Feb

15

Posting will be lite over the next week because I am traveling out to the Bay area. First, San Francisco, then down to the valley. Too bad Mobile Monday already happened this month.

I am downloading some apps from the newly launched Macromedia Flash Lite Exchange to take with me on the plane. Hopefully I can get through my backlog of email, feeds, and podcasts. Ever have the feeling you need a vacation just to catch up.

Feb

14

Nokia announced today that it has licensed the Exchange parts of ActiveSync from Microsoft. Guess that answers some of the questions the community has had of late regarding Nokia’s lack of evolution regarding sync.

Reading into it, me thinks that Nokia is concentrating on syncing over the air. I can see the validity here. Although I still think tethered sync is an essential piece of sales right now. Why? One word, music. Of course I have to mention the phenom of the iPod. Clearly people want to take music with them. Meaning off of their computer. In the short term Nokia needs to do something to enable this to happen. Buy Palm just for the desktop app, if anything! Their current sync app doesn’t do this well, especially compared to the iPod and MS Smartphones.

Over-the-air is nice. Wish they would have just developed something around SyncML instead. Guess that might be a dead standard now. They say they will still support OMA for non-Exchange users. Maybe they’ll announce something else during 3GSM regarding tethered sync. I agree with Russell that this is a huge selling point, possibly one of the biggest data related selling points right now. Guess this is one area where Mac users luck out. iSync on my Powerbook works better at syncing my phone to my data than the Nokia application for PC does. There has to be someone at Nokia that gets this and is just not being heard. This is common sense right? It could be that people there have more vision than I do and I am thinking way to short term. Maybe, but I think they are leaving money on the table, even if it is just short term.

Feb

14

There is a new Macromedia DevNet article deconstructing an app built in Flash Lite to make using the Google SMS based search easier. Mads breaks down how the interface was put together and how it works with the Google SMS search. One thing I really would emphasize about the article is the part where Mads talks about remapping the soft keys. I tend to think all Flash Lite apps (minus games maybe) should use soft keys just like every other Series 60 app. I’m afraid if everyone makes their Flash Lite apps go full screen then Flash Lite is going to get a reputation for hijacking the user experience that is common on the handsets. I think there are uses for going fullscreenâ??as mentioned, games. However most apps should not change what the user is used to. Flash Lite has a very easy method for using the soft keys, its a key development point to learn how to use them accurately. Great article in all. Great app to use as well.

Feb

14

Macromedia have announced the winners of the Flash Lite contest. Some really good examples of what can be done with Flash Lite. I have yet to run across a similar page like this J2ME, SVG-T, etc… I am sure there is one out there. I’ll have to check around the Sun site and look for one. I like the broadness demonstrated here by all of the winning apps. Of course some I grok more than others, but regardless of my preferences, this page clearly shows the broadness of what Flash Lite 1.1 can accomplish. Congrats to all the winners, this has been a slow going start to Flash Lite, but I think the momentum has finally gotten going. Hopefully there will be more from 3GSM today in regards to Flash Lite announcements.

Feb

11

Macromedia has also announced the listing of the Flash Lite player in their online store. That means anyone with a compatible handset can purchase the Flash Lite player for US $10.

If you have a compatible handset (such as a Nokia) and you know Flash then you might want to purchase the player and test out developing some SWFs to run on your phone. Keep in mind its like developing Flash 4 content, but still.

So I think it is safe to say that distributing the Player and recent licensing agreements with OEMs means the carrier licensing approach just wasn’t going to work. Carriers just aren’t able to grok data unless its video and audio I guess. Maybe someday.

Feb

11

Finally! This is the announcement regarding Flash Lite we have been waiting for. Macromedia has finally licensed the Flash Lite player to Nokia for embedding into Series 60 devices and beyond. This means Nokia phones will ship with the Flash Lite player installed with the OS. Congratulations Macromedia!

Flash Lite really is pretty amazing on the handsets. It’s still in an infant stage, but the potential to advance to the next version probably just got accelerated. I can’t wait to see the first new phone announced from Nokia with the Flash Lite player listed as a feature on the Nokia product page. This really is a big announcement. Millions of phones will now have the ability to play Flash Lite content. Everything from games to screensavers.

Wish I were over in Cannes to hear all of this announced in person. Amazing deal. One that I think Nokia somewhat needed. They are announcing some pretty big development oriented features as of late. First the Python runtime, now Flash Lite. One way to accelerate sales of the handsets is to allow developers to more easily and rapidly create applications. Python and Flash Lite do that.

Next is a deal to get Flash Lite onto MS phones and we’ll have a real race to ubiquity. J2ME is clearly the winner so far, but with the DoCoMo deal, now Samsung, and Nokia, if Macromedia can get a deal with MS, they would be doing pretty well at making Flash Lite a real mobile player.

This is fantastic Friday news. More to come even. One last time, CONGRATULATIONS Macromedia, and Nokia too!

Feb

3

All About Symbian has a great article about a program called ‘Symbian Signed’. The idea is that applications need to be certified before they can be installed on Symbian phones. Currently the OS just displays a security message if an application is not signed. In the future that may go away and the phone simply won’t let you install signed apps. Problem is getting your apps ’signed’ costs money. Most developers (myself included) won’t pay to have an app signed, we’ll just leave the platform and move onto another that is more developer friendly. Even if you are just a Flash developer and don’t create apps for phones, go check this out. If system’s start getting locked down in the face of viruses, malware, spyware, etc., we developers might have to work for only large software companies that can afford the certification fees. This is stifling to open source and to the software market in general.

Feb

2

Symbian OS v9 announced

February 2, 2005 | 4 Comments

Interesting stuff in this article regarding Symbian OS v9. Couple things that stuck out to me. First, the OS could be optimized for Intel processors. So we could see a Symbian phone with as much horsepower as a Smartphone or Pocket PC. That to me is good news. Second is a couple statements regarding multiple UIs, customized by carrier/vender/oem. This is a little scary depending on how it is deployed. If implemented correctly and deployed (maybe matching hardware profiles) this might not be a bad thing, as long as user friendly-ness is the key.

Lastly is the virus/safety paradigms. This I find interesting. One statements says “Symbian has restricted an app’s ability to access data and services it shouldn’t.” This scares me as a developer. It conjures up a sense of anger that I won’t be able to create an app that can use data from the address book etc… Kind of stifling, but I won’t try and predict what that statement means technically. Actually I can’t wait to see it. I’m due for a new Symbian device, not sure that I can wait for an OS 9 device. Wish we knew when they would hit.

Some time soon I need to do my post dissecting the differences between the MS and Symbian UIs and some of the functionality of the two and how they differ. Stay tuned…

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