Welcome to Flash Lite 3

Fellow, Flash mobi-Lites … Welcome to the world of Flash Lite 3 development!know

Yes … if you hadn’t heard yet, the Developer’s Edition of the Adobe Flash Lite 3 player is now up on Adobe Labs.

For those new to Flash Lite and mobile, you can essentially think of this as a “Flash 8″ player optimized for mobile … although, (as you might expect): there are player restrictions, enhancements, etc to fit the mobile world and all it’s intricacies and nuances.

Version 3.0 … so where we at?
So essentially over the past few years we’ve seen Flash Lite 1.x (”Flash 4/5″), to Flash Lite 2.x (”Flash 7″), to now Flash Lite 3 (”Flash 8″).

I know what you’re thinking … when do we seen desktop and mobile converge in terms of player capabilities … honestly, I don’t have an definitive answer.

However, what I can say, is that the idea is to target as many devices as possible on market!

If Adobe only targets 1% of the market that can run Flash Player 9 (like the Nokia N810, for instance), this doesn’t represent a good way of getting the player out there nor generating a global ecosystem, now does it!

So, like it or not … Flash Lite is still the best alternative in today’s mobile world.

I would suggest that if you’ve been putting off waiting for “Flash 9″ capabilities, or Flex for mobile … you may want to rethink that strategy …

The time to get in, is now (IMHO). And, with that said …

For those that are new …
For those new to the Flash Mobile world, Adobe created a resource earlier this year: Getting Started with Flash Lite which has some info to get you going … there are tons of resources online now for learning Flash Lite!

About the new Player
In regards to the Flash Lite 3 player … please bare in mind that this Developer Edition of the Flash Lite 3 standalone player is certified only for the Nokia N95 only right now (see below for what’s supported, currently), but is otherwise not IMEI locked (although it does have the legacy “nag” screen imployed until the player actual ships (see above, for picture)).

This edition of the player can be used for development and testing purposes before the full-version of the commercially available Flash Lite 3 player ends up on shipping devices (estimated Q1 2008 for Nokia S60 devices).

BTW: There’s a FAQ and release notes over on labs for questions, if you have immediate queries, about this latest player.

I would consult both these resources before asking specific questions on the Flash Lite 3 Developer Edition forum, which has just been newly created.

Here are some highlights from Bill Perry’s post (with my comments added):

Developer Edition only
This Flash Lite 3 player is for developers only and is not for end-users (consumers) and can not be distributed with any Flash Lite content.

This is self explanatory. This is also one of the reasons why the splash screen exists (aka the “snag” screen). So (not that you will) don’t redistribute the player without contacting Adobe about licensing the player in this form.

No IMEI required
The installer (SIS file) does not require a developer to provide their IMEI (also known as serial number) to Adobe in order to get the player. Any developer that has a supported device can install the player. There is a brief start-up splash screen that appears each time the player is launched - this is in place because it’s the developer edition. Handsets that commercially ship with Flash Lite 3 pre-installed will not have this start-up splash screen.

This is important to read. The OEM VERSIONS THAT GET PRE-INSTALLED WITH FLASH LITE 3 WILL NOT HAVE THE SPLASH SCREEN THAT IS IN THE DEVELOPER’S EDITION YOU DOWNLOAD RIGHT NOW (see above picture!). This is a frequent question asked by a lot of newbies, and now that you’ve read it twice, please don’t ask about it.

Standalone Player only
The Flash Lite 3 Developer Edition is only the standalone player and will show up as an icon in the applications folder as “Flash”. The pre-installed Flash Lite player that’s already on a device will be in the same folder and called “Flash Player” - so there will be two similar icons. Testing of SWF files can only be done through the standalone player; web browser, screensaver and wallpaper content types are not supported.

OEM’s will decide how to utilize the Flash Lite 3 player on their respective devices. In the case of S60 devices from Nokia, for instance; you can probably expect the standalone player to exist. Wallpapers, screensavers, etc are all up to the OEM and what they want to do on specific devices. Personally, if any OEM’s are reading. PLEASE MAKE AN EFFORT TO STANDARDIZE THE MOST COMMON CONTENT TYPES: — WALLPAPER, SCREENSAVER, BROWSER, STANDALONE — SUPPORT ACROSS ALL DEVICES MOVING FORWARD. This makes the jobs of content publisher’s a whole lot easier! Please less fragmentation between supported Flash Lite 3 content types would be nice (ideally).

Supported handsets
The Flash Lite 3 Developer Edition has only been certified by Adobe on the Nokia N95 (non-US 3G version). Technically it should work on any Nokia S60 3rd edition or later devices. Adobe has not certified Flash Lite 3 Developer Edition on any other Nokia S60 3rd edition devices and cannot guarantee that the player will work on them. Other Nokia S60 3rd edition or newer models include: 3250, 5500 Sport, 5700, 6110 Navigator, 6120 Classic, 6121 Classic, 6290, E50, E51, E60, E61, E61i, E62, E65, E70, E90, N71, N73, N73 Music Edition, N75, N76, N77, N80, N80 IE, N81, N81 8GB, N82, N91, N91 8GB, N92, N93, N93i, N95, N95 US 3G, N95 8GB.

Yes, these are currently all 3rd Ediition S60 Nokia devices supported. You should report installation success and failures over on the Flash Lite 3 forum. I think Adobe would welcome any additional field testing you do on-device. Devices that will be pre-installed with Flash Lite 3 are expected to hit the market in Q1 2008. I’d watch for Nokia and NTT DoCoMo, as these are the OEM’s that have announced support for Flash Lite 3 earlier this year.

Uninstalling a previous version of Flash Lite 3 Developer Edition
If you were a developer who submitted your IMEI number in October and received an early version of the Flash Lite 3 Developer Edition in October it’s recommend you uninstall the current version and install this new version.

Always a good idea to remove alpha’s before installing betas …

Developing Flash Lite 3 content
In order to create Flash Lite 3 content developers will need to update both Flash CS3 and Device Central CS3 - both are free updates.

Yep. You’ll need to update your copy of Flash CS3 and Device Central CS3 so that Flash CS3 can publish out Flash Lite 3 SWF bytecode, and conversely, so that Device Central can handle testing Flash Lite 3 SWF’s.

Some stuff you should know:

Here are some of my own tidbits, I think you should know about:

Flash Lite 3 Developer Edition “Splash Screen”
(aka the Nag Screen!)
Alessandro has had a post recently … and wanted to remind everyone that the Developer’s splash screen is ONLY PART OF THIS SPECIFIC *DEVELOPER’S* COPY OF THE PLAYER.

If you’re not already aware, OEM’s versions pre-installed on devices *DO NOT HAVE THIS SPLASH SCREEN*.

So, now you know. No need to ask about the “nag” splash anymore.

New Security Model
It’s important to realize that the Flash Lite security model has changed with Flash Lite 3.

Since Flash Lite 3 is now based on the Flash 8 player, that security model has been implemented.

This means that in certain cases you will be required to recompile you previous Flash Lite 1.1/2.x so it’s in line when running within a version 3 context.

Those not familiar with Flash 8 security can gain read the Flash 8 white paper.

Player Performance Increases
Those of you already working with Flash Lite 1.x and 2.x will generally notice the performance gain.

The Adobe MaD team is touting between 25%-35% depending on the content (what you’re doing) and context (Flash Lite content type) in which you run.

FLV - Native Flash Video Capabilities
Yep. One of the most talked about features of Flash Lite 3 it’s is support for both device and now, native flash video support.

In fact there are several articles to get you started over at devnet. Go ahead, have at it over on the mobile video devnet page!

My upcoming Flash Lite 3 talk
Also, if you hadn’t caught it earlier. I’m giving another talk on Flash Lite 3 this month at the Flash User Group at Harvard University on Dec 20th.

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 1st, 2007 at 9:31 pm and is filed under 3gp, Actionscript, Actionscript 2.0, Adobe, Adobe Developer Connection, Adobe Device Central, CS3, Device Central, FLV, Flash Lite, Flash Lite 3.0, Flash Mobile, Flash Mobile Developer, Flash Video, Mobile, N95, NTT DoCoMo, Nokia Series 60, Symbian OS, flashdevices.net, flashlite, nokia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.