beyond just the troubles that the global economic meltdown has caused.

Read on ...

Adobe open up RTMP as part of the Open Screen Project

2009-01-20T15:33:00.000-08:00

Adobe announced today that they will be opening up the RTMP (Real-Time Messaging Protocol) spec to developers as part of the Open Screen Project.

“With the RTMP specification, developers and companies will be able to provide users with optimized audio, video and data streaming, no matter what kind of device the user is on or where the content is coming from,” said Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch. “Our ongoing commitment to openness is accelerating adoption of the Flash Platform by developers and resulting in a new generation of Web applications, content and video experiences that run reliably across operating systems and devices.”

The RTMP specification is expected to be posted on the Adobe Developer Connection in the first half of 2009. Read the full press release here.

eSeminar Reminders

2009-01-19T18:10:00.000-08:00

Just a reminder for some eSeminars coming up over the next week or so:

Mobile Workflow in Adobe Creative Suite 4 - January 21 @ 2pm AEDT
This eSeminar will look at the ways that various products in the CS4 tool set work with designing and developing mobile content (e.g. Flash, Illustrator, Photoshop, After Effects). Register here.
Creating A Mobile Wallpaper - January 22 @ 4pm AEDT
This beginners eSeminar is for designers who would like to see how they can use Adobe's CS4 design tools to create mobile wallpaper content. Register here.
GetJar Flash Lite Distribution - January 29 @ 12pm EST
The Boston Adobe Mobile and Device User Group is holding an eSeminar with GetJar. Bill Scott will present GetJar and their Flash Lite content distribution solution. Enter the eSeminar at http://experts.na3.acrobat.com/getjar/

For all eSeminars, check your local time here.

Discussion Topic: Are Flash Lite Wallpapers Dead?

2009-01-15T17:18:00.000-08:00

I've been spending a lot of time recently reviewing the past 3-4 years of Flash mobile product development, what things have worked and what hasn't. Some could argue that this review wouldn't take long as the list of thigs that have worked would be pretty short - point taken.

In particular I have been looking back at the category of "wallpapers and screensavers", and I'd like to share some of my thoughts and see if others would be willing to give some input. The purpose of this discussion is to help the community understand some of the realities of the market, what has been successful, and to help foster some imagination around how to create more compelling content. It's not to downplay the efforts of any company, to raise the profiles of any one company or developer, or to denegrate the content that has been created by anyone - but simply to talk about something that is relevant to the wider Flash mobile community and mobile market, and something that is regularly brought up to me by new develoeprs and content owners looking to "mobilize" their IP.

THE PAST
This category of content has been well documented as a fertile ground for Flash development. The existing mobile content market has been using JPGs and animated GIFs for these screen backgrounds and screensavers since the dawn of time. It stood to reason that with all of Flash Lite's "sexiness" with animation, access to clock, battery, signal, etc, there was going to be a huge opportunity here to create some new ground-breaking content that the consumer market would lap up. And certainly what we saw happening in the early days in Japan seemed to support this thought.

Based on this perceived market activity, many developers outside of Japan took this content type as their primary product output. The term "reactive content" became a more common way of describing this kind of product (I know I used it many presentations), and it seemed to make more and more sense to developers to get into Flash Lite with this kind of product - easy to create, low cost, high impact, feature rich, creative and cross-phone compatible. Over 85% of all the content we aggregated through the Moket Content Network were wallpapers and screensavers.

MORE RECENTLY
So now that the development community was pumping out the content (and let's be honest, not all of it was of the same quality), distribution became the next hurdle to overcome. Some aggregators or catalogue managers took catalogues of content to OEMs like Sony Ericsson and Nokia. Some companies started close relationships with OEMs as well in certain regions, and created content specifically to be preinstalled in certain devcies.

Operators slowing started getting interested once the handset support numbers started to climb and make more sense, and so we started to see some larger aggregators license content for distribution. From where I sit, the provider-aggregator-operator channels really ramped up in 2008 and this year has already continued to see growing interest in this content type from aggregator channels.

Portals like Handango seem to have also been used quite extensively by developers themselves (not so much companies) for trying to monetize their wallpapers, screensavers and themes.

CURRENTLY
Well, I'm pretty sure that content development in this space may have slowed in recent times, for independent developers at least. Many are wonderng about the financial return first before embarking on content creation, and as such are holding back a little compared to a couple of years ago. There are several companies though that are pushing this content type with some vigour. OEM deals, branded content (either established brands or ones that are being created by the companies) and user user-generated / social-networking applications are now being based on this type of content.

I've also noticed that this kind of cotnent has been well pritaed - the existence of rip-offs and poor quality content on warez sites and portals-of-dubious-nature is defintiely growing.

SO WHERE'S THE PROBLEM?
Well, I think the problem is that after all of this activity over the past few years now, very few individuals or companies have had success - and by that I mean commercial success ... cash! The success that I have noted seems to be related to more specific deals where there was a single client or brand involved. The mass-market distribution of this content has so far been a long way under expectations.

I think I can sum up some of the main factors that have contributed to this:

A slow-building handset support base (the numbers of customers that can be reached just haven't stacked up yet for many operators or aggregators)
The common distribution channels are long, complicated and slow to return royalty payments back down the line to content providers
Royalties for content providers through these channels are very small
Most mobile portals don't have Flash previews of Flash content (lack of browser supported devices) - and so the 25 word description and static JPG or animated GIF thumbnails fail to convey the experience that the consumer will get with Flash content
Portal content management systems have not been set up to work with the SWF file format (though changing this hasn't been a problem really once the decision is made to work with this content)
The existence of poor-quality, mass-produced catalogues that have lowered the expectations of what can be done with this product type.

There is also some belief the phone personalisation is such an overwhelmingly saturated market that it's just about impossible to get any cut-through with a new product. It's also a content type that is sometimes associated with portals and distribution channels that have been less-than-best-practice in the past, and a lot pf people avoid buying content like this because they've been burnt before by hidden subscription schemes, etc. Plus, it's perhaps moving into a time where it's seen a quite old technology.

WHAT ABOUT THE FUTURE?
Ok, so enough doom and gloom, let's be positive and look to the future. What are going to be the positives for this kind of content? In my opinion ...

More handsets supporting this content (you can never have enough supported handsets!)
More opertators wanting to deliver this content - and more importantly, willing to help differenentiate the content on their portals from the boring old stuff
More well known brands get on board, and through that can educate consumers that this type of product is available to them
Social media and user-generated applications will again educate the market as to the richness of the experience (but may struggle to monetize?)

YOUR THOUGHTS AND EXPERIENCES
Can Flash Lite wallpapers and screensavers be a viable product for developers? It would be great if some of you who have had experience with this could post some thoughts and some maybe some stories of what you have found to be the case with your content or in your particular region of the world. Again, this is not a forum for bagging companies or individuals - it would be great to hear success stories as well as experiences that have been disappointing.

This is also valuable information for Adobe in terms of guaging where potential problems lie in the market, and perhaps sparking ideas for ways to help the developer community. That being said, I would suggest that perhaps this kind of content in particular is not as high a priority as applications/FP10/AIR/AS3, etc, but nevertheless is part of the Flash Lite ecosystem by way of handset support, so it's something that will continue to be an area of development for a long time to come.

Let's talk!

Next Mobile Monday Brisbane event

2009-01-15T15:45:00.000-08:00

The next Mobile Monday Brisbane event is coming up next week and features a couple of great presentations ...

When: Monday, January 19 2009
Where: V lounge, 115 Wickham Street, Fortitude Valley

Mark White (Locatrix) : Hear how founder Mark White of world leading Brisbane based company Locatrix who power Telstra’s location based services - started from the ground up and hear Mark describe where they are going. Locatrix were also recently at Asia’s leading Mobile conference in Macau GSM Asia - so hear Mark give us an overview of what he learned.

Tom Adams (MoGeneration): MoGeneration have paved inroads into some of the leading iPhone development sites like News.com.au. Hear Tom talk about how their paid Mooshake application has faired as we look at some more of the findings of free vs paid apps.

You can also follow MoMoBris on Twitter.

See you there.

Upcoming Webinar: Nokia WRT Plug-in for Aptana Studio

2009-01-14T16:04:00.000-08:00

From Forum Nokia: Join us in this webinar to learn about the Nokia WRT Plug-in for Aptana Studio, which provides features for using the Aptana Studio or Aptana Studio Pro IDE to develop Web Runtime (WRT) widgets. The plug-in enables you to easily import existing WRT widget projects or create new ones. You can then use features such as full JavaScript™ code completion for the Web Runtime 1.0 API to write WRT widget code rapidly. Once you’ve coded the widget, you can use other plug-in features to preview, debug, package, and deploy it. In addition, the plug-in includes the WRTKit library, which contains images and JavaScript code to enable creation of visually appealing and functionally rich WRT widgets.

January 22
EMEA/Asia session: 7 a.m. London, 9 a.m. Helsinki, 3 p.m. Singapore/Bejing
Register »

Americas session: 11 a.m. San Francisco, 2 p.m. New York
Register »

I think that this might be of interest to Flash mobile developers, since you can of course embed Flash content into WRT widgets!

Upcoming Webinar: S60 Platform Services — Reaching Further with Flash on Nokia Devices

2009-01-13T20:45:00.000-08:00

From Forum Nokia: This webinar will look at the new S60 5th Edition Platform Services and how Flash developers can make use of them. Nokia will give an overview of the opportunities on offer and the techniques used to access location, sensor, calendar, contacts, and other functionality in your Flash and web applications. Join us to learn about some practical examples of how you can use S60 Platform Services to extend what Flash Lite can do on Nokia platforms.

January 28
EMEA Session: 10 a.m. London, noon Helsinki
Register »

January 29
Americas Session: 7 a.m. San Francisco, 9 a.m. Dallas, 10 a.m. New York
Register »

Flash animated feature film wins Golden Globe Award

2009-01-13T19:24:00.000-08:00

Through my development of Moket's Dojo Monkey animated property, I've been consistently astounded at how modern animators are using Flash to create traditional animation. The techniques and processes that can be used with Flash have delivered some amazing content, and now one such piece of work has been recognized in a very big way.

"Waltz With Bashir", a film by Israeli director Ari Folman, has used Flash to create this 90 minute feature film which explores traumatic memories of his experience as a teenage soldier in the 1982 Lebanon War. Over the weekend, the film won the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

There's an interesting interview with Folman on Animation World Magazine, and also another article on Popsci.com.au .

Watch the trailer:

Spiderman must discover the REAL President Obama

2009-01-08T18:08:00.000-08:00

Those of you who have known me for a little while should know that I have a thing for comic books and toy collecting ... yep, major NERD (check out my Mighty Muggs pictures on Picasa to see just how big a nerd I really am!). In light of my nerdisms, you won't be suprised that I found this to be particularly cool ... an upcoming Inauguration Day special edition of The Amzing Spiderman featuring Barack Obama on the cover and and a storyline of Spiderman discovering an evil Obama-double trying to thwart security on the day. If any fellow nerds in the US feels so inclined to pick up one of these for me, I'd be most grateful :)

This month's Flash Lite eSeminars

2009-01-08T16:47:00.000-08:00

In 2009 I'll be continuing the regular Flash Mobile eSeminars for the Adobe Pacific office (www.adobeeseminars.com.au)and there's two coming up in January:

January 21st: Mobile Workflow in Adobe Creative Suite 4 - This session will look at the various ways that products within the CS4 family touch on the mobile platform and interact with Device Central CS4
January 22nd: Creating Mobile Phone Wallpapers for Designers - This session is for non-Flash designers who might use Illustrator already, and showing how to create mobile specific artwork and test using Device Central

All sessions are at 2pm Sydney time (GMT +11 in daylight saving) - check your timezones here.

The session rooms I think are still being updated by the Adobe team at the moment from last year, but you will be able to join the session at pacific.adobe.acrobat.com/mobile or register for more upcoming sessions at www.adobeeseminars.com.au

Remember the January poll question here on the blog as well - answers there will certainly help me to propose the next batch of eSeminar topics and make sure that I'm delivering some content that people will certainly find useful.

SWFPack.com adds NFL support

2009-01-08T01:58:00.000-08:00

No, SWFPack.com has not become a sponsor of American football ... their free online packaging service for Flash Lite content now creates NFL (Nokia Flash Lite) packages for distributing SWF content to Nokia S40 5th Edition devices. Well done Ugur and the Kuneri guys on this enhancement - and they are also working on CAB file packaging for Windows Mobile.

You can also use Moket's AIR application SWF2NFL for NFL packaging.

NFL packaged content is starting to be requested from us by content aggregators, so I'm confident that the file format is going to provide the opportunity for Flash Lite developers to reach new markets with their applications and games.

LG Phone Watch confirmed to have Flash interface

2009-01-07T21:32:00.000-08:00

We thought it might have been the case, but LG's latest gadget - a mobile phone wrist watch - does indeed sport a Flash interface. I imagine that we're talking about a custom porting of the player for this device, rather than Flash Lite 3 or anything, which is the way OEMs like LG have been working with Flash Lite (MMI) for years when porting for device UIs. Not sure if this has come about through the Open Screen Project (perhaps an Adobean has some more info?) but I think it points towards the open screen vision that Adobe has for Flash.

Read more here**UPDATE** Watch (pardon the pun) a video of the device here

Great new Apple Wheel Laptop

2009-01-07T04:05:00.000-08:00

Who said nothing interesting came out of Apple at MacWorld this week? Well, maybe someone who likes apples anyway ...

Flash Lite 3.1 update and new devices available for Device Central CS4

2009-01-06T14:27:00.000-08:00

Via Mark: There is a new update for Adobe Device Central CS4 for testing Flash Lite 3.1 content to download. Also, Adobe have released their first update to the Online Device Library to include new devices profiles and updates, so just refresh the Online Library in Device Central and you're good to go. Easy!

Monthly Flash Lite Polls

2009-01-05T23:12:00.000-08:00

This year I plan to run a monthly Flash Lite poll here on the blog. The aim will be to gauge what the developer community and readers feel about certain topics relating to Flash on mobile devices, and feed this information into the various channels that Moket has access to and improve things for developers and esigners across various fronts.

You'll find the poll located on the right hand column of the blog here.

This month's question relates to online training resources (of which you'll also find plenty of here) and what would be most helpful for you. Since I'm also updating the Flash Lite 3.x training course at the moment, this will help steer some decisions in that regard as well.

The question is, "What style of Flash Lite training eSeminars would you like to see more of?"

If course if you have other opinions or thoughts outside the poll answers, feel free to leave a comment on this post for further discussion. Looking forward to your answers!

Reminder of Flash Lite Stats Resources

2009-01-05T17:36:00.000-08:00

I've received a lot of emails recently from new Flash Lite developers asking for details and information relating to Flash Lite market statistics.

I wanted to re-post and remind people of some resources from Strategy Analytics available through Mark Doherty's blog:

Knowing numbers and stats that relate to a technology's penetration and growth is always important when going into meetings with clients or CTO's, as well as for just working out your own plans. It's not often research like this is made available to the general developer community free of charge, so make the most of these resources.

Flasher Magazine Issue 1 now online

2009-01-04T19:44:00.000-08:00

Adobe Platform Evangelist Lee Brimelow has just launched the first edition of his new Flasher Magazine. Flasher comes in the way of an online "video magazine", which can also be downloaded to watch offline, or subscribed to as a video podcast (videos are encoded to work well on iPod/iPhone as well as the website). Nice work Lee ... I particularly like the sleep sequence :)

Upcoming Nokia N97 predeicted as one of the hottest 2009 technologies

2009-01-04T19:19:00.000-08:00

It's certainly a mixed bag that make up this list, but Australia's news.com.au is touting the Nokia N97 as one of their hottest technologies of 2009. The top five (of which two are mobile phones) are:

Apple Netbook
Google phones
Digital radio arriving in Australia
Windows 7
Nokia N97

Blocketpc OpenSource Flash Lite frameworks

2009-01-04T19:05:00.000-08:00

Something that I found over the holidays that's very cool. Raul and Marcos from the Spanish Adobe Mobile and Devices User Group and Blocketpc published couple of Open Source Flash Lite projects:

FeatherFramework - a framework to develop Flash Lite applications with AS2 and OOP that provides some classes in order to accelerate the Flash Lite application development.
LayoutManger - Framework that gives you 9 different registration points to align your MovieClips in virtual "layers". It supports absolute or relative values, and also changes of screen size and screen orientation (portrait, landscape right-handed and landscape left-handed).

Although the website is in Spanish, the English version will apparently be upload soon. The ActionScript though are written in English though, so once you're in the code you will be able to easily see what is going on. If you use the frameworks, make sure you give the Blocketpc guys some feedback and credit where due.

Updated Blog for 2009

2009-01-04T15:23:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year everyone, welcome to 2009! I've arrived back in the Moket office refreshed from a wonderful holiday of lazing around the house, playing with the kids, watching a lot of cricket, and generally keeping clear of the computer. The one thing I did do though is update my blog! The fixed width thing and rounded corner boxes were getting a bit old, and I was also still on the old original Blogger platform.

I'm still doing a lot of fine tuning and thinking about the kinds of things I can now do with it, but in the main I think it's working (although some images from older posts may be missing). One thing I've got going is the QR code in the header, which I'll change from time to time to include various subliminal messages :)

You can also just get to the blog now through via www.dalerankine.com

Anyway, I'm looking forward to a great year and hope to bring readers of my blog some interesting news and info from the Flash mobile world and beyond.

Thank you 2008 ... Goodnight!

2008-12-22T13:59:00.000-08:00

As has been my custom for the past couple of years, I'm signing off 2008 with a final "wrap up" blog post here as I head off on holidays.

2008 has been a real roller-coaster of a year for myself and Moket. We've had a lot of highs, plenty of lows, and in between have continued to try and build a business around Flash on mobile devices. Some of the highlights for Moket this year have included:

Developing a closer relationship Forum Nokia, and achieving recognition for many of our products through their various publications and initiatives
Signing deals with Gambit Group and Paramount Pictures to develop Flash Lite content for their film properties
Developing the Dojo Monkey series further, and signing up Kelly Chapman as producer for Dojo Monkey. 2009 will be the Year of the Monkey :)
Seeing our Flash Lite content on sale in Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, India, Philippines, Mayalsia, Taiwan, Indonesia ... with more channels coming on stream in 2009

I want to give a particular shout to everyone who played on the Moket team this year - Michael Heydon, Jack Lee, James Lee, Hania Lee (James and Hania they got married this year too, crazy love birds!), Benjamin Drake, Xue Sen Wong, Anthony Cheung, David Smith, Dmitriy Logunkov, Jarrod Elvin, Sam Boss-Walker, Andrew Muller and Thomas Halmlyn-Harris.

I also had the pleasure of traveling a lot this year for various events - some were demoing Moket products and exhibiting Flash Lite content, and others were conducting Flash Lite training for Adobe. I certainly wracked up the frequent flyer miles in '08, and got to see some amazing places, met some amazing people, and overall helped to educate and engage with the mobile developer communities. The role call of 2008 destinations looks like this:

MTV Asia with Dojo Monkey, Singapore (March)
S60 Summit with Forum Nokia, Barcelona (May)
Flash Lite Training, Paris (Aug)
Flash Lite Training, Manila (Sept)
Device Central CS4 Essential Training recording for Lynda.com, Ventura California (Sept)
Nokia Games Summit, Rome (Oct)
Adobe MAX Conference, San Francisco (Nov)

So what's in store for 2009? Your guess is as good as mine! One thing that's definitely happening is I'm spending the first part of the year writing a new Flash Lite 3.x training course for Adobe - bringing the current one up to date with everything that has changed over recent times (CS4, Mobile Packager, Distributable Player, etc) so that will be good fun.

Things certainly changed late this year with the Adobe re-organisation and loss of staff, and while the upshot out of all of it for mobile was very good, it will still be some time before the dust settles and we start to see the results coming through in action. Overall though, 2009 will see more Flash Lite devices ship (particularly touch screen devices) and more opporunities surface for developers building mobile apps and content with the Flash platform. Here's hoping that more of the mobile ecosystem in general also starts to engage with Flash for mobile, most likely through the Open Screen Project, and that the net result is more business for Flash developers working on non-PC devices.

I hope you all have a happy and safe Christmas, and you get to spend some holiday time with those that are close to you. So down tools, stop Twittering, only carry one mobile with you, forget about functions, classes and tweens, and just go and make some memories with family and friends.

Merry Christmas, and best wishes for a happy and prosperous New Year!

New links to my presentation slides and recordings

2008-12-18T18:19:00.000-08:00

2008 has been a bit of a year for presentations for me. Since about July, I have been doing a Flash Lite eSeminar for the Adobe Pacific office every 2 weeks. Also throw in 3 different titled sessions at MAX (not including Dojo Monkey on the last night!), webDU and about 3 other international summits/conferences, and I've started to accumulate quite a bit of material.

So I've created a new section further down on the right hand sidebar of my blog here called "Presentations and eSeminars", with links to the slides (as PDF), recordings, or both, from various sessions. I'm still tracking down may of the links, so I'll be adding to this over time. Just wanted to get it all in one place so that it's a little easier for people to find and reference. Hopefully the content covered will help people at various stages of their experience with Flash Lite.

And speaking of blog updates, I'm planning on migrating my blog across to a new server and possibly even a new blog platform over the Christmas holidays. If you experience any weirdness, please bear with me and stay tuned.

Now co-managing Mobile Monday Brisbane

2008-12-16T02:27:00.000-08:00

Along with my good mate Chris Kettle (CEO of My247.mobi), and perhaps some others, I'll be taking on the co-management of the new Mobile Monday Brisbane chapter in 2009. We've had some small and informal meetings recently and are excited about the prospects for next year, and for the talent and knowledge in the mobile space that currently call Brisbane home. More to come, but if you're in Brisbane on the third-Monday of each month, then keep an eye on the blog here for details (or also on the currently-un-developed mobilemondaybrisbane.com site)

Some cool Adobe technology in the works

2008-12-12T14:01:00.000-08:00

Couple of thingsI found while surfing around the interwebs this morning:

Adobe Stratus Service: Now appearing on Adobe Labs, Stratus is a beta technology for creating peer-to-peer connections between Flash 10 and AIR 1.5 players. Think Flash Media Server without shared objects, server-side scripting, etc - great for creating connected applications or even VOIP (apparently). Hmmm ... wonder if this could be part of FP10/AIR on mobile?

Adobe Creative Technologies Lab: Via Peter Elst - some cool R&D being done with manipulating (FLV?) video over at Adobe. This demo video shows "Interactive Video Object Manipulation" and was very impressive. Not that long ago, YouTube acquired a Silicon Valley start-up (name ecapes me at this time of the morning - need more coffee) that was building a video annotation service, that didn't look nearly half as cool as what they guys are experiementing with here.

Enjoy.

Today's Final eSeminar for 2008

2008-12-09T12:37:00.000-08:00

Don't forget today at 2pm (Sydney time) I'll be presenting the final mobile eSeminar for 2008 - "Packaging Options for Flash Lite".

This series of eSeminars (stretching back to June this year!) is for beginners in the mobile scene who are perhaps coming across from Flash for web/desktop, or just new to Flash. We've covered topics relating to development, various Flash Lite content types, handset integration, tools for creating and testing content, and today we'll look at the concept of packaging your Flash Lite content into installable "packages" for distribution and deployment to devices.

And since we're getting into the Christmas spirit, there'll be a gift for all attendees!

See you there!

Win prizes at eSeminars this week

2008-11-23T18:21:00.000-08:00

There's two eSeminars happening this week in the Flash mobile world.

1. Boston Flash Mobile Usergroup - Adobe Device Central CS4

November 24th, 2008 at 1pm US EST
Scott Janousek, CEO/Technical Director of Hooken Mobile , as he introduces some of the features new to Adobe Device Central CS4 and how to leverage the new Device Central SDK. All the details are here and you must be a member of the usergroup to participate.

** There's 2 DVD copies of the Lynda.com training course "Device Central CS4 Essential Training" being given away at the end of this session. Make sure you attend to win! **

2. Adobe Pacific eSeminar - Adobe Flash Lite and Nokia S40
Wednesday, November 26th, 2pm Australia ESDT
http://pacific.adobe.acrobat.com/mobile/
I'll be giving my regular fortnightly eSeminar, this time looking at how Flash Lite is implemented on the very popular Nokia Series 40 platform, what some of the issues are and also how you can package your content into the NFL file format for these devices.

Check your local times here for these sessions.

Adobe Mobile Packager and App Zone tutorial series on AdobeTV

2008-11-22T19:17:00.000-08:00

Via Mark: Adobe TV now has a series of short video tutorials going through the new Adobe Mobile Packager and App Zone applications. Liz Myers is your presenter, and she's done a great job putting these together to show how easy it is for developers now to create these Windows Mobile and Symbian packages for their content, as well as the way the App Zone is installed and used by consumers. Check them out.

Download new mobile stuff from Adobe

2008-11-22T19:00:00.000-08:00

via Scott: There's been a number of updates just released with regards to Flash Lite:

The version of the player that downloads over the air through the Flash Lite Distributable Player system is Flash Lite 3.1, so these updates are important to download. You can now also apply to join the private beta now for Flash Lite Distributable Player / Adobe Mobile Packager.

MAX Wrap

2008-11-20T16:45:00.000-08:00

Where do I start?! What a massive week we've all just had. I'm in the airline lounge at the moment waiting to come home to my wife and kids which is is always the best part, but I've had little time to think about it up until now.

MAX 2008 I think will prove to be a turning point for the Flash mobile developer community. There was definitely a much greater interest in all things mobile this year, following major announcements such as Distributable Player, AppZone and Mobile Packager , AIR Mobile , FP10 , etc. We had good numbers in each of the three Device Central CS4 sessions I ran with Scott and James, and the Tips and Tricks panel (Alessandro, Scott, Darren and me) were always full. I know the other mobile sessions also enjoyed record numbers. There's just been so much movement forward over the last 12 months that has demonstrated once and for all that Adobe is serious about the mobile platform, and are going to be delivering various solutions that address (don't know about "solve" yet, but let's see) many of the issues that the dev community have been going on about for years now.

It was a great time for the mobile team and the dev community as well to spend some time together, forge new friendships and discuss new ways of working together. Thanks to Suzanne, Leisa, Kathy, Meredith, Mark, Peter and all the other mobile team members who encouraged, engaged with and promoted the mobile developers at the conference.

I think though that the final evening "Mobile Networking Party" may just go down in history as the most fun gathering of the Flash Lite community ever. I doubt many of the applications and ideas we demoed on the night got any "mind share" with the partners and attendees, but it was fun getting up and having a go ... Perhaps next year the party can be sponsored by monkeys (see Alessandro's photos to see why ).

And come one, we were all thinking it - how weird was it having Bill two stalls down from the Adobe booth, standing at the Nokia booth with his new Nokia shirt on?? I think though that anyone who thought that we might have seen the last of Bill in the Flash Lite world should have had their fears relieved - Bill will be a valuable asset to the Flash mobile platform in his role at Forum Nokia, and we can all be sure to see his hand in supporting the ecosystem where possible from the "other side of the fence" in the future. Thanks Bill, you're a better drummer than you realise ;)

So, next year MAX stays in California and moves to the City of Angels, Los Angeles. This year there was over 5000 attendees, spanning 3 venues and including probably about 10 after-program parties and events. What can expect in LA? I dare to dream about what we could find ourselves demonstrating on mobile devices with Flash.

MAX 2008 Progress Report

2008-11-18T10:37:00.000-08:00

I don't have the energy to cover everything that has happened at MAX so far, mainly due to the fact that I've already done a full day training lab and 2 x 1.5 hour lab sessions ... with only 4 lab sessions left to deliver. No wonder I'm tired.

Highlights so far have included:

Adobe Flash Lite Distributable Player announcement
Demo of the whole Flash 10 player running on devices
The amount of air time that the mobile platform got during the Day 1 keynote address with Kevin Lynch.
Free t-shirt count at 5 ... and growing
Dinners out with Forum Nokia team and the mobile developer crew
Making some great business connections in the mobile space

So much still to happen though over the next 2 days. Tonight is the Lynda.com author's dinner and then tomorrow night we have the Mobile Networking Pitch event where I have a few surprises planned :) Stay tuned.

Off to San Francisco for Adobe MAX 2008!

2008-11-13T02:19:00.000-08:00

Well, one more sleep and then I'm off on the long haul to San Francisco for MAX 2008 - and I can't wait! There's so much happening there this year that I'm already at the point of locking down half hour blocks for meetings in between sessions, presentations, meals, parties and summits!

Here's a quick summary of what I'm most looking forward to:

Meeting up with the mobile crew again - some old and some new friends
Presenting my training and lab sessions (with some other great guys by the way) - Flash Lite: Developing and Distributing Mobile Applications , Deep Dive: Adobe Device Central CS4 and Twenty Tips and Tricks for Building Top-Performing Mobile Applications
The Mobile Summit and Networking events
The Lynda.com Author's Dinner
The Adobe Community Lounge and the Mobile and Devices Lounge
Just talking generally about the Flash platform on mobile with other business leaders and guys who are doing cool stuff in their respective parts of the world

It's certainly going to be a jam packed week and I'll try and blog when I can, but if history is anything to go by, I'll be sitting here in my home office again in just over a week writing the follow up post :) Catch me on Twitter though if you want some micro-blogging coverage of MAX events and happenings.

And if you're at MAX and we haven't met, please come up and say hi!

Thoughts on cheap iPhone games

2008-11-11T15:19:00.000-08:00

There's a great article on Pocket Gamer at the moment discussing the current situation over on the AppStore for iPhone games. As you know, the AppStore kicked off with a bang this year with the iPhone 3G, and really made a statement about distribution models for mobile. In my opinion, it really stood up competitors like Nokia Download for what it had achieved and how it worked for developers.

Now 4-6 months on, there's a trend on the AppStore which in reality is just reflecting what happens on a lot of "off-deck" content portals and channels - poor quality content is swamping the catalogue, and open pricing is leading to over-charging for rubbish and hurting sales of higher-priced, but top shelf, games.

The big game publishers I think are still going fine. Some have said in recent week s how they either underestimated the value of the channel, or reported higher than expected profits due to the AppStore, but it's going to be the mid-range publishers I think that will suffer the most.

Read the full article here , and post your comments back here if you'd like to take up the discussion or have some experience of your own with the AppStore that you'd like to share.

Internode launches Chumby in Australia

2008-11-11T14:59:00.000-08:00

The Chumbosphere has just grown a little larger, with the launch today of the cool connected device here in Australia through Internode. They've built their own branded widget which I imagine will be possibly preloaded somehow, which streams news and internet radio. More locally-developed widgets are on the way ;) It's good to see Australia be one of the first outside the US to get the device, with Japan following very shortly. Chumby-on!

Pacific Flash Lite eSeminar this week - Flash Lite and Mobile Gaming

2008-11-09T15:19:00.000-08:00

The next mobile eSeminar in my fortnightly series is coming up this Wednesday the 12th at 2pm (+10 GMT AEST, Sydney), and is titled "Adobe Flash Lite and Mobile Gaming".

As you can see from my recent posts, I've just returned from Rome, where I was demonstrating Moket's mobile game products at the 2008 Nokia Games Summit. I had the opportunity to speak to many of the world's leading game publishers (EA, Glu, Gameloft, Sega) about the market, their business, and Flash Lite - which provided some interesting insight.

In this eSeminar I'll be taking a look at what has been done to date with Flash Lite in the mobile gaming space across various devices, what has worked and what hasn't, and where I believe Flash Lite can go from here. Should be interesting!

Register to attend the eSeminar here, and remember you can watch all the previous eSeminar recordings at any time here, courtesy of Adobe Pacific.

New Flash Lite Penetration Numbers

2008-11-09T15:12:00.000-08:00

Mark has released some numbers to the community from Strategy Analytics, looking at current and forecast numbers on Flash Lite device penetration in the global market. Some interesting stats there, particularly the rate that Japan is moving from Flash Lite 1.1 to 3.0. Gotta love that ecosystem :) Read more on Mark's blog here.

Device Central CS4 Essential Training now available on DVD

2008-11-06T13:57:00.000-08:00

For those of you who like to have a box delivered to your door instead of just a login to a website, the course I authored and presented for Lynda.com, "Device Central CS4 Essential Training", is now available for purchase on DVD from their online store.

You can of course still access it as part of the Lynda.com Online Training Library on a subscription basis.

Flash Lite / Nokia Platform Services eSeminar Recording

2008-11-06T02:27:00.000-08:00

Many in the Flash Lite community have been heartened by the recent announcements by Nokia surround their Platform Services, and the access to native device applications and layers through service APIs in Action Script.

Robert Burdick of Forum Nokia recently presented an online seminar on the topic of developing this new breed of Flash Lite application with Adobe CS4 tools for the S60 5th Ed platform (available on upcoming devices such as the 5800 XpressMusic "Tube").

The recording of the seminar is now available here (watch for the Dojo Monkey WRT widget on the desktop of Robert's demo phone!)

Winner of the Caption Competition

2008-11-04T01:42:00.000-08:00

Congratulations to William Gregoire who has been judged the winner of our recent caption competition. For his winning entry, William scores for himself a Lynda.com T-shirt along with 12 months of free access to the Lynda.com Online Training Library. William, you can now watch the entire Device Central CS4 Essential Training title, along with all the other new CS4 titles and Lynda.com catalogue. I hope you put it to good use :) Please ping me with your details so I can arrange to get your prizes out to you.

Thanks to Megan @ Lynda.com for the great prizes.

Nokia Games Summit Review, and some Moket announcements

2008-10-30T09:43:00.000-07:00

Well, it's been an interesting time in Rome to say the least. Why? Well, for a few reasons.

I've been here demonstrating Moket's capabilities and Flash Lite games at the Nokia Games Summit. As you can imagine this type of event is mostly centered around platforms such as N-Gage, Java and Symbian. I was very pleased to get an invitation as a Flash Lite company, as I think it shows a shift in thinking towards the Flash mobile platform amongst device manufacturers and the industries that are built around them (such as mobile gaming).

I've had the chance to speak with representatives from EA, Glu, Gameloft, Digital Chocolate, Sega, I-Play, Nokia, and many other media and content developers. I quickly realised that most of my time was going to be spent in an education role - trying to help define the space that Flash Lite can exist in amongst these other technologies. We've long said that Flash Lite is not trying to be Java, but for some this is what I found to be the assumption as to what Flash Lite was trying to achieve, particularly in mobile gaming. I therefore had the pleasure of setting many people straight :) and showing them that Flash Lite does indeed present an opportunity for certain mobile experiences alongside these other platforms, and at a considerably smaller development cost.

What was great was to be able to demonstrate 2 new releases for Moket. One is our new Flash Lite casual game for Paramount Pictures - "Tropic Thunder Chopper Rescue". This is our first title under a new license Moket has signed for Paramount Pictures mobile content, through our distribution partner Gambit Group. To be able to show a company like Paramount putting into the Flash mobile platform gave us some very good points and we sure spent them this week! Read more about our Paramount deal here on the Moket site.

The other great demo was the ported games we have created for the new Nokia 5800 XpressMusic (or the "Tube"). We have been working with Nokia prior to launch of this great new touch screen device, to bring Flash Lite games from regular S60 and "keypad driven" devices to the touch screen paradigm. We were showing the touch-version of our popular action puzzle game "Trench Rocket", and are also now working on delivering this title, plus Cipher, to the Nokia Download platform for sale for new 5800 customers once the device starts shipping.

Lastly, I'll remember this week for enduring two of the worst storms in the last 50 years in Rome! I happened to be walking to the venue to set up our display, with my Forum Nokia colleague Ung-Ping Tian, when the first storm hit on Tuesday night. Walking through a foot of rushing water (we were walking up a steep road), furious lightning and dark, un-lit Roman roads, did not get me off on the right foot for the conference! We arrived at the venue soaked to the bone, and around an hour late, and cursing Goggle Maps for giving us a false impression of how far it was! The second storm hit the event party last night, destroying the marquee we were all having drinks in, smashing glasses and lights, overturning tables and forcing everyone to scamper back down into Castel Sant' Angelo, where the party was being held. Let's just say Mother Nature didn't want to be left out of a mobile gaming conference, and forced her way onto the guest list! Well done to the organisers though who handled a freak cyclone in the middle of their luxurious corporate event with style!

All up it's been a fantastic time here at the Summit. I've met a lot of great people from all aspects of the mobile and gaming communities and business, and am looking forward to continuing conversations and business opportunities with them over the coming months. Thank you to Nokia for inviting us and we hopefully will see you all there again next year!

In Rome for the Nokia Games Summit

2008-10-28T06:12:00.000-07:00

Ciao from Roma! I'm here this week with Moket, demonstrating Flash Lite gaming at the Nokia Games Summit. I'm excited to be here, not just because I got to see the Colosseum, but because I get to take on the challenge of presenting the Flash Lite platform to a room of Java, Symbian and N-Gage developers! Plus my 'frequent flyer' balance is starting to look pretty good ...

Our pitch this week is all about the casual games market and Flash Lite's strength in creating "game snacks" and threading the web and mobile together - all within a powerful, efficient, cost effective and "ready to go" platform. And it's hard to argue that the Nokia ecosystem doesn't back that up with great Flash Lite support.

The Summit is being attended by about 250 delegates from mobile operators, technology companies, and just about every major games publisher. Moket is part of the "Game Lounge", which is an interactive area for delegates to come and get hands on experience with games and platforms from us and about 7 different companies. Thank you to Nokia for the invitation to participate - I'll be posting up some follow-up from the event when I get home next week.

Device Central CS4 Essential Training now available from Lynda.com

2008-10-22T21:04:00.000-07:00

I'm happy to announce that the training I authored and presented for Lynda.com has just been made available - "Device Central CS4 Essential Training".

It's 2 hours of training that takes you through all aspects of the product and how it works in the real world of Flash mobile development. It looks at the new features in CS4 such as Snapshots, Video Presentations, Tasks and Automated Scripts, as well as the fundamentals of Device Libraries, Profiles and working with the various Panels. Great for developers getting into the mobile aspect of Adobe's tools, as well as those wanting a refresher on the new features of Device Central CS4.

There's a free sample chapter for you to check out at Lynda.com, and the full title is available to subscribers of their Online Training Library. Enjoy!

Club Moket on iPhone Web Apps Portal

2008-10-17T14:17:00.000-07:00

It's been a good week here at Moket - thanks to everyone for their kind comments on the re-launch of our D2C portal, Club Moket. It's important that we keep trying to find new ways that Flash Lite content can reach the masses. There's many of us trying and Club Moket is just a small piece of the puzzle.

We noticed a spike in traffic to the Club Moket iPhone site - that's because it's now on the Apple's iPhone Web Apps Directory.

And if you're this way inclined, why not become a Facebook fan of Club Moket ... go on, you know you want to :)

Club Moket reincarnated and now on iPhone

2008-10-15T19:48:00.000-07:00

Some of you may remember an initiative that Moket launched late 2007 called "Club Moket", which was an (ultimately ill-fated) mobile and web portal for Flash Lite content. I won't go into all of the specifics here as to why the sites were eventually suspended (if you catch me at MAX over a beer I'll be more than happy to share!) but cost was a big factor.

One of the larger costs we had was for the SMS billing solution, and making that available to as many customers around the world as possible. This is still a costly exercise for any direct-to-consumer portal, not to mention what you need to pay in order to market and drive traffic to one of these sites (unless you're a major brand).

For a little while now, Moket has been working with NZ-based mobile content web portal Voeveo as a distribution channel for Flash Lite content. There are many other developers as well who are on the site and I expect more to try it out in the future. It's a start-up site, but they have a fairly simple-to-use PayPal based payment system for purchasing content, and a decent content and device management system in place. And importantly for us, they support Flash Lite content :)

So ... based on a new "widget" from Voeveo, we decided to do a soft re-launch of the Club Moket site as another window into the content already hosted on Voeveo, and using their payment system. It's just gone live so check it out and let us know what you think.

And also in a sign of things to come for Moket, we've created an version of the site that has been optimised for the iPhone and is giving away free iPhone wallpapers. Viewing clubmoket.com on your iPhone will take you straight there, or else go to clubmoket.com/iphone (Note that in being optimised for iPhone, it won't look quite right on a desktop browser unless you're using Safari).

Please send any feedback, thoughts or generous offers of investment funding (because EVERYONE'S looking to invest in high risk ventures right now *cough*) to hello@clubmoket.com

Device Central CS4 SDK Now Available

2008-10-15T19:38:00.000-07:00

Adobe Device Central CS4 has greatly improved over previous releases. One such area is the ability to extend the functionality of the application with custom Tasks that can be run on content from within the testing environment. The new Adobe Device Central CS4 SDK which was released for download today, gives you what you need to know in terms of building these custom Tasks using Extend Script and XML. Download the new SDK and begin familiarising yourself with this new feature set for Device Central.

Mobile and Devices Cookbook (Beta)

2008-10-08T22:48:00.000-07:00

Adobe have just launched a beta Mobile and Devices Cookbook - an online community-driven portal for sharing code "recipes" for Flash Lite. Great resource for newbie and experienced developers alike.

Mobile Events at MAX 08 in San Francisco

2008-10-06T18:02:00.000-07:00

MAX 2008 is coming up fast, and there's no shortage of mobile-related sessions and events in San Francisco in November.

The Mobile Summit on November 16 is a great opportunity to hear what Adobe's mobile partners have to say about new opportunities in the mobile market for Flash Lite in the new year.Click here to register.

There are plenty of great sessions and labs to get along to during the conference itself. Click here for more info on mobile sessions at MAX, and I'm also doing a few this year:

Flash Lite: Developing and Distributing Mobile Applications (Full day training, Nov 16)
Deep Dive: Adobe Device Central CS4
Twenty Tips ans Tricks for Building Top-Performing Mobile Applications

And finally, there's a great Mobile Fast Pitching and Networking Party on the last night (Nov 19) where you can get a chance to pitch your mobile ideas to a panel of Adobe partners. Beers and appetizers included :) Click here to register.

Hope to see you at MAX in San Francisco this November!Ad

Moket releases SWF2NFL

2008-10-01T15:13:00.000-07:00

I'm happy to announce a new tool that Moket has just released for the Flash Lite community - SWF2NFL.

Last month, Nokia announced the NFL (Nokia Flash Lite) file format - designed as a packaged file that can take Flash Lite content and make it appear as an installed application in the Gallery of Nokia S40 5th Edition devices. S40 up until now has been mostly about wallpapers and screensavers for Flash Lite developers, even though the devices are able to play standalone content. The problem was that there was no "installer" format like the SIS file for S60, and when a SWF was sent to an S40 phone, it treated it as an image and automatically downloaded it into the Gallery Images folder - not great if your SWF was a game or application.

So now with NFL, you can create a file that gets downloaded to the Gallery, and appears in the list with a custom icon and application name, rather than the SWF icon and the file name. You can also DRM the NFL file, thus protecting it from being further distributed from the device.

SWF2NFL is an Adobe AIR application that takes all of your SWF and secondary content files for your application (text, XML, etc), your custom icon, and creates the packaged NFL file for you. There's also a beta feature called the "Device Browser". You launch it from within SWF2NFL, and it shows you the Forum Nokia device specs pages of all NFL supported devices. It's in beta cause there might be a small issue with it when running on Windows for some reason - if you experience any problems, or indeed have any other feature requests, please send them to swf2nfl@moket.com.

Moket's doing business now with various aggregators and operators around the world with NFL packaged content, so if you have some games or apps that run well on S40 and you're interested in seeing what might be able to be done with them, please consider the Moket Content Network!

We're hoping that it brings more developers to the S40 platform and just helps out the developer community in a small way. Enjoy!

Becoming a Forum Nokia Champion

2008-09-29T17:30:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Forum Nokia for the privilege of being inducted as a new Forum Nokia Champion. I'm joining the ranks of some very talented Flash Lite guys in the Champion program and hope that being involved here with them will continue to push Flash Lite to the front of the mobile development community. More on this when I start blogging over on the Champion website.

Caption Competition

2008-09-25T18:47:00.000-07:00

Here's a snapshot from the live-video-section of my upcoming Lynda.com training title. I have no idea what I was doing, but want to open it up to readers to post their ideas for a caption. So leave a comment on this post (don't forget I get to read them before publishing them!) and the best caption idea will win something cool (just checking with some people as to what I can give away!) ... over to you

Living in America

2008-09-25T18:30:00.000-07:00

I've been working in Ventura California for the past week, recording a new upcoming Flash-Lite training title for Lynda.com. It's been a lot of work, but I'm nearly at the end of it all. Which is great, cause when I arrived in the US I came down with a virus, and so I'm sounding a little ~~croaky~~ ~~husky~~ sultry on the recording and my voice doesn't have much left in it :)

Anyway, I just had a bit of a moment yesterday afternoon and I was driving back to the hotel from the studio. I felt like I was in a movie ... the sun setting over the Pacific (wrong way around from where I live), driving along palm-tree-lined-streets in California, a Lou Gramm song ("Just Between You and Me") playing on the 80's radio station - I was expecting to see Arnie (on his lunch break from the Governor's office) and Danny DeVito walking down the sidwalk in matching beige suits and hawaiian shirts ... it was great!

There's certainly a charm to this place which is great to experience (oh, and cheap Chuck Taylor Cons!), but I'm REALLY looking forward to getting home on the weekend and being back with the family. The Lynda.com guys thought have been great in making me feel very at home and looked after, and have helped me produce some good material. Thanks Max, Jen, Megan, Noah, Kali, and everyone else for helping me out this week.

Travel and Recent Events

2008-09-13T14:29:00.000-07:00

It's been a little hard to keep on top of everything that's been happening lately, as I've been in the middle of a stretch of Flash Lite related travel.

I've just returned from a few days in Manila, where I was training developers in Flash Lite for the country's largest operator, Globe. This was part of a developer competition they had run and an attempt to start equipping the local developer community with the tools and knowledge they need to begin bringing Flash Lite applications and content to market. Many thanks to "Blue" and the G-Labs team for having me and looking after me while I was there, and also to the attendees of the courses for being great students. Manila turned it on weather-wise while I was there, with 1 typhoon passing by and another 2 waiting out to sea. The rain was so heavy on my second day of training that I had to stop frequently because I was having to shout over the noise of the storm outside! Many class members didn't make it that day either because of flooding and traffic chaos in Manila. I got a chance though to meet up with local FL developer Naz for a coffee and talk all things mobile and Flash. There's some seriously talented guys in the Philippines and I'm hoping we can collaborate with them on some upcoming Flash Lite work.

Next trip this week is to California for a week and half of time dedicated to a new Lynda.com training title. It's a Flash Lite related topic, but more details on that once we have some dates for release, etc.

Then in October I'll be demonstrating Moket's Flash Lite games at the 2008 Nokia Games Summit in Rome, and putting Flash Lite forward as a viable platform for developing mobile games. It'll be interesting to see what conversations I get into with a conference full of Java, Symbian and N-Gage developers!

I think the remainder of this year is going to be very exciting for Flash Lite developers. Moket has some interesting stuff to share over the next couple of months, and of course MAX is coming up in November. Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen's recent keynote at CTIA (available now on You Tube thanks to Bill) also gave some insights into where Adobe are pushing Flash Lite and the Flash platform in general.

So stay tuned, and I'll try and post from some of these exoctic locations I'll be visiting over the next few months. And in case you're wondering, Moket only flys me economy class so I'm not the jet-setting executive that all this travel might lead you to believe! Although, with all the frequent flyer miles I'm accruing, I did get enough points on the Manila trip to get access to Singapore Airline's Gold Lounge ... free food and drinks and comfortable seats are what you want when you're about to get on an 8 hour midnight flight!

Moket games for sale at Voeveo

2008-09-02T03:31:00.000-07:00

We've just uploaded some of our recent games to the Voeveo mobile portal for purchase and download. Games include old-timers such as Dizzy Zub Zub, Cipher and Jon Burgerman's Sausage Smackdown, along with some more recent ones like Trench Rocket and Palleggio. Most of these games are also available, or are making their way, to Nokia Download (in APAC and soon China and Europe). They're also going to emerge in Singapore shortly.

It's been interesting in the past few months seeing the success of App Store, and the subsequent news from Google and intimations by Microsoft towards their own "open markets". Surely this has to kick start the education process for many, many more mobile consumers on methods to simply engage with mobile content. It may also help to educate them with having to pay for content, but time will tell :)

Flash-less iPhone causes advertising to be pulled

2008-08-26T16:28:00.000-07:00

Maybe it was a Flash developer, maybe a Java guy, or just a web-browsing Joe Bloggs, but it seems that someone has taken offence at Apple's claims that "all parts of the internet are on the iPhone".

Seems a complaint to the UK advertising standards board mentions the fact that it doesn't have Flash or Java, which are two key ingredients to the internet. And as a result, Apple have been forced to pull the ad. It would be interesting to know if the lodger of the complaint was a developer (who is probably watching the App Store downloads and wishing they could get a piece of that action), or a consumer who knows enough about browsing and interacting with the web to know that these two pieces of the "experience puzzle" really do run a hell of a lot of the web, despite what Apple are seemingly willing to admit. I suspect thought it was the former rather than the latter.

But, as Scott blogged recently, if recent patent filings are anything to go by, there is a future coming where this oversight could be rectified.

Photoshop.com Mobile Beta available in September

2008-08-26T00:11:00.000-07:00

Via Bill: Adobe have announced a new Flash Lite consumer-orientated product for a number of Windows Mobile devices in the US - Photoshop.com Mobile.

Today we announced a new addition to the Photoshop.com family, Photoshop.com Mobile beta, which is a rich Adobe Flash based mobile application that offers camera phone users an easy way to upload, view, and share photos using their Photoshop.com account. Photoshop.com Mobile runs in the background on the phone and allows consumers to take photos, send messages and run other applications while pictures are being uploaded to their Photoshop.com account. Photoshop.com Mobile is the mobile companion application for the new Adobe Photoshop Elements 7 and Adobe Photoshop.com.

Congrats to the mobile team at Adobe for delivering (what will be) a publicly-available Flash Lite application that demonstrates the power of the platform. And as BIll mentions, also quite interesting that there's a couple of Palm Treo devices thrown in there as well ...

Moket's own "Made in China"

2008-08-24T14:36:00.000-07:00

It was brough to my attention over the weekend that Moket had become the target of the ultimate form of flattery some would say - having a product pirated by the Chinese.

A number of people in the Flash Lite community spotted what looked "kind of like" one of our MoCarbon Flash Lite wallpaper products on the Nokia Software Market. You be the judge though - Moket's original (designed by the talented Matt Pollitt) and the pirate rip-off version by Shanghai Jibiao Info Tech Co. Ltd. It's also popped up on a number of other "free mobile software portals" around the place.

Close but no cigar Shanhai Jibiao!

A number of people have asked me in recent times about piracy in the mobile market and what we do about it. The simple fact is that mobile "content" has such a short shelf life, that it's basically not economically viable to spend money on patents or trademarks for everything you release. Therefore, the idea is to release and make your revenue from the short "burst" of activity, and then let it join the "long tail" of available products (well, I could argue that 99% of mobile content is in the long tail already anyway). Of course if it was a larger mobile application or tool then of course you would be protecting it - but for wallpapers, screensavers and casual games, the cost of protection would nearly always be greater than the revenue from the single asset.

Anyway, with all that said, if you see any more dodgy versions of content that you know has been ripped off from someone else, it can be nice to drop them a line just to let them know. Thanks to Scott and Johnny for alerting me to the bizarro-Moket content out there already.

Who talks about mobile gaming in the sauna?

2008-08-17T18:55:00.000-07:00

Over at N-Gage Insider, there are some new video interviews being posted up which some may find interesting, if not a little disturbing. Your N-Gage host Arnold Faber introduces us to "Sauna Talk", a new show that promises to deliver interviews with leading N-Gage platform experts, dressed in towels and relaxing in the sauna. First up is Miikka Skaffari, Head of Developer Product Management for N-Gage. What next, Symbian Babes? There are some Flash Lite panel sessions at MAX this year, maybe they should get the presenters to all do them from a hot tub? Err... maybe not.