My Blog on “Flash Lite in the Mobile World”
Today we had a very good guest Speaker in our Multimedia Pioneering class: James Eberhardt. James is the Director of Technology in marblemedia and has been developing media for 10 years… He gave us a very interesting presentation on mobiles and the most popular mobile technologies.
The current mobile landscape
1) SMS and MMS
The most widely used mobile application is text-messaging. SMS stands for Short Message Service and is text only (not formatted)… MMS stands for Multimedia Message Service and it adds images, videos and audio. Charges apply to each message. One very impressive example of how widely text messaging is being used is American Idol, where 64 million people voted using this method knowing that they’re charged for it!
I personally use text messaging as a way to communicate and pass along information…. In general, SMS is a great technology, but it has its limitations.
2) WML, HTML and CSS
WML stands for Wireless Markup Language and is based on XML. WML is a content format for devices that implement the WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) specification, such as mobile phones, and preceded the use of other markup languages now used with WAP, such as XHTML and even standard HTML.
WMLScript is the scripting language used in WML pages (it’s similar to JavaScript)… In general, we can say that it’s easy for web developers to migrate to this technology.
One of the issues with WML is that it is very limited and the designs and graphics are restricted…
3) Java Applications
Java is the first widely used mobile technology and it’s widely distributed across cell phones. We find it mostly in games (where the market is “casual gamers”) and it is flexible since it doesn’t require a web browser. However, it requires the developers to have deeper knowledge on Java, therefore making the development more costly, with longer timelines and another disadvantage is that it is required to build multiple java applications for each for each target device. Nevertheless, it is a good distribution model to make $$.
4) GPS (Global Positioning System)
GPS is currently the only fully-functional satellite navigation system. More than two dozen GPS satellites are in medium Earth orbit, transmitting signals allowing GPS receivers to determine the receiver’s location, speed and direction.
GPS is one of the more exciting technologies that some cell phones can do. It is possible to link GPS to a Java application on a user’s GPS enabled device (such as a cell phone or a PDA).
Some examples of very interesting applications using GPS are the virtual audio tour of an historical landmark (such as Fort York in downtown Toronto), and Google Maps which are used to display the current location without having to type it.
As “stand-alone”, GPS are expensive devices… but the cool thing is that they’re available right away and there is no need of purchasing a service as well.
Another interesting discussion that came up during this GPS topic was how GPS can become very big for marketing purposes! Particular stores could take advantage of the technology and when a person walks in front of the store, the “possible potential client” would get an ad for a sale or discount! How more controlling could it get!??
5) Flash Lite
James explained to us what Flash Lite is and a little bit of its history…. In general, Flash Lite is a scaled down version of the Flash Player and is designed to run on devices with slow processors and limited memory.
A more formal definition (by Wikipedia): Adobe Flash Lite is a lightweight version of Adobe Flash Player optimized for mobile phones and other devices.
Flash Lite 1.1 supports Flash 4 ActionScript. It introduced HTTP access (a main difference with Flash Lite 1.0).
Flash Lite 2.0 was introduced in January 2006. It is based on Flash Player 7 and supports Flash 7′s more powerful ActionScript 2.0. It includes the concept of shared object (cookies), XML Processing support and it has more system capabilities information…
Both versions also support the W3C Standard SVG Tiny. The advantage over SVG is the ability to add audio and interactive elements without the use of other technologies such as Javascript. Among the disadvantages it can be mentioned that Flash Lite applications are not capable of communicating with Bluetooth, infrared, or the camera on a phone.
Flash Lite 2.1 can be installed “OTA” (Over-The-Air) on supported phones on the Verizon network, and it’s freely available for other supported phones (such as Nokia S60 3rd edition phones).
The devices… phones and much more!
In general, we can build Flash Mobile content for….
- cell phones
- mp3 players
- PSPs (http://www.yourpsp.com)
- PDAs
- The Jaguar car has an interface for the dashboard control…
(More info on Opera: Opera is a cross-platform web browser and Internet suite which handles common internet-related tasks including visiting web sites, sending and receiving e-mail messages, managing contacts, chatting online and displaying Widgets. Opera’s lightweight mobile web browser Opera Mini and most current versions of its desktop application are offered free of charge.)
Flash Mobile Marketplace
Different players…. There is no support for Flash Player 8 on mobile devices yet!
The iPhone is coming!! Steve Job’s quote affirming that we would be able to surf YouTube on the iPhone was discussed…. However, YouTube uses Flash… hmmm
As a conclusion, Flash is a great technology getting more and more popular and successful in mobile devices…. many flash designers are already working on website for desktops, so it makes it easier to use and create new interfaces… Oh! And something to keep in mind when showing off the features and great technology on our cell phones is the bandwidth costs: Flash content downloads are VERY expensive! (just using Google Maps for a couple of minutes can be very costly!)
Links:
http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=1959
