Some pretty cool news yesterday. Flash has come to it’s first Android based device, the Hero from Open Screen partner HTC!

It’s a follow up to the G1, and has a multitouch HVGA screen, accelerometer support, GPS, Compass, WIFi, 5 MP camera, Android Webkit Browser, and now with Flash makes for even more rich mobile web user experience.

Check out the device here!

Adobe has a good a press release which explains all the details. They also have a really good video where the Adobe Platform team explains some of the features of the Flash implementation on the HTC Hero device.

According to Mark’s post, it’s possible to view up to 85% of online video through the Flash Player, steam audio (latest Flash Lite 3.1 supports streaming audio capabilities), as well as support for around 80% of Flash content on the web today through the device’s web browser.

On this device, double clicking Flash content (games, ads, etc) brings it fullscreen mode, which seems to work very intuitively:

Demo of Flash on the HTC Hero (an Android device)

What version of Flash is this? Well, right now it’s Flash Lite 3.1 according to Adobe. However, there have been prior public announcements that Flash 10 is coming to Android (by as soon as end of this year), as well as other mention of SmartPhone platforms (webOS, Windows Mobile, & Symbian for starters) down the road.

According to Mark, the HTC Hero has Adobe Distributable Player. I’m thinking they (HTC) may upgrade the device at some point later (whether that means Flash Lite 3.x or Flash Player 10 is anyone’s guess).

Here is some commentary from Adobe:

Serge Jespers
Mark Doherty

Here is some interesting comments from the community I’ve caught (sure there are others with thoughts):

Peter Elst
Dale Rankine

With over one billion devices running Flash, and Android represents a nice (open) platform in which Flash to play.

The HTC Hero device represents the new mobile (web) experiences possible (and people are expecting!) and I think we’ll see much more in the future … as the “SmartPhone Wars” continue into 2010 and beyond.

Where’s Apple? Well, I think it’ll be a while still, but at least we’re seeing compeition … don’t believe me? Have people seen the Pre? The user experience is tight, and webOS is pretty darn sweet.

Apple may have the lead, we’ll see if the tortoises can really beat the hare in the next year or so.

Welcome to Web 3.0! Mobile Web!

According to Mark, Adobe has just increased the number of supported countries from 16 to 29 which you can distribute Flash Lite 3.1 content to using the Adobe Mobile Packager 1.1.

The countries are now: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, India, Indonesia, Ireland Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Philippines, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey, UK and the USA.

Check out the Adobe Distributable Player Solution page for more information on how to leverage Adobe Mobile Packager to get your Flash Lite content out to market.

Mark made the Flash community aware that Adobe Device Central CS3 has update #9 available, containing the usually new, and “enhanced” profiles (aka profile fixes).

According to his post, this is likely to be the last update for ADC CS3.

Although there are times when I long for developing under CS3 instead of CS4 (because of some lingering bugs), I do have to say that ADC CS4 has some really cool new features (e.g. snapshots, scripted automation, custom plug-ins via SDK, network profiling). If you haven’t upgraded to CS4 yet, now might be a good time.

In any case, both CS3 Device Profile Update #9 and CS4 Device Profile #3 are available if you haven’t upgrade to the latest.

I learned from Mark there’s a new Flash Lite 3.1 OTA update for the Nokia 5800, today.

It fixes a few problems with the Flash Lite 3.1 runtime. Namely, a problem with the security model and older content, as well as a softkey bug with fscommand2 … plus the annoying Flash version string issue not being changed to reflect the new build.

In the past, problems like this would have either potentially caused you to imploy a workaround to fix the issue (incuring fragmentation), or just left a broken experience for an end-user.

It’s good to see that OTA updates are the norm between (many) device OEM’s now, and Nokia has done an ok job at OTA (but they can do better, see below on my thoughts) …

Anyways, you can complete the Flash Lite update by:

1. Going into the Applications folder

2. Clicking on the App. update icon

3. The new Flash Lite 3.1 update should be listed. Make sure it’s checked.

4. Click the Left Soft Key for “options”, and choose “Start update”. If you have a valid connection, then the OTA player update should start.

OTA updates on Nokia devices (my thoughts)

On the subject of OTA updates, I think Nokia should take a harder look at both iPhone, Pre (webOS), and some of the other touch screen SmartPhones out there, and how they handle updates … in the future, IMHO, it’s probably preferable to:

a.) Put the application update in a top level directory, not 2nd level (essentially hard to find for non-developers)

b.) Make it possible to update BOTH firmware AND applications in one spot (the Palm Pre does this, and it’s an awesome and easy to use experience for anyone, not just developer savvy folks).

c.) Make the App. Update a bit more user friendly. I don’t think there’s a good reason why the option to invoke the update is on the LSK. Maybe it’s a legacy thing. On the 5800, it looks a bit antique … with touchscreen devices going forward, they should just make updates a touch operation (user clicks to accept and then touch to update). Nokia, take a look at the Pre, they really nailed device updating!

d.) Make it easy for any user to know when updates are available. To my knowledge, updates are a proactive feature on Nokia devices. Ideally, it would be nice if user could know visually when updates were available just by a mere icon … maybe even something on the main homescreen.

Bill (Mobile Perry) updated his Nokia Flash enabled device list.

It includes not only the latest handset specs (including newest 5th edition devices such as the the 5800 & N97), but also some Maemo devices, namely the N800, N810, and N810 WiMax (which support a Flash 9 browser plugin):

You can download the PDF directly here.

In terms of numbers, Bill says:

“maemo= 3 models
Symbian S60 = 62 models
Series 40 = 55 models”

I’ll take his word at it, as I didn’t count them.

It’s a useful resource, since the information in Device Central can sometimes be stagnant (particularly if you don’t do ADC updates), plus Bill has more info in his doc, such as hardware support such as GPS, touchscreen, rotation, and even software feature support such as video support, S60 Platform Services and OVI Store support.

The winners from the Flash Lite Challenge have been announced.

You can read more about the contest, the winners, etc over on Mark’s blog.

Congrats to Nick on being the grand prize winner (see you at FOTB in Sept?)!

The winners from the Flash Lite Challenge have been announced.

You can read more about the contest, the winners (congrats!), etc over on Mark’s blog.

Congrats to Nick on being the grand prize winner (see you at FOTB in Sept?)!

So, if you hadn’t caught the news this week, Adobe released the schedule for the upcoming Adobe MAX conference to be held in Los Angeles later this year from October 4 to October 7.

In terms of mobile sessions? Well, if you had not heard the news (actually, Shantu just talked about it in his recent Adobe Q2 statement); Flash 10 is coming to a range of top tier SmartPhones platforms (e.g. webOS, Android to name a couple) over the course of the next year.

Given the still recovering U.S. economy, and the fact that the Flash 10 roadmap is getting closer, Adobe has decided to manage a lot of the sessions internally (using Adobe team members) to speak about the latest Flash 10 endeavors they are currently working on (e.g. “Flex Mobile” and AIR on Mobile) which will roll out towards end of this year, into 2010.

It’s important to note that AIR will (likely) not ship until 2010 according to Adobe. Also, if (Flash Lite) history has taught us anything previously with mobile devices, it’s that adoption is using slower than one would ideally like. But it’s still cool to talk about what’s coming next in Adobe Mobile, so they’re doing that.

If you check out the schedule, you’ll see some sessions such as:

Sessions:

• Preview: Flex for Mobile Devices

• Preview: Adobe AIR Applications on Mobile Devices

• ELIPS 3.0: Mobile Flex Toolkit

• Open Screen Project: What it is and why you should care

• What’s New in the Flash Player

There is also pre-conference training:

• Flash Lite: Developing and Distributing Mobile Applications

Labs:

• Bootcamp: Multiscreen Streaming Video

• Bootcamp: Multiscreen Development

(Personally, I think it should be Multitarget, not MultiScreen!)

Of course these are only the mobile specific sessions, there are tons more valuable sessions to attend the conference for. You can check out, using the newly released scheduler.

You can register for MAX, here

P.S.

Those interested in learning how to development for both Flash Lite and Flash 10 devices, should
check out the book myself and coauthors have been creating over the past few months:

AdvancED Flash on Devices:
Mobile Development with Flash Lite and Flash 10

We hope to have this out relatively soon, for the community at large interested in developing for mobile using Flash.

Yesterday, someone brought to my attention that they thought Flash Video was being supported inside of QuickTime X (and the slated Snow Leopard release). However, today this rumor (not surprisingly) has been quelled, and apparently is not true (the source just had forget about Perian being installed).

If you read the Tech Crunch article, then take heed that this was poor reporting on the part of them, since they basically took the words of a blogger instead of confirming with Apple on any details.

However, that’s not to say that some people do long for .FLV support on Mac (hence products like Perian).

As I have said many times before, Flash Video support is perhaps one of the best features of the Flash Player runtime. It already has heavy adoption on web, and desktop support continues to grow. Plus, let’s not forget about all those mobile and other devices (e.g. Adobe Digital Home devices) with Flash Lite 3.x … and slated Flash 10 devices later this year that will support native Flash Video playback.

It would not surprise me one bit, if Adobe claimed some success in the mobile and device video space in 2-3 years with FLV format (esp given the uptick in set top industry adopting the player via the Open Screen Project) … FLV is already supported of hundreds of mobile devices, consumer electronic, and set top devices (even iPhone if you get the right application under a jailbreak).

BTW: Those interested in learning more about native Flash Video on devices, and development can read our chapter on Flash Video on devices in our upcoming book: AdvancED Flash on Devices: Mobile Development with Flash Lite and Flash 10

According to Mark Doherty (Adobe) and Dale, the Adobe Mobile Packager 1.1 is now available. You can the find download links here.

Also, in case you hadn’t noticed, there are updated videos over on youTube which explains how to use the Adobe Mobile Packager, as well as how to sign on both windows and symbian platforms, and even designing mobile icons for your Flash Lite content.

Adobe Distributable Player Solution Overview
Learn to Package, Distribute, & Sell Your (Flash Lite) Mobile Applications (6 part video tutorial)

Here are the direct links on tv.adobe.com, in case you are interested in any one particular piece of the Adobe Distributable Player Solution:

• Overview
• Set-up Your Computer
• Making Your First Packages
• Symbian Signing
• Windows Mobile Signing
• Icon Boot Camp

For more information about the Adobe Mobile Packager and how it fits into the Adobe Distributable Player Solution, you can check out this handy dandy page.