This isn't directly related to Flash Lite or Flash Cast but it's an example of a mobile operator that's using Adobe technologies to provide a great user experience via the PC web.  The Verizon Wireless Media Store was built using Adobe Flex and allows Verizon Wireless to provide their customers with an easy to navigate and use web-based interface to search, preview and purchase ringtones and ringback tones.  The site uses Flash 9 and AS3 and ties into a back-end database for all of the data that's rendered including the text, thumbnails and MP3 previews.


The home screen looks similar to other media catalogs and gives the user a high-level overview of the different sections including promotions, genres, featured artists, top ringtones and a search box at the top. The screen shot above is showing the artists that are listed in the What's New section on the home page.


Once you select an artist (in this case Lil Wayne) you'll see a nice screen transition and then you'll be presented with an interactive table that shows you all of the songs available from that artist and if it's a ringtone or ringback tone.


You can then preview any of the songs by hovering your mouse over the song and selecting the preview button.  A short audio clip will play and the art work for that song/album will appear.


The cool thing is the purchasing aspect, the user is prompted to enter in their mobile phone number and password and then the item they selected is sent over the air to their mobile phone. Pretty neat.

I'd recommend you check out the media store to see how improved discoverability of media and a simplified way to purchase media can benefit consumers.  If you have a Verizon Wireless phone and are interested in purchasing a ringtone or ringback tone then try it out and tell us know what you think.

Those of you who are interested in supporting localized text in your Flash Lite applications now have a new resource to help provide guidance and best practices.  Today we've published a Flash Lite article about "Creating Bi-directional Text in Flash Lite" (including sample files) and it's definitely one topic that we've heard requests from developers about.

The author Samir Dash has done a great job of sharing his knowledge including how to separate the data and presentation layers for text and how a string of text can vary in length depending on the language being used.  This is important if you're thinking about developing an application that can support more than one language.

I hope that the broader community starts to create more localized Flash Lite content now given Samir's article - if you create something please share it with the community by sending me an email with a short description and screen shots. We love to see what you guys are creating!

For those of you keeping count there are 89 Nokia devices that ship with a version of Flash Lite pre-installed with 45 of them based on Symbian S60 and 44 based on Nokia Series 40 platform.  Further breaking them down looks like this:

• Flash Lite 3 = 18 models
• Flash Lite 2.1 = 20 models
• Flash Lite 2.0 = 21 models
• Flash Lite 1.1 = 30 models

Over the weekend I've added 4 new Nokia Series 40 devices to my Flash enabled handsets spreadsheet and you can download it here on my site or from the Adobe mobile and devices development center.

It's important to note that all new shipping Nokia Sybmian S60 devices will have Flash Lite 3 pre-installed and some of the devices that are listed are announced but not yet shipping.  For example the N96 is a Symbian S60 device that will have Flash Lite 3 pre-installed and is supposed to ship later this year.  It's listed in the spreadsheet because it's been publicly announced and gives developers an idea of the device roadmap for the OEM, in this case Nokia.

One thing to note is I did not add the Nokia N800 and N810 Internet Tablet devices to the spreadsheet since they don't offer any type of cellular coverage and are not considered mobile phones.  If you think those two and other non-pc devices should be included in this spreadsheet let me know.

Today Forum Nokia posted an excellent technical whitepaper for Flash Lite developers that discusses and provides code examples for creating screen savers and wallpapers for supported Nokia handsets.  The zip file contains a 29 page PDF and 3 examples including the source and completed files (.fla, .as and .swf).

From the whitepaper, "In addition to being an effective platform for casual games and data driven applications, Adobe Flash Lite for Nokia devices supports compelling personalization content like animated dynamic screen savers and wallpapers. The Flash Lite platform brings to Nokia devices a sophisticated animation engine that supports a mix of vector and bitmap animation in screen saver/wallpaper content. Furthermore, Flash Lite screen saver/wallpaper applications can execute ActionScript to dynamically adjust the visual content of the animation depending on the date or the time of day, or completely randomly, enabling entertaining content that is dynamic and ever changing.

This document explores the different features of Flash Lite 2.0 for creating dynamic screen saver and wallpaper animation. Some of the concepts you will learn include using ActionScript to adjust the visual content to fit the stage, and creating visual interest with randomness and the application of a dynamic mask."

Kudos to Hayden Porter (author of the whitepaper) for taking the time to share his knowledge and tips with the broader community.  Hayden has been involved with Flash Lite for a few years and it's great to see developers like him get this type of exposure.

Good news, I've updated my Flash enabled handsets spreadsheet with the latest information for devices that are available in market or have been announced by our partners.  You can download the PDF from this link or at the top of my site in the horizontal yellow bar.  This information is accurate as of 25 June 2008 and will probably update it again in a few months.

Any questions/comments - leave a comment.

Last Thursday we released the device profile update #6 for Device Central and you can download it here.

Update #6 includes 173 device profiles:

• 63 new device profiles
  
• 110 device profiles updated based on partner and community feedback

For the new devices profiles they include the following devices:

• NTT DoCoMo (16)
• KDDI (9)
• HTC (3)
• Nokia (12)
• Samsung (5)
• Softbank (12)
• Sony Ericsson (6)
  

With this update the total number of devices available in the device library is over 460 and represents devices that designers and developers can target for creating various types of Flash Lite content.

Remember that you need to have installed the previous updates first before installing update #6 to ensure your profiles are up to date.

If you have any comments about a device profile please leave a comment and I'll pass it along to our device intelligence team.

Today Qualcomm and Adobe announced that the BREW Mobile Platform will be integrated with Adobe Flash technology and new platform features. You can read the full press release here. This is fantastic news for both BREW and Flash developers as it further reinforces the point that Flash is becoming a preferred technology for OEMs, operators and developers for creating rich and exciting mobile experiences.

BREW Mobile Platform
The BREW Mobile Platform is Qualcomm’s next generation BREW client technology that integrates Adobe Flash and is an upgrade from the current BREW 4 environment that BREW developers use today. When it’s available in fall of this year, BREW and Flash developers will be able to create visually creative mobile applications, user interfaces and web content for mass market devices running the BREW Mobile Platform. For Flash developers this means that there will be another mobile platform that they can target their mobile applications for. Today there’s Nokia Symbian S60, Nokia Series 40, Sony Ericsson and soon Windows Mobile.

How is this different than the current Flash Lite extension for BREW?
So you may be wondering how is this announcement different than what’s already available in market today – Flash Lite 2.1 for BREW extension. The current extension is only available for BREW handsets on the Verizon Wireless network that we’ve certified and have passed NSTL certification. Today we have 13 devices certified and over the next 2-3 months we’ll have 5 more. This takes time and doesn’t address operators other than Verizon Wireless who may want to support Flash based BREW applications.

The differences between the Flash Lite extension model and the BREW Mobile Platform are:

• Adobe Flash technology will be directly integrated into the platform, meaning no per/device per/carrier certification will be required

• BREW developers will be able to use existing native BREW API interfaces directly with Flash via ActionScript – so Flash can become the presentation layer

• The BREW Mobile Platform will be shipping on all mass market BREW handsets worldwide – for all BREW carriers

BREW APIs via ActionScript
With the BREW Mobile Platform it will be possible for a BREW developer to pass information to the Flash client using ActionScript. We’re currently working with Qualcomm to define what these APIs will be but expect to be able to support most if not all of them. Translation – for example you’ll be able to create a UI or application that uses BREW APIs to retrieve the call log and use Flash to render and present that information. This level of device integration and API access is something we’ve been hearing from BREW developers for some time and with the BREW Mobile Platform it will become a reality.

Developer tools and workflow
Today we have a plug-in for Flash CS3 which allows a Flash developer to export native BREW files (.MOD and .MIF) for testing in the BREW emulator and eventually on a BREW device. This is used for the Flash Lite for BREW extension. For the BREW Mobile Platform Qualcomm and Adobe will be working closely to improve the developer workflow between Adobe’s CS3 tools (Flash CS3, Device Central CS3, CS3 creative tools) with tools available from Qualcomm including the BREW emulator.

Open Screen Project
This announcement of the BREW Mobile Platform demonstrates rapid progress in support of the recently announced Open Screen Project to enable a consistent runtime environment that will remove barriers for developers and designers as they publish content and applications across desktops and devices.

Handset availability
Even though we’ve jointly made this announcement today, more concrete details about the BREW Mobile Platform won’t be available until the fall of this year – when the BREW Mobile Platform becomes available for CDMA and UMTS chipsets. Actual device shipments depend on OEM schedules and we expect initial device shipments in the mid-2009 timeframe.

Next steps
For more information you can refer to the BREW developer site and soon we will be posting additional information on the Adobe Flash for BREW developer site. Of course if you have any follow-up questions you can post them here and I’ll do my best to answer them.

Next Thursday I will be co-presenting a webinar with Stephen Ellis from Forum Nokia where we'll be discussing Flash and Mobile Browsing. More details below, including where to register.

Topic: Flash and Mobile Browsing
Time: 10-11am PST, 5 June 2008
Presenters: Stephen Ellis (Forum Nokia) & Bill Perry (Adobe)

Description: This one-hour webinar will explore the integration of Flash Lite on mobile devices, give pointers for developing online mobile Flash content, and provide a full question-and-answer session. This webinar is another in a continuing series of joint webinars between Nokia and Adobe to provide developers with information and guidance for creating mobile experiences using Flash technologies.

Register: you can register online here

Next week I’ll be in San Diego where I’ll be presenting at the BREW Developer Conference about Flash Development for BREW devices and it’s going to be a great session. This will be my third BREW conference and I’ve always found them interesting to attend because the attendees (developers) are very technical and ask great questions. For me it’s interesting to be able to attend the different mobile oriented developer conferences to see and hear what those platforms are doing and talk to actual developers to understand their real world perspective of things. If you’re going to be there stop by my session which is scheduled for Thursday afternoon and say hi.

For those of you who are developing or are interested in creating Flash Lite content for Sony Ericsson devices you can now find more resources on the Sony Ericsson Flash Lite developer center. In the past their Flash Lite information was grouped under the multimedia section but given more and more of their devices support Flash Lite and the recent announcement around Project Capuchin they have created a new dedicated Flash Lite site. You can expect more information about Project Capuchin soon on their site and the Adobe mobile and devices developer center.

There have been some well discussed threads over the past couple of weeks talking about developer concerns around the security model for Flash Lite 3 applications for Nokia S60 devices. Good news is we do and are listening to the developer community and have been talking to our peers at Nokia and Forum Nokia about this issue. Soon you can expect more information about a workaround solution for better handling security through Flash Lite and the device.

If you have any other concerns please leave them here.