Dec

27

If you are on T-Mobile and things haven’t been working right for a month (since Dec. 1), look here for an explanation.

Why this sucks: I have been testing Flash Lite now for a while and I am on T-Mobile. I have the unlimited data plan, so I wasn’t affected, however other testers where simply on the T-Zones plans and noticed that apps weren’t able to connect to servers anymore. Bottomline: Flash Lite (along with many other technologies including J2ME – and now Python!) rely on HTTP as a protocol to do client-server transactions. T-Mobile just stopped these apps from working. By limiting their gateway to only handle WAP requests, Flash Lite and other apps can no longer make simple client-server calls.

The issue really isn’t technical, it’s the marketing. T-Zones is marketed as an internet option for your service plan. It’s not really. It allows SMS messages and some WAP browsing via the T-Zones portal. Again, I have the unlimited account, but most users will probably be confused as to why their J2ME game requires a $19.99 a month data plan and why their Flash Lite eBay apps does as well, once Flash Lite is out. Maybe T-Mobile should consider opening it back up and just putting a cap on the number of MBs used per month.

T-Mobile, please don’t disciminate my data. Freedom for all data protocols.

Dec

20

Macromedia is hosting a Flash Lite contest to help promote Flash on mobile device platforms. Recently, they opened a beta program for Flash Lite on the Series 60 platform. If you would like to enter the contest there are instructions on the page on how to request the player for your handset for development purposes.

Flash Lite has a lot of promise. It’s a fairly easy development environment, unless of course you are used to the scripting syntax from Flash 5 and above. The main Flash authoring environment is used and you publish against a Flash Lite profile. Because the Flash Lite player is based on the Flash 4 player, the profile you publish as is basically Flash 4 with some extra hooks built in for the mobile platform. Going back to Flash 4 syntax is kind of hindering for experienced Flash developers. New comers to the technology should see it as being much easier to pick up than other popular mobile technologies, like J2ME however.

If you have the Flash Authoring Environment and a Series 60 phone, give it a try. I’ll be posting examples soon of some of the things I have built for the FL1.1 player. I am anxious to see some of the game examples that are going to come from this contest.

Note: I’ve seen some comments regarding the legalese of the contest rules. I’m sure MM are not out to screw people, I think they just want to be able to show the apps as examples. What better way to promote a product, than to show it in a real-world use. If you are that concerned about them having rights to your product, then don’t bake everything into it. Just submit an alternate “mini” version. Then still hold onto the rights or your “real” application. What better way to promote your full blown app, than to win their contest with your “trial” version or something.

Dec

15

ITFacts has had a lot of good mobile stats lately. I meant to post earlier, but I’ve been on a crazy project deadline. Anyway:

167 Million Phone sold in Q3 2004
40% of US Teenagers are mobile subscribers
1.5 bln mobile subscribers globally, 310 mln in China, 44.5 mln in India, 60 mln in Russia
Only 4.7% of US cellular revenues come from data
113 3G networks deployed globally
Global mobile phone sales to grow 20% in 2004

See the progression. Millions of phones sold each quarter. Teens are the early adopters. Billions of people already using mobile phones. Data useage is still in its toddler stage. Faster bandwidth is coming. Sales continue to grow. Awesome!

Dec

7

Well I’m not on Weight Watchers, so I don’t have any real world experience with this app, however it is a perfect example of what I see as the first successful apps in the mobile space. It makes no difference that it is only for Palm currently, I am sure it can be ported to Windows Mobile and Symbian devices, and even refrigerator screens. The point is that the app acts as a little companion to an app you use regularly when sitting in front of your desktop PC. In this case, you are on the go eating at a restaurant and need to check to see if something is OK for your diet, voila. Great use of a mobile device.

Update: Mauricio just sent me a note that there is a post on Geekzone about this app, and it includes a screenshot.

Dec

7

Engadget is covering a story from the UBS conference this week quoting the new Chairman and CEO of Warner Music Group, Edgar Bronfman Jr., as saying that he sees mobile phones as the only real threat to the iPods dominance in portal music. Have to say that I agree. As does Russell.

Apparently at Mobius, the annual Microsoft invitation only event, there was some talk about hard drive equipped phones coming out next year possibly. Now I just need ActiveSync to sync my MSN Music purchases to my devices and I’ll be all set. I can’t imagine that Apple isn’t coming out with a phone with a hard drive. They have to see convergance at some point down the road, right? At some point maybe I’ll write up the experience between syncing and listening to music on my Pocket PC Phone Edition vs. my iPod.

Dec

3

Playboy has contracted Dwango wireless to build some mobile games, videos, and other content for their brand. OK, so the male in me says: “it would be nice to work on that account.” When I worked at Zing Networks [now part of Ofoto] in San Francisco, we developed content for Bikini.com. Konrad, one of our Flash designers, was so lucky. I’m getting off track. That is enough testosterone fueled blogging for now, on to the real point of this post.

The mobile business person in me thinks: “who are they going to make this available to?” I can see selling the ringtones, videos, and Java games via Handango or something I guess. But the real money would be to get it on the Verizon network or maybe Sprints. My guess is that adult material isn’t currently available on those networks. I’m sure Playboy did their homework, or at least Dwango did, and they know where/when/how they are going to make millions off this. Hell, just releasing a simple slide-show app with their images embedded into it would sell tons. Slap it together in J2ME (easier iny Flash Lite if it were available), make it flexible so add-on packs can be purchased, and voila. A billion dollars!

I wonder if there is any possibility I could work on a Playboy Flash Cast channel? Hmmm…..

Dec

3

I work from my home and one of the biggest benefits is being able to listen to music all day long. I’ve always been big into independent (i.e. “alternative”) music. When did it change from alternative anyway? I digress. So my wife, God bless her, bought me a subscription to Listen.com’s Rhapsody service when we moved into the new house and I started working from home. At first I thought, well that is probably cool for last year’s pop music, but I was so wrong. It totally rocks! I’m streaming The Killers new album right now. There is new and old, but really deep into each genre too. So we pay a monthly subscription fee, have one log in that we can use from any machine that has the client installed on it, and then can browse this huge amount of music, that we can then stream and listen to. Awesome! I know this is not a new concept, but I have found some new bands recently and am just really into this service right now. Had to give some props to the service. I was never really into the whole Napster, download MP3 thing, simply because I like to have the whole album not just the popular tracks.

This totally works for me. If you haven’t checked it out and you want a service to listen to a plethora of music while sitting in front of a computer, check it out. Another free solution that Russ has been using lately is Launch, built into the Yahoo! Messager client. I haven’t really checked out the selection on it yet, but one thing I like about that is being able to share what you are currently listening to with the buddies on your list. One thing I do on my mac is run the script that displays what is currently playing in iTunes in my iChat status. I wish I could do something similar with Rhapsody. I’ve discovered some great bands by seeing what my “buddies” were listening to through their Yahoo! or iChat status. Listen.com, are you making a solution for this? It will do nothing more than promote your service. Orkut and other social networking apps could build this in as well. This would be my biggest request of social networking.

Dec

2

Microsoft has launched its free Blogging service this morning, called MSN Spaces. There is a video demo here.

Looks like a cool start to a public blogging service. Although I think I’ll stay with my personally hosted site. Robert Scoble offers a good unbaised opinion of the service. I respect that although Robert works for Microsoft, he still offers his unbiased opinions of their offerings. That is very cool.

Of special note to me is a little discovery that they already have a mobile template set up for the “spaces.” It’s pretty simple, looks to be maybe XHTML, but with no declaration. Sadly, there is no automatic detection set up for devices. Visiting the domain from a Pocket PC should dump me right into the mobile template, however it does not and loads the default desktop page which is unusable on a Pocket PC really. It’s still beta, hopefully they add this and support for Smartphones as well.

Dec

1

Sony Ericsson’s V800 is a new phone being released in Europe and has Flash Lite 1.1 installed on it out of the box. This is the first phone to be released with the player embedded in ROM. David has posted in the Macromedia Flash Lite forums some specs about the player on the device. In short, he says that the player runs as a browser plug-in rather than a standalone player. Because of this it can not go fullscreen. He does mention that compared to another S60 device running the standalone player that the performance is rather dismal. There is always room for improvement, I guess.

It’s hard to keep straight all the devices that are supported, which ones have a standalone vs. a browser plug-in, which ones are 1.0 vs. 1.1. Flash Lite isn’t the only mobile technology to have this problem. Eventually things will even out and technologies will emerge and consolidate. Until platforms stabilize and hardware gets faster, I think we are going to be in for some confusing times, both as developers and consumers.

Dec

1

I have a dilemma. Its a good dilemma, but still. I am in the market for a new MS Smartphone with 2003, Bluetooth, and .NET CF installed in ROM. The Motorola MPx220 is available now (unlocked). Or there is the super sweet Audiovox SMT5600 (not available currently unlocked as far as I know.) So the dilemma is, do I wait to order an unlocked 5600 from an overseas vender, or until there is an unlock code available? Or do I just rush out to get the really nice MPx220?

Both are really nice phones and I need to upgrade from my 2002 HTC Tanager. I really want to try some .NET CF development on the Smartphone platform. I already have done some on my Pocket PC Phone Edition, but the Smartphone is a little more of an intriguing platform to me (at the moment.)

For example, I would like to make a similar app in .NET CF as I have done in Flash Lite, utilizing the eBay Web Service. Mostly, I want to do it just so I can see the differences in development for the two environments.

We are starting to finally see the platforms cater to the development community. Nokia is preparing Python, MS have the .NET CF in ROM. Macromedia is licensing the Flash Lite player to carriers and have announced a developers program. Guess the carriers and OEMs are figuring out that no one is going to use these hyped data services when there really is no data other than email, and that is what monochrome screens and Blackberrys are for. Don’t get me wrong there is content out there. I have a portal running at this very domain for S60 and MS devices, but compared to the Web., mobile users experience a real glut in available content and services. One of my short term goals is to build some services for mobiles. They may be Web driven (XHTML-MP), some will certainly by Flash Lite, and others may be .NET CF. I am thinking of things like an eBay assistant for when you are away from your machine. Something simple that allows you to look up song lyrics on your phone. Keep track of your golf score while on the course and sync it to an online database for later analysis. I keep a list. Now I just need the time to build all of this stuff. Perhaps someday my full time job will be seeing these ideas come to fruition.

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