Next Tuesday (4 November) from 2-3pm EST, Forum Nokia will be hosting a free one hour webinar covering "Flash Lite Development with Adobe CS4 & Nokia Platform Services".  Attendees will learn about the Nokia devices that support Flash Lite, new features of CS4 for developing Flash Lite applications and Nokia’s new S60 5th Edition Platform Services and why they are needed.

You can register here.

For those of you who have an interest in learning more about mobile and networking with peers as well as people from the ecosystem, we have two free events that are being held during MAX North America that you can attend.  You can register for one or both of these events.

Mobile Summit
(Sunday 16 November at the Marriott from 1-6pm PST)
Join Adobe and our partners — Nokia, Qualcomm, Verizon, Sony Ericsson, GetJar, Thumbplay, and Zed — to learn about new opportunities for mobile developers this year. Get a sneak peak at what you will see and hear at MAX before anyone else does! Hear from Adobe partners and key industry players as they present the newest mobile solutions, technologies, and distribution opportunities for mobile developers.  To learn more and RSVP for this event go to: http://www.eventsadobe.com/mobilesummitmax08/invite.html.

Mobile Fast Pitch Networking Party
(Wednesday 19 November at the Thirsty Bear from 6:15-9:30pm PST)
Adobe is hosting a special Mobile Networking Party to allow developers to showcase their mobile applications using our Adobe Flash mobile technologies. If you already have a web-based application and are thinking of going mobile, you can also present your idea and get feedback from our industry leaders. Join us to support fellow developers or to present your ideas.  For more RSVP and presentation information for this event go to: http://www.eventsadobe.com/mobilenetworkingparty/invite.html.

Excellent news for anyone who's been looking for a way to easily package your Flash Lite applications for Nokia Series 40 devices - Dale has released an AIR application that allows you to create .NFL files.  SWF2NFL allows a developer to not have to manually assemble assets and text files but instead use a more intuitive workflow.  You can download the AIR file here, install it and try it out.


Since it's an AIR app you can use it on both PC and mac systems and it's straightforward.  You basically just drag a folder containing your SWF file and any other files into the large area, drag an icon file to the correct location, provide additional information and select "Build".  Then your .NFL file can be made available to anyone to download and install.


There's also a cool feature of the AIR app that dynamically pulls in the latest supported Nokia Series 40 devices from their site and presents that info in an HTML window - simply by clicking a link at the bottom of the tool "25 devices supported".

Give it a shot and if you do create a .NFL file post a link to it in the comments here so the community can download them and test them out.  Also if you have any ideas of improving the tool let Dale know.

Yesterday T-Mobile announced the G1 which is the first Android based mobile phone and is expected to be available on the 22 October here in the US and in other European countries in early November.  The HTC device has some good hardware specs including 3G, WiFi, GPS, touchscreen, QWERTY keyboard and others.  There’s a lot of information available on-line from various sites that are covering the G1 and I encourage you to check it out.

What I would like to talk about is the lack of Adobe Flash support on the G1.  The G1 does not have support for Flash, however we are working closely with all handset manufacturers that support Android and are expecting in the future that Android based devices will ship with Adobe Flash support.  I can’t say when or who so if you ask I’ll tell you the same thing ;o)

If you look at the OEMs that are supporting Android, all major manufacturers that are current licensees of Flash today are using our technology for user interfaces and applications.  With 800 million devices shipped with Flash so far and 1 billion devices expected to ship by Q1 2009 there’s a lot of potential for developers to reach a lot of end-users.  The way in which consumers enjoy great experiences today via web browsing and applications on the desktop is moving to non-PC devices using our client technologies of AIR and Flash and that’s part of our Open Screen Project initiative.

As for the G1 I’m going to get one the day it comes out (hopefully) to check out the overall experience and how Google and T-Mobile have integrated their services into the device.

Are you planning on getting a G1 when it ships or waiting?

Yesterday Forum Nokia released their "NFL" spec for packaging Flash Lite content for supported Nokia Series 40 devices.  For those of you in the US you may think National Football League which started a few weeks ago but this is not that ;o)

The easiest way to think of the .NFL file format is it's a .ZIP file that's renamed to .NFL and contains at least one .SWF file, a bitmap file for the icon and a descriptor file (.INF). If the Flash Lite content also requires additional .SWF or other media files they can be included in the package as long as the information is listed in the descriptor file.

So I spent some time yesterday (about 30 minutes) and created a simple Flash Lite animation and made my own .NFL package and thought I'd share my experience with you.

• Source files (.FLA, .SWF, .PNG, .INF)
• .NFL file (copy to a supported Nokia Series 40 device)

I downloaded the NFL spec from the Forum Nokia site and read through it.  All of the information is included in the 7 page PDF and is very easy to follow given they included sample code and it's well written.  Next I went through my drawer of devices and found a supported Series 40 device, 6500 Classic.  It's a 240x320 device that has Flash Lite 2.1 pre-installed - cool.


So then I opened up Device Central CS3, found the 6500 Classic, then selected "File > New Document In > Flash" and then selected the Create button.


Now that I was in Flash CS3 I created a simple bouncing ball animation and specified it to launch fullscreen:  fscommand2("FullScreen",true);   I tested in Device Central, it worked so I then had my SWF file ready to go. 


Next was to create the icon so I opened up Photoshop and created a new document that was 43x43.  Added some random shapes and colors and then exported as a PNG with transparency.  Make sure you have it set to 256 colors in your PNG settings otherwise you may experience an error message when trying to launch the .NFL file on a device.

So the .SWF and .PNG files are ready, now to create the descriptor file:

FL-Version: 1.1
FL-Icon: bouncingBall.png
FL-Name: Bouncing Ball
FL-Root: bouncingBall.swf
 
You can refer to the .NFL spec PDF for specific details but all I did was create a new text file with the above text and saved it as "descriptor.inf".


Now to create the .NFL file - this was easy.  I selected my three files (bouncingBall.swf, bouncingBall.png, and descriptor.inf) and made a .ZIP file.  I then renamed the .ZIP file to .NFL.

Last step is to get it on my 6500 Classic so I just transferred it from MacBook Pro via Bluetooth and it showed up in the Received files folder, which is located in the Gallery (Menu > Gallery > Received files).


The icon I created shows up, the name of the application that I specified in the descriptor file shows and if I select the app it launches and I see a bouncing yellow ball that's full screen.


Here are some additional details for those of you who are new to Flash Lite development or are interested in Nokia Series 40 devices.

What's "packaging"?
Packaging is a term used in mobile development to describe the process for gathering and compressing files together into a specific file format that's then interpreted by a device.  Once on the device the package can be installed and/or launched.  In the mobile space there are several packaging formats for different mobile platforms:

• Symbian = .SIS
• Windows Mobile = .CAB
• Java applications = .JAR
• Nokia Series 40 = .NFL

If you're a web developer using Flash or Flex and are thinking about creating AIR applications then it's similar - you're packaging your assets into a .AIR file that then can be downloaded and installed on Windows, Mac or Linux computers.  For Flash developers the workflow is very similar to creating an AIR application:

• AIR application = Flash > Packaging to .AIR > distribution
• Flash Lite content (NFL) = Flash > Device Central > Packaging to .NFL > distribution
• Flash Lite content (SIS) = Flash > Device Central > Packaging to .SIS > distribution

What devices does .NFL support?
The .NFL file format is supported on Nokia Series 40 devices that are 5th edition, Feature Pack 1 and newer.  If the grand scheme of things the Series 40 devices are commonly referred to as "mass market" or "feature phones".  The "high end' or "smart phones" are the S60 devices, like the N95, N82 and others.  To date there are 22 compatible Series 40 devices that have been announced and/or shipping in market.  They include the following models:

• 3120 Classic
• 3555
• 3600 Slide
• 5220 XpressMusic
• 5310 XpressMusic
• 5610 XpressMusic
• 6212 Classic
• 6300i
• 6500 Classic
• 6500 Slide
• 6600 Fold
• 6600 Slide
• 7210 Supernova
• 7310 Supernova
• 7510 Supernova
• 7610 Supernova
• 7900 Prism
• 7900 Crystal Prism
• 8800 Arte
• 8800 Saphire Arte
• 8800 Carbon Arte

Why is this important?
For some time Flash Lite developers have developed content for Series 40 devices but there hasn't been an easy way for them to package their content and distribute it.  With the .NFL spec from Forum Nokia, anyone can create a .NFL package and make it available for end-users to download (OTA, Bluetooth, etc...).  You can also take a Flash Lite application that was developed for Nokia S60 devices and package it for Series 40 devices.  Of course depending on the specific features that the developer used in their Flash Lite application for S60 devices some features may or may not work on a compatible Series 40 device.  This is where using Device Central, testing on actual devices and asking the community to assist in testing can help out.

Now that you have more facts about .NFL and Flash Lite I encourage you to start looking into creating various types of Flash Lite content for these mass market devices.  If you have any additional questions about .NFL leave them here and I'll answer them.

This morning during Shantanu's keynote at CTIA he mentioned that there are now 800 million devices that have shipped with Flash technology. If you remember back in March of this year we announced we had passed 500 million and that was a significant milestone. We're on track to reach 1 billion devices in 2009 and as consumers start to update their handsets to new models, chances are those new devices will be able to support Flash content.

Forum Nokia will be hosting a free one day technology workshop on Friday, 10 October from 9am-5pm EST to talk and show examples of using Flash Lite on Nokia devices.  It will be held at the Nokia Research Center in Cambridge and there will be free food and some prizes given away.

Topics will include Adobe Flash Lite overview and workflow, tips and tricks from some community experts, expanding the functionality of Flash Lite applications, business opportunities with Forum Nokia and showcasing applications and products from Boston area companies.  We'll be posting a full agenda on the information page soon.

There will be a few people from Forum Nokia presenting along with myself and a few other local Boston Flash Lite developers and it should be a very educational and fun day for anyone interested in learning more about Flash Lite for Nokia devices.

There will be limited space so sign up early.

In a continuation of our on-going monthly Adobe mobile and devices webinars we'll be having our next one on 28 August.  Make sure to register for our one-hour online seminar and learn how Project Capuchin will empower Flash Lite and Java ME developers to leverage their expertise to quickly and securely create highly engaging mobile content.

Sony Ericsson experts will guide you through an exciting mobile project by providing a step-by-step demonstration for creating innovative content, and utilizing new development tools and components needed to immediately create your own fun and unique applications.

The webinar will be broadcast from 9-10am PDT on Thursday 28 August.  Make sure to adjust for your time zone.

For more information about Sony Ericsson Project Capuchin you can visit the Sony Ericsson Developer World.

Our good friend Dale Rankine (down under in Brisbane) will be presenting two Flash Lite webinars in August:

• Persistent Data in Adobe Flash Lite (6 Aug)
• Tips and Tricks for Effective Flash Lite Development (20 Aug)

I'd encourage you to register for both events.  Dale's an excellent presenter and very knowledgeable with Flash Lite.  These webinars will be very informative for developers wanting to do more with Flash Lite as well as hearing some real world insight into mobile development.

One of the things that designers and developers new to mobile ask for our simple building blocks that they can quickly use in a Flash Lite application to help them save time and focus more on the appearance of the application.  In the web space there are components available for Flash and Flex developers to use to assist them in building applications and now there are some for Flash Lite developers.

Recently Forum Nokia released a set of Flash Lite 2.0 components that can be installed via the Adobe extension manager.  After installation you can find the 3 components (battery, dynamic list and signal) in the Component Panel (Window > Components > Component Panel) under the Forum Nokia category.


Included in the download are two sample files, one for a dynamic list and one for battery and signal. You can start using these example files and tweaking them for your application or just drag and drop the components into your application directly.

Since these components are for Flash Lite 2.x, that means you can use them on any device that supports Flash Lite 2.0 or higher, including 3.0 devices.

For more information about using these components refer to the help pages inside Flash Help (All Books > Forum Nokia Flash Lite 2.x Components).

Those of you who are interested in supporting localized text in your Flash Lite applications now have a new resource to help provide guidance and best practices.  Today we've published a Flash Lite article about "Creating Bi-directional Text in Flash Lite" (including sample files) and it's definitely one topic that we've heard requests from developers about.

The author Samir Dash has done a great job of sharing his knowledge including how to separate the data and presentation layers for text and how a string of text can vary in length depending on the language being used.  This is important if you're thinking about developing an application that can support more than one language.

I hope that the broader community starts to create more localized Flash Lite content now given Samir's article - if you create something please share it with the community by sending me an email with a short description and screen shots. We love to see what you guys are creating!

Today Qualcomm and Adobe announced that the BREW Mobile Platform will be integrated with Adobe Flash technology and new platform features. You can read the full press release here. This is fantastic news for both BREW and Flash developers as it further reinforces the point that Flash is becoming a preferred technology for OEMs, operators and developers for creating rich and exciting mobile experiences.

BREW Mobile Platform
The BREW Mobile Platform is Qualcomm’s next generation BREW client technology that integrates Adobe Flash and is an upgrade from the current BREW 4 environment that BREW developers use today. When it’s available in fall of this year, BREW and Flash developers will be able to create visually creative mobile applications, user interfaces and web content for mass market devices running the BREW Mobile Platform. For Flash developers this means that there will be another mobile platform that they can target their mobile applications for. Today there’s Nokia Symbian S60, Nokia Series 40, Sony Ericsson and soon Windows Mobile.

How is this different than the current Flash Lite extension for BREW?
So you may be wondering how is this announcement different than what’s already available in market today – Flash Lite 2.1 for BREW extension. The current extension is only available for BREW handsets on the Verizon Wireless network that we’ve certified and have passed NSTL certification. Today we have 13 devices certified and over the next 2-3 months we’ll have 5 more. This takes time and doesn’t address operators other than Verizon Wireless who may want to support Flash based BREW applications.

The differences between the Flash Lite extension model and the BREW Mobile Platform are:

• Adobe Flash technology will be directly integrated into the platform, meaning no per/device per/carrier certification will be required

• BREW developers will be able to use existing native BREW API interfaces directly with Flash via ActionScript – so Flash can become the presentation layer

• The BREW Mobile Platform will be shipping on all mass market BREW handsets worldwide – for all BREW carriers

BREW APIs via ActionScript
With the BREW Mobile Platform it will be possible for a BREW developer to pass information to the Flash client using ActionScript. We’re currently working with Qualcomm to define what these APIs will be but expect to be able to support most if not all of them. Translation – for example you’ll be able to create a UI or application that uses BREW APIs to retrieve the call log and use Flash to render and present that information. This level of device integration and API access is something we’ve been hearing from BREW developers for some time and with the BREW Mobile Platform it will become a reality.

Developer tools and workflow
Today we have a plug-in for Flash CS3 which allows a Flash developer to export native BREW files (.MOD and .MIF) for testing in the BREW emulator and eventually on a BREW device. This is used for the Flash Lite for BREW extension. For the BREW Mobile Platform Qualcomm and Adobe will be working closely to improve the developer workflow between Adobe’s CS3 tools (Flash CS3, Device Central CS3, CS3 creative tools) with tools available from Qualcomm including the BREW emulator.

Open Screen Project
This announcement of the BREW Mobile Platform demonstrates rapid progress in support of the recently announced Open Screen Project to enable a consistent runtime environment that will remove barriers for developers and designers as they publish content and applications across desktops and devices.

Handset availability
Even though we’ve jointly made this announcement today, more concrete details about the BREW Mobile Platform won’t be available until the fall of this year – when the BREW Mobile Platform becomes available for CDMA and UMTS chipsets. Actual device shipments depend on OEM schedules and we expect initial device shipments in the mid-2009 timeframe.

Next steps
For more information you can refer to the BREW developer site and soon we will be posting additional information on the Adobe Flash for BREW developer site. Of course if you have any follow-up questions you can post them here and I’ll do my best to answer them.

Next Thursday I will be co-presenting a webinar with Stephen Ellis from Forum Nokia where we'll be discussing Flash and Mobile Browsing. More details below, including where to register.

Topic: Flash and Mobile Browsing
Time: 10-11am PST, 5 June 2008
Presenters: Stephen Ellis (Forum Nokia) & Bill Perry (Adobe)

Description: This one-hour webinar will explore the integration of Flash Lite on mobile devices, give pointers for developing online mobile Flash content, and provide a full question-and-answer session. This webinar is another in a continuing series of joint webinars between Nokia and Adobe to provide developers with information and guidance for creating mobile experiences using Flash technologies.

Register: you can register online here

We have a great new article covering dynamic layouts for Flash Lite applications up on our mobile and devices developer center- check it out!

David Brown from Agencynet wrote the article and in it he covers the technical side of things as we walks through some of his AS code he wrote for the Bacardi Mobile application that we've been demoing since February. Sample files are included and the code will work in Device Central and on any device that supports Flash Lite 2.0 or newer in standalone mode.

Today we announced the Adobe Open Screen Project which is dedicated to ensuring a consistent rich Internet experience across a broad range of digital screens and form factors including mobile phones, consumer electronics, televisions and personal computers. This experience will be driven by Adobe Flash Player and in the future Adobe AIR and is meant to ensure that designers and developers can focus on the consumer experience and know there efforts will scale across different platforms and screens. Simply put the mission of the Open Screen Project is meant to enable a consistent runtime environment for designers and developers across desktops and devices.

Ryan Stewart has some great thoughts about what this means for the desktop space and below are my impressions of what this means for the non-PC space and developers.

Who’s involved
In order for the Open Screen Project to be successful we need the support of companies that believe in this unified vision of the future. These companies include leading chipset vendors, device manufacturers, operators and media companies – all intent to help deliver consistent rich internet applications across a broad range of devices and desktops. These are the initial companies that are involved with the project and we expect other companies will want to join.

• Adobe
• ARM
• BBC
• Chungwha Telecom
• Cisco
• Intel
• LG Electronics
• Marvell
• Motorola
• MTV Networks
• NBC Universal
• Nokia
• NTT DoCoMo
• Qualcomm
• Samsung Electronics
• Sony Ericsson
• Toshiba
• Verizon Wireless

Flash and Adobe AIR to be Free
To support this project we will be opening access to more of our core technologies to help enable web innovation and include these initiatives:

• Removing restrictions on the use of the SWF and FLV/F4V specifications
• Publishing the device porting layer APIs for Adobe Flash Player
• Removing licensing fees – making next major releases of Adobe Flash Player and Adobe AIR for devices free
• Publishing the Adobe Flash Cast protocol and AMF protocol for robust data services

Converging PC and non-PC experiences
Over the past month I’ve traveled to Tokyo, Seoul and New York City and what I hear when talking to various groups of people including device manufacturers, operators, media companies, developers and consumers is how more an more the experience is becoming the key differentiator when consuming content. By us driving the Open Screen Project and working with some of the leading companies in their respected fields, we have a goal to make this happen. I’m really excited about this project and given the companies we have committed so far, our technology roadmap and leading tools for designing, developing and testing applications and content it’s a win-win situation for everyone.

What should mobile developers do
Keep on creating the types of experiences and content you already do for mobile phones using CS3, Device Central and other tools for development and testing. The key thing you should take away from the Open Screen Project is Adobe is committed to providing a consistent runtime across a wide range of devices including personal computers so continuing to build your skills now to develop Flash Lite applications will be part of the future growth opportunities for you and your clients as Flash and Adobe AIR are supported on non-PC devices.

It’s true that today desktop developers can use Flex and Flash to create web content and Adobe AIR applications and mobile developers can use Flash to create Flash Lite content for supported handsets. In the near future desktop developers will be able to use their skills for creating Flash and Adobe AIR applications for more than just desktop PCs. What will improve will be the workflow and output options for Flash and Adobe AIR applications and for us that’s important – to ensure that designers and developers have the best tools so they can focus on the experience.

Types of non-PC devices
One of the main benefits to OSP is the ability for us to provide to designers and developers a runtime environment that works across a wide range of non-PC devices, in addition to the PC space. I use the term “non-PC” often but to give you some context these are some of the types of devices we’re looking to support in the future:

• mobile phones
• mobile internet tablets (MIDs)
• set top boxes
• televisions

Over 1 billion devices by 2009
We’ve updated our device forecast and expect that by 2009 there will be over 1 billion devices that will have shipped that support Flash technologies. Previously we stated that we would reach this number by 2010 – so this is more good news for the Open Screen Project and shows the explosive growth of Flash technologies in mobile phones.

Next steps
If you’re a developer and have read this you’re probably starting to envision a very cool future where you’re able to extend your applications beyond just the desktop and for me that’s the future. I’ve only touched on some of the high-level points here and there certainly will be more news coverage about this initiative over the next few days and weeks. If you have any questions about this please leave a comment here and I’ll answer them.

You can read more about the Open Screen Project here as well as an FAQ.

A special thanks to Thomas Joos for creating a Flash Lite conference guide for FITC Toronto. Like most conference guides, this mobile version includes information for all of the sessions, room locations, map of the conference location and a basic twitter client to stay in touch with friends- very cool. It will work on all Nokia S60 3rd edition or later devices and you can get more information as well as download installer files from his site.

Tomorrow during my session I'll be showing this application and other examples of how developers and brands are creating mobile applications that act as an extension of current/future web and desktop experiences.

Usually I'm asked by developers and business people the following questions "what's the percentage of devices in the US that support Flash Lite" or "how many Nokia S60 devices are there in the UK". Providing this type of information to the community is important and you can now download a two page PDF that contains this information.

Data for this PDF was provided by mmetrics and shows the active number of Flash Lite devices as of January 2008 for six countries: US, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK. Total Flash Lite devices, number of device models and number of addressable devices by platform are listed: Nokia S60, Nokia Series 40, Sony Ericsson and BREW.

Let me know if you find this information useful or what other types of data you'd like to see.

A reminder for those of you who have not yet registered for the Forum Nokia Flash Lite webinar tomorrow (15 April) - you can still sign-up. It will be a one hour webinar that I will be co-presenting with Stephen Ellis from Forum Nokia and we'll be discussing several topics around Flash Lite on Nokia devices including mobile web browsing and content creation.

Of course the Q&A portion of the webinar is where you can ask us direct questions so it's always interesting to hear what the developer community is thinking about.

Times for the webinar tomorrow 15 April are as follows, make sure to check the time for your location:

• Helsinki = 5pm (local)
• London = 3pm (local)
• New York = 10am (local)
• San Francisco = 7am (local)
  

Half a billion or 500 million – no matter how you say it, the number is impressive. Today we’re announcing that Adobe Flash Lite has shipped on over half a billion devices and with 150% growth over last year we expect to reach 1 billion devices by 2010. That’s pretty impressive for a mobile run-time to reach that number in a little over 5 years. Because of our licensing agreements with Motorola, Nokia, Samsung, Sony Ericsson and others (18 of the top 20 OEMs) to pre-install Flash Lite on their devices we’re able to achieve this phenomenal expansion. In addition to working with our OEM partners we also have signed a licensing agreement with Microsoft to have Flash Lite 3 embedded into Internet Explorer Mobile for future versions of Windows Mobile – meaning any future Windows Mobile device will have Flash Lite 3 pre-installed.

If you’re a developer this means that the TAM (Total Addressable Market) is continuing to increase and with new devices from Nokia and Sony Ericsson this year developers can look forward to creating expressive applications and content that will reach more consumers. On a personal note it’s been an amazing ride to see how our technology continues to evolve in the market and reach more and more consumers. Whether it’s for providing a better web experience on a mobile device, allowing consumers to personalize their devices, download and interact with applications or allowing OEMs to create innovative UIs.

My first speaking event this year will be at FITC Toronto and my session is titled "Flash Across Screens". In addition to showing how to create Flash Lite content I will be discussing distribution opportunities so developers can understand what options they have. For my session I'll also highlight an example of a developer using the Adobe Flash platform to create multi-screen experiences for the web (Flash), desktop (AIR) and mobile (Flash Lite).

They haven't posted the session schedule so I'm not sure what time I'll be presenting but keep checking their site for updates. As I'm still working on my presentation let me know any specific areas or topics you'd like me to cover so I can make it as interactive as possible.

Good news, I've updated the Flash enabled devices spreadsheet to include several new handsets that were announced two weeks ago at the Mobile World Congress. You can download the PDF and print it out as a reference for understanding what handsets have Flash Lite pre-installed including the version and content type. Here are the updated models counts by grouping: Nokia (73), Sony Ericsson (63), Verizon Wireless (13), NTT DoCoMo (134), KDDI (101), and Softbank (48).

Today we've published several new resources to help developers understand the Flash Lite ecosystem and ways in which they can participate:

Understanding the Mobile Ecosystem
Written by Strategy Analytics, this 30 page PDF primer helps explains the basics of the mobile content marketplace and the options for delivering content to consumers phones. This white paper is not specific to Flash Lite but instead focuses on the broader mobile ecosystem and covers all mobile technologies. If you're a web developer interested in exploring the mobile ecosystem, this is a great resource.

How to protect Flash Lite content with OMA DRM 1.0
In this article, Alessandro Pace does an excellent job of explaining how to apply DRM to your Flash Lite SWF files to prevent them from being shared after downloaded by a consumer. It's technically oriented and includes some sample code to help explain things.

Also if you haven't yet already downloaded the Flash Lite 3 Standalone Developer Edition from Adobe Labs you can still do so. This standalone player will allow you to test your own or other peoples Flash Lite 3 SWF files.

You may have already heard about these upcoming Flash mobile webinars but if not here's the information:

• Flash Lite and Flex for mTourism
• January 23, 9am PST
• Speakers: Untravel Media’s CTO Ira Hochman and CEO Michael Epstein
• Topic will cover developing mobile travel applications using geo-coding, a web-based Flex application and a Flash Lite mobile application
  

• Developing Flash Lite Widgets for the Chumby Platform
• January 25, 9am PST
• Speaker: Scott Janousek, Technical Director of Hooken Mobile
• Topic will cover developing Flash Lite widgets for the Chumby platform
  

Make sure you register for these webinars.

Here you go, a complete breakdown of the forecasted installed base of Flash Lite devices by region, country and version. The information in the PDF is extracted from the Strategy Analytics Flash-Enabled Handset Forecast from January 4, 2008 and provides metrics for the forecasted installed base of Flash Lite devices for the years 2007 and for 2008.

Developers, business owners and decision makers have been asking for this level of detail and we're glad to be able to share it. Six regions are covered: Americas, APAC (Asia Pacific), CALA (Central America/Latin America), Western Europe, Central Europe and Japan. Flash Lite versions include 1.0, 1.1, 2.0, 2.1 and 3.0.

Here's a sample of the level of detail included in this PDF:


We will be posting additional information on our mobile and devices developer center soon and I'll share that information once it's available.

Updated: I found a typo for the 2007 US total and have corrected the PDF. If you've downloaded the PDF before 7:10pm PST tonight then please download the zip file again - thanks.

There are 3 new iRiver devices that are being shown this week at CES which use Flash Lite and here are some brief details.
iRiver Spinn: Flash memory based PMP device with a 3.2" 480x272 screen and DMB support. Flash Lite UI.

iRiver IAmoled Photo Tank: HDD based PMP with a 4.1" AMOLED screen. Flash Lite UI.

iRiver Wing: Flash memory based Windows CE Pro OS with WiFi and QWERTY keyboard. Flash Lite support.

Once I have more information about the implementation of Flash Lite for these devices and what it may mean for developers I'll post it.

Strategy Analytics just recently released a new report updating their Flash enabled handset forecast and here are some things they mentioned:

• "Cumulatively, over 301 million FL devices, of which over 90% are cellphones, have been shipped since 2003."
• "In 2008 we will see shipments of Flash Lite-enabled cellphones in the rest of the Asia Pacific region and Western Europe exceed shipments in Japan for the first time since the launch of Flash Lite."
• "A further 1.4 billion FL-enabled phones are expected to be shipped globally over the next three years alone."

There is additional information in their report that we're working on sharing with the developer community and decision makers. Stay tuned for more details.

Forum Nokia has a new dedicated developer discussion board just for Flash Lite and if you're creating Flash Lite content for Nokia devices (S60 or Series 40 platforms) then check it out. It's a great resource as there are actual Forum Nokia employees that monitor the forum and answer questions.

In addition there's also the Adobe Flash Lite for Nokia discussion forum where Adobe employees from the mobile and devices team answer questions.

So there are two community based resources for sharing ideas and finding answers to specific Nokia+Flash Lite related issues. I'll be spending time in both forums to see what I can share as well as learn.

If you haven't yet seen the Sony Ericsson S500i handset and the cool Flash Lite themes it supports then you can watch this video I put together.



It shows how Sony Ericsson is using Flash Lite for creating Flash Lite themes and it's one of the best examples I've seen of an OEM using Flash to creative innovative experiences for their handsets. The S500i comes with 3 Flash Lite themes pre-installed and they're based on Flash Lite 1.1. Besides supporting Flash Lite themes you can also create your own Flash Lite wallpapers and screensavers. It's a GSM based handset and is available world-wide and you can get more information here.

If you have additional questions about how Flash Lite is used on the S500i leave them here.

Think you have a great idea for a Flash Lite game, then find out. Playoo is sponsoring a Flash Lite game contest and up until 15 February 2008 you can enter via one of the three regional categories (Americas, EMEA, Asia). Refer to their site for more information about the contest rules and submission requirements.

Prizes include $5,000 dollars, an Adobe Creative Suite 3 software license, and three O’Reilly books. Your submission is also automatically entered into the parallel Playyoo Games Contest which offers an additional $25,000 in cash prizes.

Entries will be judged by a panel of Adobe, Playyoo, and Flash Lite game developers worldwide based on innovation in concept, game play, graphics, as well as an evaluation of the technical merits of the game, such as memory optimization and loading times. Winners will be announced at the end of February.

There's a new 7 page Flash Lite feature comparison chart (PDF) that compares all of the features and supported ActionScript commands and APIs against the most recent desktop Flash player versions. Information like media support, APIs, system requirements and text support are included.

It provides information on the following Flash/Flash Lite players:

• Flash Lite 1.1
• Flash Lite 2.1
• Flash Lite 3
• Flash Player 7 SDK
• Flash Player 8
• Flash Player 9
  

This is useful if you're a desktop Flash developer who's interested in creating Flash Lite content and want to better understand what features of the desktop Flash player are compatible. It's very handy and what I've done is printed it out and posted it in my cube to easily look up information without having to open up the help files, go to a site or ask someone.

KDDI in Japan has announced their upcoming autumn & winter 2007 collection of devices and all of them have Flash Lite 2.0 pre-installed for supporting downloadable content and personalization. Besides their new handsets having Flash Lite pre-installed, the interactive product experience on their web sites looks like it's using Papervision 3D and Flash 9- pretty cool.

The new handsets include several color variations of each of the following models:

• Infobar 2
• W56T
• W55T
• W54S
• W54SA
• W53H
• W53K

Some of these devices may be using Flash Lite for the UI but I'm not sure - it's something I trying to get more information on and will share once I find out.

There's a handy device table on their site which provides more details about all of their devices including Flash Lite support. You'll notice there's a column that says "Flash Lite" and one of four icons for each handset:

• Black filled circle = Flash Lite 2.0 (includes Chaku-flash support)
• Circle with dot inside = Flash Lite 1.1 (Chaku-Flash support)
• Empty circle = Flash Lite 1.1 (no Chaku-Flash support)
• Dash ('-') = no Flash Lite support
  

While I'm here in Tokyo I'm going to try to see if I can take a look at these devices and to get some ideas of the types of Flash Lite content that local developers are creating.

Less than one week away and I'm really excited to be presenting my session on Flash Lite 3. Lots of very cool things to show besides support for Flash Video which we've already mentioned earlier this year. I will be giving my session twice:

• Monday, October 1 (3:15-4:15pm)
• Tuesday, October 2 (4:00-5:00pm)

Don't forget to sign-up for the other mobile sessions - lots of good topics being presented by some of the best mobile Flash developers today.

Hopefully you've already registered for MAX North America because as of yesterday it's now sold out. This is awesome and the first time it's happened, however if you didn't already register or were planning on registering on site then you won't be able to attend. Don't worry though because I will be posting my presentation around mid-October and I believe the MAX events team is looking at ways to film most of the MAX sessions and to make them available for viewing.

Thanks to everyone that attended my session last Wednesday at Flashforward in Boston. It was great talking to a wide range of people with diverse professions: artists, graphic designers, character animators, Flash developers, and others. The ideas and use cases for Flash Lite varied from person to person and they were all great.

Based on all of the positive feedback from my session I'm posting my presentation here for download (5 MB PDF). There's some new information in my presentation that's pertinent to Flash Lite developers and business decision makers. I'll extract some of these details and make separate blog posts today/tomorrow.

Special thanks to the following individuals for allowing me to show their Flash Lite work during my session: Aral Balkan, i2fly (Vivek), Liz Myers, Moket (Dale Rankine), Shockwave, and Shou Ji Flash (CMCC).

Something interesting and meaningful I found out was that a designer or animator may not be interested in selling their content but instead may want to take their digital portfolio with them and to have it accessible on a non-device, such as a mobile phone (Nokia or Sony Ericsson) or a consumer electronic device (iRiver Clix). This way if they're having a conversation with someone instead of giving them a business card or a web URL to remember they can show them their work right there on a device. Pretty cool idea and I'd be interested to hear if anyone out there today is doing something similar.

Now it's back to preparing for my Flash Lite 3 presentation for MAX North America next week in Chicago - more details soon.

If you're looking for inspiration of how you can make money and succeed with Flash Lite then I recommend you take a look at the Moket case study on the Adobe site. Dale Rankine (CEO and a web/FL developer) started with developing web sites using Flash and Coldfusion and then saw the potential of Flash Lite. He invested time, resources and belief into Flash Lite and now Moket is focusing 100% of their time and projects solely on Flash Lite.

Here are some great stats:

• Increased volume of contributed content to network by 300%
• Engaged 200 developers
• Increased Moket revenue by more than 3,000% in past 12 months
• Increased revenue streams for independent developers

Dale expects the Moket catalog to grow by more than 1,000 assets over the next 12 months - you can be a part of that growth and at the same time make money. You can get more information about the Moket Content Network here.

There are still a few spaces available for the Introduction to Flash Lite 2 session that is being held the day before the official start of the MAX North America conference. If you're getting into mobile this is a great crash course to help you understand the mobile ecosystem, leverage your existing desktop/web skills and find out how to create Flash Lite content.

This is an all day session (9am - 5pm CST) on Sunday 30 September and does require an additional fee to register. You can sign-up for this session when you register for MAX or modify your existing registration.

The Adobe MAX North America conference is one month away and I thought I'd ask you (the community) if you would find it beneficial to have a mobile conference guide for the MAX conference. Something that attendees could reference easily on their phone without having to flip through a printed brochure. For previous MAX conferences and other events (Flashforward, 3GSM, etc...) some Flash Lite developers created mobile conference guides and most of them were really good.

Is anyone working on one? I was thinking about creating one but wanted to see if there were other Flash Lite developers already in the process. Some of the things I'm thinking about are: distributing the app to attendees, providing updates, screen sizes and the addressable devices.

If you're attending MAX North America or Europe and are interested in a mobile version of the conference guide, what are the top 3 features you'd like to have? Leave your ideas in the comments section.

Chances are you've heard about the Chumby, if not you can read about it here. The Chumby is an always on WiFi connected Flash Lite enabled device that allows a user to get the latest information displayed to them via Flash widgets. Information such as gossip, photos, RSS feeds, news, weather, you name it.

Let's say you're a Flash or Flash Lite developer and you want to start creating your own Flash widgets for the Chumby - now you can. The Chumby team is looking for new developers and if you're interested you can contact them directly.

I've been using a prototype Chumby since late last year and just got an updated Chumby that is a bit better in terms of construction and features. It's a pretty cool device and the great thing about it is any Flash or Flash Lite developer can create their own unique Flash widget - either for their own personal use or for other Chumby users to download and install.

The International Mobile Gaming Awards is now accepting mobile games up until 6:00 PM Central European Time 24 September, 2007. You can read the contest rules and regulations and submit your game here when you're ready.

If you've developed or are developing Flash Lite games then here's a chance for you to get recognition and a nice prize if you're game is selected as the winner of the casual game category. So what are the prizes? How about $5,000 USD for the best casual game- not bad.

Some of the sponsors for this years awards are Adobe, Movida, Nokia, AMD, Bella de Mai, Nvidia and Qualcomm.

The winners will be announced on 13th February during the IMGA Awards Ceremony in Barcelona, Spain.

There's an article in the Sydney Morning Herald about Adobe and Flash on wireless on devices that you might want to take a look at which provides some insight into where things are heading.

As of 8 August there are 56 Nokia handsets that have Flash Lite pre-installed, either versions 1.1, 2.0 or 2.1. This breaks down to 33 S60 platform and 23 Series 40 platform models. To get a better sense of all of the models including what versions of Flash Lite they support, addressable screen size and supported content types, you can download this PDF that I created. If you're like me you'll print it out and have it posted in your cube or by your desk for easy reference.

This spec sheet is an aggregation of various data sources including Device Central, Forum Nokia, testing on actual devices and developer feedback.

We're in the process of updating the supported devices and Nokia developer pages on the Adobe mobile and devices dev center with this updated information.

I'll be updating this information about once a month and if you have any ideas of improvements or additional details you'd like to see please leave a comment here. The next update will include handset info for Sony Ericsson and BREW OS devices.

Oh and if you're curious, my two favorite Nokia handsets right now are the N95 and 8600 luna.

If you've developed a piece of Flash Lite content and want to show off your work you can upload it to the Adobe Flash Lite Exchange. This is a great way to get broad exposure of your work and it's absolutely free.

Today there are 170 examples of Flash Lite content that have been created by designers and developers from around the world. All content can be downloaded to the PC by anyone who has an Adobe account. After downloading, the user will have to transfer the Flash Lite files to their handset (that has Flash Lite pre-installed) using Bluetooth, USB cable or other methods.

Uploading your content is free, you only need to provide the following:

• Flash Lite content (SWF, SIS or ZIP)
• Screenshots of your content (JPG)
• Details of your content
• Specify the type of content your uploading, version of Flash Lite and compatible devices
  

Once it's uploaded it will be reviewed by someone from my team and if everything works it will then be made available on the exchange. Anyone who has previously submitted their work can either find it listed in the exchange (if everything worked), or you should have received an email notification with information about what things you need to update/fix in your submission to get it posted.

Here's some good news for a Friday, you can now download device profile update #3 for Device Central CS3. This update includes 49 device profiles: 9 new and 40 updated existing profiles. Make sure you install any previous device profiles sequentially first before installing update #3 - this is because of the updates to device profiles.

If you're interested in what new and updated devices are covered in update #3:

New device profiles

• Nokia 3110
• Nokia 8600
• Nokia E90
• Nokia N76
• Sony Ericsson S500i
• Sony Ericsson W580i
• Sony Ericsson W660i
• Verizon Wireless LG VX 8600
• Verizon Wireless Samsung SCH-A970

Updated device profiles

• DoCoMo NEC N903i
• KDDI Toshiba A5516T
• KDDI Toshiba A5517T
• KDDI Toshiba W21T
• Nokia 6131
• Nokia E61
• Sony Ericsson K600
• Sony Ericsson K600c
• Sony Ericsson K600i
• Sony Ericsson K606c
• Sony Ericsson K606i
• Sony Ericsson K608c
• Sony Ericsson K608i
• Sony Ericsson K610iM
• Sony Ericsson V600i
• Sony Ericsson V800
• Sony Ericsson W300i
• Sony Ericsson W550c
• Sony Ericsson W550i
• Sony Ericsson W600c
• Sony Ericsson W600i
• Sony Ericsson W610i
• Sony Ericsson W710i
• Sony Ericsson W712a
• Sony Ericsson W810i
• Sony Ericsson W830a
• Sony Ericsson W830c
• Sony Ericsson W830i
• Sony Ericsson W850i
• Sony Ericsson W880i
• Sony Ericsson Z800i
• Softbank Toshiba 810T
• Softbank Toshiba 811T
• Softbank Toshiba 813T
• Softbank Toshiba 910T
• Softbank Toshiba 911T
• Verizon Wireless LG VX8100
• Verizon Wireless LG VX8300
• Verizon Wireless LG VX9900
• Verizon Wireless Samsung SCH-A990

Last week was the BREW 2007 developer conference in San Diego and it was a well attended event by BREW developers, content publishers, operators and OEMs. We (Adobe) were a gold sponsor and had a booth presence in addition to 2 speaking sessions regarding Flash Lite for BREW. This was my second BREW developer conference and it was cool to meet and discuss things with other developers and to hear first hand how they develop their BREW applications.

The Thursday session was a panel discussion moderated by Qualcomm that included people me and a person from FunMobility, Shockwave and Smashing Ideas. We discussed several topics that are relevant to the US market and opportunities for Flash Lite developers to make money with the BREW platform. Friday's topic was a joint presentation by Vinay Ramani (PM for Flash Lite) and me and was about "Exploring the Opportunities of Adobe Flash Lite". For those of you who were not able to attend you can download a PDF version of the presentation here.

One great new piece of information that we wanted to share was that as reported by M:Metrics as of April 30 2007, some of the most high revenue generating phones for Verizon Wireless support our Flash Lite for BREW extension. These 13 handsets represent 16 million active Verizon Wireless subscribers.



If you take a look at where when we launched the Flash Lite for BREW extension at MAX last October we had 2 handsets. In 8 months we've certified 11 more and we're still in the process of certifying several more handsets this year. What this means for companies and individuals developing Flash Lite applications and content for Verizon Wireless is there are 16 million Verizon Wireless subscribers that can potentially purchase your applications and content.

One benefit with developing with Flash Lite is you can target multiple devices with the same screen size using one FLA file. In the graphic below you can see how a developer would only need to create 3 FLA files to target all 13 supported Verizon Wireless handsets.



Since the APIs are consistent from device to device and verified through our Flash Lite certification process, this results in less porting and testing which results in cost savings.

Things are looking good for the total addressable market in the US and they're going to get better. Expect more BREW/Verizon Wireless developer related posts this summer.

There's still time to register for this month's online Flash Lite webinar for developers: Best Practices for Performance and Memory for Flash Lite. It's an hour long webinar and will take place from 9-10am PST this Wednesday 27 June.

One of our technical engineers for Flash Lite (Prashant Panigrahi) will be discussing and showing examples of how you can improve your Flash Lite applications and content to better utilize the available memory per handset. Here are some things that he'll cover:

• How memory management and garbage collection work in Flash Lite 2.x
• How you can tune your Flash Lite 2.x application/content to make the most use of the limited memory and CPU cycles on your mobile device.
• Key points to consider for better performance while developing your Flash Lite 2.x applications/content for mobile devices.

This will be a technical presentation but I encourage anyone who's interested in developing Flash Lite applications to attend this webinar. At the end of his presentation there will be some time for a Q&A session. If you're unable to attend you don't have to worry- we will be recording it and making it available online for viewing within the next 2 weeks.

If you have ideas for future Flash Lite online webinars please leave a comment.

If you haven't already heard we've announced our upcoming MAX 2007 conferences - which are Adobe's annual designer/developer conferences. This year we'll have three conferences around the world to allow creative professionals, students and hobbyists to hear from speakers who are very knowledgeable with a wide range of topics including Flash Lite, Flash Cast, AIR, Flex, Flash, Dreamweaver, Premiere, etc... This year will be my 6 MAX US conference and I'm really looking forward to meeting everyone who is interested in developing mobile Flash applications/content as well as hearing from other speakers on what cool things they've been working on.

Here are the dates and locations of the MAX conferences:

• MAX US: Sept 30 - Oct 3 (Chicago)
• MAX Europe: Oct 15 - 18 (Barcelona, Spain)
• MAX Japan: Nov 1 - 2 (Tokyo, Japan)

For the US conference we currently have the following mobile related sessions scheduled:

• 20 Tricks to Improve Flash Lite Development
• Creating Flash Cast Channels for Verizon Wireless
  
• Creating Flash Lite Multiplayer Games
• Designing for Mobile Experiences
  
• Flash Lite 3 Development
• From Desktop to Mobile: New Revenue Opportunities
• Introduction to Adobe Creative Suite 3 Production Premium
  
• Introduction to Flash Lite 2

As the US conference date gets closer we'll be finalizing these sessions and speakers. For the other two regional MAX conferences we're putting together a list of topics to cover but if you plan on attending these and would like to see a specific mobile topic covered, please let me know by leaving a comment here.

Just got it today, will post my review and photos over the weekend. First impressions - small form factor, lightweight, high quality assembly, and the entire touch screen UI is using Flash Lite 2.1.

Today we've made available a preview release of the Flash Lite for BREW Publisher for Flash CS3 Professional and you can more information here. This download is only if you're using Flash CS3 Professional for creating Flash Lite for BREW applications. If you're using Flash 8 Professional you can download the final version of that plug-in here.

Also, please post any questions or comments you have about the preview release update in our Flash Lite: BREW discussion forums.

For those of you who were unable to attend my online webinar yesterday where I walked through the new device intelligence and mobile content emulation features of Adobe Device Central CS3 and the integrated mobile workflow with Adobe CS3 tools, the recorded webinar is now available for viewing.

During the 45 minutes I show how designers and developers can create and test various types of mobile content using Adobe Device Central CS3, Flash CS3 Professional, Photoshop CS3, Dreamweaver CS3, Illustrator CS3 and Bridge CS3.

There were several questions asked at the end of the webinar that I answered, however if you have any additional questions after watching the recording you can leave them here and I'll answer them.

A few weeks ago we announced with ASPire and China Mobile that China Mobile is now offering a Flash Lite content download service for their subscribers. Subscribers with supported handsets can access and download Flash Lite content from five different categories via their Monternet service which is available through their phone's web browser. With over 300 million subscribers for China Mobile there's a lot of opportunity for Flash Lite developers to sell their content to subscribers and we're really excited about the opportunity in China for growing a Flash Lite ecosystem.

You can go to the 1:39:34 time mark in the recorded Adobe financial analyst presentation from 28 March to hear more about China Mobile and their Flash Lite download service.

If you have any questions you can leave a comment and I'll answer them.

Yep, the headline isn't a typo. This past Wednesday during the mobile & solutions portion of the Adobe financial analyst meeting we shared that by 2010 we expect over 1 billion Flash enabled devices to be in market. As you can see from the graphic above, there's a steady trend of increasing handsets shipping with Flash technologies pre-installed. There's also a lot of other good information and details about Adobe's mobile and solutions available for you to watch or download.

You can now download Mobile Device Profile Update #5 for Flash Professional 8 (8.8MB). This is a free update and after downloading the .MXP file you can just double-click the file and it will automatically install the new device profiles into Flash Professional 8 via the Macromedia Extension Manager.

There are 29 new devices (14 Nokia, 11 Sony Ericsson, and 4 BREW) as well as some minor updates to 23 existing devices.

Remember that these mobile device profile updates are not cumulative, so make sure you install updates #1 through #4 first (in that order) and then #5.

Leave comments if you have any questions.

While I was attending the 3GSM conference in Barcelona, Spain from 12-15 February I was able to take a look at the upcoming LG Prada phone. It's a sleek touch screen phone that uses Adobe Flash Lite for the entire UI, including the phone dialer and other applications. You can check out the video here:



I realize that 3GSM was about 1 month ago but I've finally found some time to upload my video and share it with everyone.

If you're interested in creating Flash Lite content for supported Sony Ericsson handsets you can now get more information in the Sony Ericsson Flash Lite development center.

There are 18 devices today that support Flash Lite, whether it's via the browser, wallpaper or screensavers. We'll be adding some new articles and sample files soon but in the mean time you can take a look at the Sony Ericsson Flash Lite 1.1 developer guidelines and a technical article with some sample files.

Also be sure to post your questions in the Adobe Flash Lite: Sony Ericsson discussion forum.

John Nack pinged me today with a link to an article from Japan (English version or Japanese version) about artists who are designing visually stunning wallpapers, screensavers and menus using Flash Lite. It's not that often that these types of imagery for mobile phones is discussed and seen outside Japan and it's great that Sakaguchi-san took the time to share the work of some of the top artists there. Japan has such an expressive and fun culture, you can see creativity all around you from fashion, to entertainment to their mobile phones.

With the upcoming integrated designer features of Photoshop CS3 and Adobe Device Central there will be even more opportunities for designers to easily preview their designs within the aspects of specific devices by designing for specific screen sizes.

One of the most commonly asked questions from developers is "how can I make money with Flash Lite?" Well now there's an answer - Handango.

Handango is the first of several ecosystem enablers that we're partnering with to provide a go-to-market opportunity for developers to sell their Flash Lite application and content for supported Nokia S60 and Series 40 handsets. By working with Handango, developers from around the world can now join the Handango Content Partner Program to participate in the Flash Lite ecosystem.

Handango is one of the leading providers of smartphone content globally and is now working with Adobe to enable developers to make money. Handango handles selling, marketing, distributing, and sales reporting for your Flash Lite applications and content.

So if you have some of your own Flash Lite applications or content that you want to sell, sign-up with the Handango Content Partner Program to get started.

Over the next several months we'll be announcing other mobile aggregators who will further expand the Flash Lite ecosystem.

If you've been interested in taking your existing Flash skills into the mobile space but were waiting for the right time, or you're existing mobile developer who is looking for a robust set of features, now might be a good time. I'm happy to announce that developers and end users can now download the Flash Lite 2.1 standalone player for supported Symbian devices for free!.

If you're not familiar with Flash Lite 2.1, it's based on the Flash 7 standard for content and contains the following features:

• XML Sockets
• Inline text support
• Dynamic XML data
• Device video playback
• Persistent data
• Powerful and dynamic media
• Text enhancements
• Action Script 2.0 support
• Synchronized device sound
• Compressed SWFs

If you have one of the following Nokia S60 handsets you can download a free SIS installer:

Nokia S60 3rd edition
- E50, E60, E61, E62, E70, N71, N72, N73, N75, N80, N91, N92, N93, 3250, 5500, 5500 sport

Nokia S60 2nd edition, feature pack 3
- N70, N90

Nokia S60 2nd edition, feature pack 2
- 6630, 6680, 6681, 6682

Copy the SIS file to your handset and install the player. After it's installed you will find a new icon called "Flash" - this is for Flash Lite 2.1. If you have a S60 3rd edition device you will have Flash Lite 1.1 pre-installed, and will have 2 icons. Both versions of Flash Lite can be on your handset at the same time and Flash Lite 2.1 is backwards compatible with 2.0 and 1.1 content.

A couple of things to mention:

• These new players are not IMEI locked, meaning you don't have to provide your handsets serial number before downloading the installer.
  
• As part of the EULA you agree to not redistribute the installer.
• This is only the standalone player; no other content type (wallpaper for example) is supported in this player.
  

There is additional information you can read about in the Adobe Flash Lite 2.1 Open OS FAQ that's posted on our mobile and devices dev center. There's a lot of good information in there that will answer most of your questions. If you have any additional questions you can post them here and I'll be answering them.

Also we have removed the Flash Lite 2.0 and 1.1 players from the Adobe online store since you can now get Flash Lite 2.1 for free.

Stay tuned, additional Flash Lite news to be posted soon...

As of this evening, the Flash Lite 2.1 for Windows Mobile 5.0 devices is now available for free. This player will work on Windows Mobile 5.0 Smartphone and Pocket PC devices. The Flash Lite 2.1 player is based on the desktop Flash Player 7 and has a lot of features that mobile developers can take advantage of.

Flash Lite 2.1 Standalone Player for Windows Mobile 5.0 Devices
To install the player, download the .cab file from the Adobe site, copy it to your device and finish the installation on your device. Keep in mind that this is a standalone player and not an ActiveX control - meaning that you can view SWF files using the standalone player but not SWF files embedded in HTML pages via Pocket IE.

Flash Lite 2.1 CDK for Windows Mobile 5.0
Download the CDK to get started with developing Flash Lite applications and content specifically for Windows Mobile 5.0 devices. This CDK is an addendum to the existing Flash Lite 2.0 CDK so make sure you have that as well.

Support and questions
First make sure you take a look at the Adobe Flash Lite 2.1 Open OS FAQ for answers to any questions you may have. If you still have questions about the installer, player or CDK you can post them in the Adobe Flash Lite: Windows Mobile forums.

We're looking for the community to contribute sample files (FLA, SWF) to the Adobe Mobile and Devices Developer Center.

You'll notice on the right hand side we have a column for "Community samples". This is where we need your help. Any type of sample file; it can be something basic or complex. An example would be a FLA file that uses a non-English character set for dynamic text.

If you would like to submit a sample file for consideration please email the following:
- the source and completed files
- your contact info (name, email, URL)
- what version of FL your sample is targeted for
- a specific platform (if applicable)

If you're submitting a zip file you'll have to rename it to .zzp so it gets through our mail filters.

Great news! Flash Lite has been nominated for a Developer.com Award in the category of Wireless / Mobile Development Tool / Add-in of the Year.

When you have a moment, please go and vote for Flash Lite. The deadline is Nov 30th and the winners will be announced in Jan 07.

You may have already seen the press release but I wanted to blog it just in case you weren't aware. As of 25 October, Verizon Wireless started to offer Flash Lite applications and content to millions of subscribers who have one of the four supported BREW enabled handsets. This is fantastic news and I'm really excited about this - and you should be too.

Supported BREW enabled Verizon Wireless handsets
Today these four handsets are supported: Samsung SCH-A950, LG VX9800, Motorola RAZR V3c and Motorola V3m. We're working with Verizon Wireless and Qualcomm to certify additional handsets and will list them on our developer site once they're certified.

Flash Lite applications available
There are 8 applications available today:

• The Weather Channel
• MovieGoer
• Jungle Jim
• Extreme Hangman FL
• NBC's The Office Games
• Mini Arcade by Shockwave
• Shockwave Minis Unlimited
• Animated Screensavers

During the day 2 keynote at MAX this past Wednesday, I purchased, downloaded, installed and played "Mini Arcade by Shockwave" live on stage to my Samsung SCH-A950. It was awesome to finally see Flash Lite content running on a US carrier's network.


Here is a video clip of me downloading the Flash Lite game Jungle Jim (created by SkyZone Entertainment) on my Motorola RAZR V3c.

So if you have one of the supported Verizon Wireless phones go to the Get It Now catalog and take a look at these Flash Lite applications. As more applications are made available to consumers I'll be listing them here and also on the Flash Lite for Verizon Wireless Development Center. If you have questions make sure to post them in the Flash Lite for BREW forums.

So with MAX US starting on 24 October I thought it would be good to see if anyone is planning on creating or has already created an event guide using Flash Lite. It can be either Flash Lite 2.0 or 1.1 and would work on any handset that supports Flash Lite, wheter it's pre-installed or using a developer version of Flash Lite player.

You can visit the Adobe MAX US event web site to gather images, schedule, session information and other information you can use in your application.

This is not an official Adobe MAX conference request, instead I thought I'd reach out to the community to see what could be created. Next week I will be adding a page to my site for the downloads of these event guides by the community so anyone can download them. They can be either submitted as a SIS file (Symbian installer package) or SWF file.

If you have any questions about this you can leave a comment. If you want to share your Flash Lite MAX US event guide you can send it to me and I'll upload it to my site (b perry at adobe dot com) for anyone to download.

On the Adobe Mobile and Devices Developer Center we've posted a new white paper (PDF) for Nokia developers interested in learning how to control the Softkey positions for handsets that allow for different screen orientations like the Nokia E70. You can use these with Flash Lite 1.1 and 2.0 content. I'll be posting some sample FLA files next week that demonstrate how to use these new FSCommand2() commands.

There's a brand new Flash Lite article about optimizing your content for OTA delivery up on the Adobe Mobile and Devices Developer Center. Aniway, one of the top Flash Lite development shops in the world shares some very valuable information for those of you who are either new or have some familiarity with various ways to optimize your content - from code to graphics to tweening. This article is applicable for both Flash Lite 1.1 and Flash Lite 2.x content and I highly recommend you even print it out to refer to while you're developing your content.

We've just posted a new technical white paper for optimizing content for Flash Lite 2.0. It's in PDF format that you can use or print out for reference. Even though there's a lot of good information in here for Flash Lite 2.0 content you can still use some of these same best practices for Flash Lite 1.1.

This is the first of several white papers that we'll be publishing for the Flash Lite community and we're interested in additional topics that you would like us to cover. Leave comments below and we'll consider them for future ideas. Also let us know what you think of this whitepaper.

We need your content.

The Flash Lite Quality Assurance team would appreciate being able to run your BREW apps with our final builds. We want to achieve two goals: to increase the quality of the player and to ensure that your apps will run properly on the devices we are certifying.

Please send all content to flashlitebrew at adobe dot com (in a zip file but change the extenstion from ".zip" to ".zzp" so it comes through). Rest assured that this content will never leave our team, be used in any type of marketing materials and it will be treated as highly confidential.

Thank you in advance for your collaboration!

"Persistent Data: Saving User Preferences and Game Scores" is a new Flash Lite 2 article available on the Adobe Mobile and Devices developer center. Written by Mariam Dholkawala (lead Flash programmer for Indiagames) this article contains sample code and technical information about how to implement shared objects for your own purposes.

If you're interested in Flash Lite 2 development, there is a new article (Mobile Charting with Flash Lite 2) up on the Adobe Mobile and Devices developer center written by Peter Baird and Clive Whitear. Included in the article are some new Flash Lite 2 charting components which they explain in detail how to use and customize for your needs.

One cool thing about Flash Lite is how many new handsets that are shipping with the 1.1 player pre-installed. Part of my responsibilities at Adobe is to test existing Flash Lite 1.1 content on new mobile phones, create new content and applications and to share that information with the mobile developer community.

These best practices will soon be provided via white papers, technical articles and sample files. Some of the things that we're documenting include:

• Various screen resolutions (176x208, 240x320, 352x416)
• Screen orientation (portrait vs landscape)
• Location of soft keys
• Consistent API support
• Flash content types supported
• Optimization techniques for various media (images, audio, video)
  

Currently I'm testing on the following Nokia S60 mobile phones: N90, N71, E61, N91, N80, E70, N72, and E60.

If you live in the US and are interested in becoming a certified Adobe Flash Lite 1.1 instructor you can attend a free Flash Lite 1.1: Mobile Application Development (3 days) class in San Jose.

When: June 26th-28th, 2006, 9:00am – 5:30pm PST

Who: Developers who have experience with creating Flash Lite content and instructors who would like to offer Flash Lite 1.1 curriculum to developers.

Registration: Space is limited so make sure you register with James Talbot as soon as possible.

Cost: The cost of this event is free

Where: San Jose at the Adobe headquarters:
Adobe Systems Incorporated
345 Park Avenue
San Jose, CA 95110-2704
(directions)

Today we posted a new Flash Lite article written by Jae Young Chae of Korea about best practices for converting Flash content to Flash Lite 1.1 which is available in English and Korean. In the article Jae discusses how to create an application using AS 2.0 and then how to repurpose it for Flash Lite 1.1.

Back in January of this year when I was traveling through Seoul I had the chance to meet and talk with several Flash Lite developers. One of them was Jae and in my opinion he's one of the best Flash Lite developers in the world. His real world knowledge with using the Flash authoring tool and creating Flash UI and applications for LG handsets is impressive and I'm glad he's able to share some of his experience with developers around the world.

There's still time to register for this month's free Adobe Flash Lite seminar - "Deconstructing a Flash Lite Application". Justin Everett-Church will be presenting this hour long seminar and will discuss a Flash Lite 1.1 application he created and how to convert it to a Flash Lite 2 application.

The seminar will start at 9pm EDT on Wednesday 26 April. If you live in a different time zone you'll have to determine your correct local time.

For those of you who were unable to attend the first Mobile Monday Boston get together yesterday (3 April) you missed 2 very good presentations: Flash Lite and the Nokia S60 web browser. I found out this morning there were over 80 people there and that's a great turnout.

James Talbot (Adobe worldwide instructor focusing on Flex, Flash and mobile and devices) spoke about Flash Lite and Franklin Davis (head of Business Development for Nokia's S60 Web browser) spoke about the benefits and capabilities of Nokia's new S60 web browser.

You can watch a breeze recording of it here. The video is a bit grainy but the audio is fine so you should still be able to follow along.

You might have heard about upcoming handsets from Nokia that will ship with Flash Lite 1.1 pre-installed on them. The first S60 3rd edition devices will be the following:

• 3250 (now shipping!)
  
• N71
• N80
• N91
• E60
• E61
• E70

As each of these handsets become available to market I'll be promoting them on my blog as well as offering some specific tips for creating Flash Lite 1.1 content because of the different screen sizes and orientations.

It's been several weeks since we released the bits for Flash Lite 2 (developer player, mobile authoring update for Flash Professional 8 and new device profiles) and we're interested in seeing any examples of Flash Lite 2 content you have created or something you're working on. If you have something cool please send it to me and perhaps we'll be able to promote your work through various Adobe marketing campaigns. Thanks!

It's taken longer than I wanted to but my "Creating Flash Lite 2 Video Applications" presentation and source files are now available for download (13MB zip file).

I had an awesome time at the webDU conference in Sydney back in early March and the overall vibe from everyone was very positive. Definitely worth checking out next year as I'm sure Geoff and team will do a fantastic job again.

This presentation and source files were meant to give developers an overview about the new device video features in Flash Lite 2 and ideas they can use to start creating their own video based applications.

By the way, I'll be providing more sample files over the next few weeks both for Flash Lite 2 and 1.1.

You can now download the Flash Lite 2 Update for Flash Professional 8 for the following languages: English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Korean, and Japanese.

I wanted to share with you the good news that we now have separate forums for developers to discuss Flash Lite devlopment based on handset manufacturer. As new handsets are released this year with Flash technologies pre-installed and opportunities for developers to sell their content become finalized, developers will have specific questions about developing Flash Lite content for different manufacturers.

To enable the community to both quickly find information that's relevant to what they're working on and to discuss ideas with other developers about the same handset manufacturer, the Adobe mobile and devices forums are now divided into these sections:

• Flash Lite: Nokia (for discussion about Flash Lite on Nokia handsets)
• Flash Lite: Sony Ericsson (for discussion about Flash Lite on Sony Ericsson handsets)
• Flash Lite: Samsung (for discussion about Flash Lite on Samsung handsets)
• Flash Lite: Japan (for discussion about Flash Lite on handsets available in Japan)
• Flash Lite 2 Development (for discussion about Flash Lite 2 development)
• Flash Handhelds (for discussion about Flash on PDA devices)
• FlashCast (for discussion about FlashCast)
• Flash Player SDK (for discussion about Flash technologies on consumer electronic devices)

These are free forums and you can search for any topic you're interested in. If you currently use these forums then you now have more choices, if you haven't yet and are interested in Flash technologies for mobile devices and consumer electronics take a look around.

If you haven't done so already you can go and download the Flash Lite Player 2 for any one of the following supported handsets:
- Nokia 3230, 6260, 6620, 6630, 6670, 6680, 6681, 6682, 7610, N70 and N90

There are two ways you can get the player:
1) Go through the labs site
2) Go directly to the online store

I'd recommend option 1 above ;o)

Keep in mind that the Flash Lite Player 2 you download enables you to start creating and testing Flash Lite 2 content before handsets start shipping with that version of the player pre-installed. This will allow you to get your own content ready to sell when the time is right. Over the next few months I'll be discussing opportunities for developers to monetize their content.

More great news this morning, BenQ Mobile and Adobe have announced that BenQ Mobile will be incorporating Flash Lite technology for their upcoming line of BenQ-Siemens branded mobile phones. BenQ Mobile is moving into the mobile phone marketplace in Asia, Europe and North Latin America.

They types of Flash Lite content include customized user interfaces, enhanced content and browsing. As we have more specific information for developers I'll be sharing that here as well as updating our mobile and devices developer center. The first mobile phones to utilize Flash Lite technology will start shipping in Q4 of this year.

If you do have any questions feel free to leave a comment and I'll reply as soon as I can.

This is awesome news, this morning LG Electronics and Adobe announced that LG Electronics will be incorporating Flash technologies (Flash Lite and Flash Player SDK) into their mobile devices and consumer electronic devices. LG Electronics is one of the largest manufacturers of mobile phones and sell their handsets in various regions around the world.

The good news is the first LG Electronics mobile handsets that integrate Flash technology are expected to ship in April. As we have more specific information for developers I'll be sharing that here as well as updating our mobile and devices developer center.

If you do have any questions feel free to leave a comment and I'll reply as soon as I can.

If you're developing Flash Lite content you may come across various error codes when testing on mobile phones which may look something like "Problem with content: 3".

What do these error codes mean? These correspond to specific error messages that inform the developer what the problem is so they can make the necessary changes to fix their content.

Here are the error codes for both Flash Lite Player 2 and 1.1:

/// Flash Lite 2
1: Out of memory
2: Stack limit reached
3: Corrupt SWF data
4: ActionScript stuck
5: (there is no error code)
6: Bad image data
7: Bad sound data
8: Root movie unloaded
9: (there is no error code)
10: URL too long
11: Insufficient memory to decode image
12: Corrupt SVG data
13: Insufficient memory to load URL

/// Flash Lite 1.1
1: Out of memory
2: Stack limit reached
3: Corrupt SWF Data
4: ActionScript stuck
5: Infinite AS loop
6: Bad JPEG data
7: Bad sound data
8: Can not find host
9: ActionScript error
10: URL too long

Good news, Flash Lite Player 2 is now available in international online stores. This includes APAC customers (Hong Kong, Singapore, New Zealand, and Australia) as well as customers in Brazil and South Africa.

If you live in Korea or Japan and have a supported handset for Flash Lite 2 development (certain Nokia S60) you can send an email for more information on how you can get a Flash Lite Player 2.

Next Wednesday and Thursday (25 and 26 Jan) we'll be having our monthly Flash Lite online seminar. You can get more details and register here. If you've participated in previous seminars you will be familiar with the format. However if this will be your first time you will have the opportunity to hear from our team how to create Flash Lite content using Flash Professional 8 and be able to ask questions during the Q&A session.

It's been a few weeks since we released the preview release of Flash Lite 2 for Flash Professional 8 and I'm interested to see what you (developers) have created.

If you've created any type of Flash Lite 2 content please email me and let me know.

Also we'll be making some new sample files and tutorials available soon for both developers who are new to creating mobile Flash content as well as those of you who are looking for more technical examples.

There have been some questions in the community about whether or not Flash Lite 2 content can be submitted for the Forum Nokia 3rd Edition Challenge, which ends March 30, 2006. The answer is yes, you can submit either Flash Lite 2 or 1.1 content if you've already registered for the challenge.

By the way the registration deadline for the challenge has already passed (December 15, 2005) and if you didn't register you don't have to worry about it.

You can read the official Adobe press release here. This is awesome and it shows the opportunities for mobile Flash developers globally and you can bet we will continue to support efforts for mobile phones and consumer electronic devices by providing updated localized resources throughout the year.

More good news today from Adobe, you can read about it via the official Adobe press release or through other sites.

It's what you've been waiting for, the Flash Lite 2 Update for Flash Professional 8 Preview Release is now available through Adobe Labs. You can learn more about it here and download the developer bits after registering.

Quick overview of what's currently available:

• Flash Lite 2 Update for Flash Professional 8 Preview Release (allows you to publish Flash Lite 2 content and test in the mobile emulator)
  
• Device profile update 2
• Flash Lite Player 2 download (for supported handsets)
  

We also have the following developer resources available to you:

• Dedicated Flash Lite 2 Developer Forum
• Adobe Labs Wiki for Flash Lite 2
  
• Code examples and sample content

We will be adding new examples, sample content and resources over the next few weeks as well as monitoring the Flash Lite 2 developer forum for any questions you may have.

This week we'll be having our monthly online seminar a bit early due to the holidays. On 14 and 15 December I'll be giving a preview of Flash Lite 2.0 by discussing the new features, showing the updated mobile emulator and building a video application using Flash Pro 8 and transferring it to a Nokia handset.

This will also be a chance for you to ask any questions you may have about Flash Lite or Flash on mobile devices in general. Similar to the November online seminar I'll be using live video to show Flash content on the handset.

There are two different times available to accomodate attendees from all around the world. So make sure you register for the event before it fills up.

The iRiver U10 is a fantastic PMP (personal media player) with the UI entirely built with Flash Lite 1.1 and you can also develop your own Flash Lite 1.1 games and animations. You can check it out here - we're also working on localizing this into other languages as well.

We'll be adding more specific U10 content in the near future and would like to hear from you topics you're interested in.

In the mean time you can download some Flash Lite 1.1 content created specifically for the U10 devices from iRiver's new game site and from Modopod.

I have a 1GB version and over the past few weeks have been working on some content that I plan on sharing with everyone. Stay tuned.

Tonight (9-10pm EDT) and tomorrow morning (10-11am EDT) I'll be hosting our monthly online seminar for Flash Lite development and will be discussing the new features of Flash Pro 8 as well as creating some Flash Lite content for a Sony Ericsson W800i handset. This is a chance for you to learn more about creating Flash Lite content and to have your questions answered in real time.

There's still space to register for tonight's seminar, tomorrow's is already sold out ;o). Don't worry if you're unable to attend, the sessions will be recorded and made available on our mobile and devices developer center in a few weeks.

If you're a current Flash Lite developer or interested in becoming one I've got some exciting news for you. Forum Nokia is sponsoring their Series60 3rd Edition challenge for developers to submit their content into one of four categories, one of them being Flash:

• Enterprise applications
• Location aware applications and services
• Mobile Music applications
• Applications using Macromedia Flash

The first place prize for each of the four categories is 25,000 Euros in addition to some othere really cool benefits. You can read more about the specific Flash portion of the contest here and the full competition details over at Forum Nokia.

For the Flash Category you can enter any application that would follow into one of the following genres: gaming, media and entertainment, tutorials and interactive help, personal, enterprise, productivity, experimental or other.

Here are the important dates:

• December 15th: registration ends
• March 31, 2006: deadline for submissions
  
• April 28, 2006: finalists announced (5 per category)
  

You're probably wondering what you need to participate:

• Flash Professional 8 (to create your Flash Lite content)
• Flash Lite 1.1 CDK (to help you understand best practices)
• Supported handset (to test your content on)
  
• Flash Lite 1.1 player (for testing content on your handset)
• Register by December 15th for the competition
  

So what does 25,000 Euros convert to (approximately)...

• 29,000 USD (US Dollars)
  
• 16,800 GBP (Great Britain Pounds)
  
• 49,000 SGD (Singapore Dollars)
• 3.4 million JPY (Japanese Yen)
• 227,000 HKD (Hong Kong Dollars)
  
• 40,000 AUD (Australia Dollars)
• 1.3 million INR (Indian Rupees)
• 1.2 million THB (Thailand Bhat)
• 63,000 BRL (Brazilian Reais)
  

Good luck to everyone and remember to read the details of the challenge for more information. Remember to register by December 15th - you have until March 31st to submit your final content. If you have any questions you can leave a comment and I'll reply.

With MAX a week away I thought it would be a good time to ask the community the following two questions:

1) If there were a Flash Lite conference guide for MAX would you use it?
2) If you've created one would you mind sharing it?

If you've created a conference guide and would like to share it please send it to me (bperry at macromedia dot com). We're looking for a few good conference guides to promote during MAX and afterwards in various marketing efforts.

Also if you're planning on attending MAX and have a supported Flash Lite handset leave a comment - thanks.

The Macromedia Mobile Users Group in Boston is sponsoring a Flash Lite Application Contest - full details here. It's open to anyone in the world and all submissions must be new and not publicly available. Contest ends 11pm EDT 25 Nov with winners being announced the first week of December.

It's great to see the community have contests like this and to encourage developers to create new Flash Lite content. I anticipate there being other contests in other geographies over the next several months - stay tuned.