Mobile

So following on from the first part of this discussion I was asked to look at creating a 10 day trial Flash Lite application. The theory is sound, you either contact a server and pass it the IMEI (best option), or work out a way of storing some information on how many uses have taken place locally on the phone, either using plain-text, a hash or some real encryption. In Flash Lite 2.0, we can do this with Local Shared Objects, this is also great to keep the information from prying eyes as you have to know where to look for the SO’s in order to try and crack them, the down side is that a little bit of digging a while back showed they look fairly similar (if not the same) as desktop Flash Player SO’s and therefore there are already tools available to read them. Either way, they are a boon to Flash Lite development for many other reasons. ...

Naz on the Flash Lite Yahoo Group just noted that there is a time limited offer on the Flash Lite 2 player right now. When you go to checkout, the cost gets deducted, totalling 0. I just tested this out and can confirm. So get over to the store and see if you are lucky. Note: You must visit through the above updated URL.

I don’t normally like to post something that has already been covered, but there are a couple of new bits to get to grips with. First of all, the default location the Flash Lite 2 Player looks for SWF files in has changed. To be good Symbian citizens, SWFs should now be placed in c:nokiaothers or e:others. Secondly, you have to check out Jesse’s FlickrMobile app which uses the Flash Lite 2 component set we began work on -and something I think I’d like to fire up again. Flash Lite 2 just opens up some really amazing avenues for mobile dev. It simply gives you so much more, including some more familiar objects, LoadVars, XML, SharedObjects and even some things that we have previously taken for granted, like attachMovie() and the drawing API. Add to that brand new features that the desktop player finds hard to compete with, loading in gif, png, 3gp, mp4*. ...

Just a note to Flash Lite devs out there to head over to the Adobe Flash Lite forum to provide feedback to Laura who is working on an application to provide developers with device information for Flash Lite capable handsets. A while ago a few of us set about creating a table of which devices were supported and how they performed, created through developers’ testing out a SWF on their handsets. Something more official from Adobe would be great and I’m looking forward to it. ...

Just got back from a quick break in Spain and I realised I don’t actually own a camera so I just went with my phone, a Nokia N70. Now I’ve had a “mega-pixel” camera phone before, the 7610, and I was pretty impressed at the time with the quality, and strange lomographic quality it burns into the photos. But the 2meg camera that the N70 has really suprised me. I thought I’d upload a couple of bland scenery photos to show how much camera phones have really improved, and this isn’t even the latest and greatest 7 megapixel phone you might see in Japan. The camera is great in macro- but the lense isn’t much good for anything else. These photos are straight off the phone but shrunk from 1600×1200 down to 1024×768, you can even produce some really nice effects by flipping the phone into both night, and negative mode. ...

First of all Bill Perry has just confirmed that the Flash Lite 2 player is now available from the Adobe Store. Not wanting to re-iterate what he has said you can read the full post on his blog. Secondly, you may be thinking it’s a little strange to release a player without a way of developing content for it. Well there are a couple of things you can do; the first is to wait just a little while until the IDE update, docs and samples are released in January on Labs. But if you really can’t wait to get coding, remember that the Flash Lite 2 player is based on the Flash 7 player and can therefore read SWF7 bytecode, so those itching to get AS2 on their phones can get publishing some Flash 7 files and you can immediately start playing with your existing library of classes on your handsets. But that does of course mean that there is no gaurentee that all SWF7 bytecodes/functions/objects are supported, and it also means you won’t have access to any possible Flash Lite 2 specific objects and functionality until January, but it’s a nice way to get into mobile dev over the holidays. ...

Just had an email from a friend regarding the Nokia N70 and Flash Lite. Great phone, but there is something that had me googling for a few minutes. That is installing certain un-signed apps onto the phone. Newer series 60 phones do not allow this by default, that includes the Flash Lite 1.1 player. You receive the following message: “installation security error”. To cut a long story short simply go to ‘Tools > Manager > Options > Settings’ and turn Software installation’ > “On”.

Big thanks to David Mannl for pointing this out just now. I’ve just signed up for the new ITV Mobizines service (see flash demo here). When you text “MOBILE” to 63330, you receive a link to download the client (if your phone is up to it, mine is an old 7610 and it worked no problems). The client will install the standalone Flash Lite player along with the main application and a skinned media player (just the 2 icons on the main menu, the media player is invoked by the client). When the client is installed via Symbian installer you should see the unmistakeable vector UI and bitmap fonts of Flash Lite 1.1 being used to offer a TV Guide, weather, news and entertainment with the option to download more “Mobizines”, or mobile magazines – similar to the channels concept pushed elsewhere. Prime candidate for a FlashCast server hey :). ...

A few weeks ago I started speaking to one David Williams who was interested in taking his artifical intelligence “chat-eBots”, which are sold as virtual hosts for sites, and putting them on mobile phones in an altered form. We discussed a few technologies and a few ideas but unfortunately I had to dip out of the project due to commitments. Anyway, David has gone ahead and produced the entire thing in Flash Lite, and you can demo the first of these eBots, “Retch”, on the companion site, as well as purchase a copy for your handset. ...

This is one of the best made Flash Lite apps I’ve seen to date, and also one I’m going to use very often. “The Tube” allows you to navigate (with easing tweens) the London Underground map, search for a station in a rolodex fashion (this is one of my favourite features), and view individual lines. The application is very well polished, the animation is clean and one final nice addition was a little history of the Underground. ...