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Jens C Brynildsen has published a nice review of SWF2Go Professional. He discusses how a total newbie to mobile development can start using Flash Lite with SWF2Go.

SWF2Go is a really niche product that proves the size and variety of the Flash Platform. It’s software that will let you make signed SIS installers that makes distributing your Flash Lite applications for Nokia phones really easy.

Thanks Jens for your nice words

Read the complete review on FlashMagazine.com

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I just noticed that my recently posted Flash Lite project Oxygen is now featured as FN.Wiki article of the week. Yay!

I have some stuff for this month as well, so keep watching.

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Forum Nokia has launched a new Flash Lite Developer’s Library. It is available as online version as well, as download-able offline version.

The library feature great information about Flash Lite implementation on Nokia devices.

The library features Getting Started section for beginner, information about Flash Lite versions and their supported features.

There’s also information about making a Hello World application from start to finish.

The good thing about this library is, it also features information about advanced use of Flash Lite. Like making a custom C++ stub application to start the Flash Lite application from menu. And packing applications into SIS.

Download offline version from here.

Or check the online version here.

// chall3ng3r //

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I have just released a new project on Forum Nokia Wiki. Its a free source set of components for Flash Lite.

See the original post on my FN.Blog

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After getting news from Alessandro’s blog, I checked if its available for my device. Result was positive

So, I just flashed it to latest firmware v21.0.016. The overall upgrade experience was cool. I was just a bit scared of internet connectivity, as my connection sometimes get dropped (You know WiMAX) for few minutes, as the provider is doing some updates to WiMAX network.

Now I will be able to do some Flash Lite 3 and WRT stuff on my N95. Cool!

Its good to see Nokia is including Flash Lite updates in firmware releases. I hope to see the trend going forward with S40 and other OEMs as well.

// chall3ng3r //

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Yes, thats true. 2GB of free space from Adobe. Plus an online version of Photoshop to fix / enhance your photos.

Update: New screenshot

So far it feels like a great service. On some blogs I read an impression maybe its too late for such service where there are already number of other services with similar features.

Well, I think coming late in scene have its disadvantages, but the biggest benefit could be, learning all the good things from earlier services. And offer something which users are expecting — Just like Microsoft did by bringing Silverlight, learning everything from Flash.

At this time, beta of service is ready. You can start here.

// chall3ng3r //

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Bill from Adobe posted couple of great news on his blog. According to first one, Microsoft licenses Flash Lite 3 and Reader LE from Adobe to put on Windows Mobile devices. This is a great news for Flash Lite developers.

I have been asking this to Adobe for long time, and its great to hear, the time has come

It will take a while before we see any Flash Lite enabled Windows Mobile devices, but I’m hoping to see some soon.

According to other post, there are now more than half a billion Flash Lite enabled devices out there. Thats a big round number!

I think its time for Flash Lite developers to start making some cool Mobile Web experiences for Flash Lite enabled devices.

// chall3ng3r //

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I almost forgot it. 12, March 2007, the day we published first version of SWF2Go Professional.

Its one year now!

Its been a great year for Flash Lite developers as well as SWF2Go. We have been watching great success stories from users who have been using SWF2Go for their Flash Lite games and applications.

SWF2Go 1.5 also added support for Flash Lite 3.0, as well as Symbian Signed certification. There are now great Flash Lite applications available via Nokia Download! service as well as on other networks. Which is all good. We wish to see many more soon.

Here, I am excited to let everyone know that we are working on next major update of SWF2Go Professional. It will introduce many cool new features and ability to extend Flash Lite capabilities

On behalf of Orison Team, I’d to thank all the great customers who have been using SWF2Go, and their support for continued development of SWF2Go.

A small gift: Use the coupon code “BUNNY” on SWF2Go checkout page to get 15% discount. This offer will expire after one week. So, grab your copy now!

Stay tuned for updates!

// chall3ng3r //

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I watched the keynote live from visitmix.com, and was thrilled to see great demonstrations done with Silverlight 2.0.

I was just waiting for the mobile part of the Silverlight. There were two demos of Silverlight Mobile, one on a Windows Mobile 6 device, and other was on Nokia N95 8GB. Both applications looked great.

The on-demand stream of the keynote is now available, you can watch the entire keynote, or if you want to just skip to the Silverlight Mobile part, goto 2:12 time, where the demo of the two mobile applications were shown.

You can download Silverlight Beta 1 from Silverlight website, and also download the SDK and tools to develop Silverlight applications from the tools section.

If you are unaware of what is Silverlight, you might also want to take a look at this overview.

MS also released beta version of IE8, which some cool new features. For example, Activities and WebSlices. I really enjoyed the WebSlices idea. Check out the IE8 website for more.

Unfortunately, Silverlight Mobile beta was not released, but there’s a recent update on MIX website about new sessions for IE8 and Mobile.

I’m currently scheduling downloads in my download manager. I’ll post some experiments with Silverlight 2.0 soon.

// chall3ng3r //

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WOW, Nokia and Microsoft getting together to put Silverlight on Nokia devices. This includes Nokia S60, S40 and Tablet (Maemo) devices. Thats really cool!

Nokia’s official press release is here.

Here are some notable excerpts from deferent sources:

The expectation is that Silverlight will be embedded on new Nokia devices and downloadable to those already in the market.

^ view source

At MIX, Nokia will demonstrate Silverlight applications on its Series 60 and Series 40 handsets, and announce a beta program for its runtime. Phones with Silverlight should be on sale from the end of this year.
…
Microsoft will be developing a portability kit so Nokia can port Silverlight from the desktop to its mobile platform; that kit eventually will be available to other handset providers as well, Honeybone said.

^ view source

Microsoft chose to work with Nokia because it has the largest market share of mobile phones, but it will sign on with other handset makers to create ports of Silverlight, Case said.

All the main features of Silverlight, including video and interactive Web application development, will be included in all mobile versions.

But there will be some device-specific restraints, which means Microsoft will create editions of Silverlight for different mobile platforms, he said.

^ view source

Support for S40 platform is great move. So, Nokia making Silverlight to their own proprietary S40 platform means other companies can do it as well = more number of devices from mid-level to high-end smartphones.

Microsoft is now looking quite aggressive with Silverlight strategy, which is a good sign. Its always good to have competition.

My thoughts about Flash Lite and Silverlight Mobile

Adobe Flash Lite is here for long time, but it has been moving forward really slow. We have seen three updates to Flash Lite from 2003, but all the updates focused on performance and memory management, except from Flash Lite 1.x to 2, which added AS1/2 support.

Flash Lite is implemented in deferent modes. Which include wallpaper, screensaver, MMI/Phone menu system (Man Machine Interface, only available to OEMs), and standalone. The standalone implementation is something which offer developers to make applications and casual games, but its very much limited with access to device specific functions, like simple File I/O.

Recently released Flash Lite 3 adds FLV video support, but it adds limitation for application to be local-only or network-only. Applications made for Flash Lite 1.1 and 2 which use network fails silently on Flash Lite 3.

The other limitation is Flash Lite player available from Adobe is for developers “only”. Developers cannot distribute it with their games / applications or suggest users to download from Adobe’s website. They have to wait for a year or so, for devices to come with pre-installed version of Flash Lite that application requires.

Adobe have two big products (Flash Cast and Flash Home) which are based on same Flash Lite technology, but targeted towards mobile operators. Not available to developers, even for development.

For what I see is, Flash Lite standalone was developed to prepare developers for Flash Cast and Flash Home products. Flash Lite does not feature proper pack-and-distribute system, like J2ME, PyS60 and now Nokia’s WRT have. But there are solutions like SWF2Go, to tackle that.

Microsoft is coming from behind, and they have been learning from mistakes Macromedia/Adobe made in past. Silverlight Mobile can learn a lot from J2ME and Adobe’s Flash Lite *experiment*.

In another article, I found that Silverlight will eventually come as offline as well, just like AIR. So, we can expect an offline version of Silverlight Mobile as well.

I’m now waiting for the beta version of Silverlight Mobile *runtime* to see what it have to offer for developers.

This post looks a bit anti-Adobe, but its a fact that I’m a long-time Flash / Flash Lite developer and I hope Adobe could see what I have been trying to highlight here

// chall3ng3r //

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