Max Media | Mostly Mobile

Rob Toole’s award-winning BAMaDUG Podcasts continue with 3rd installment

Author: Maxim Antinori

BAMaDUG Meeting

Thanks to Rob Toole for mc’ing and posting the latest BAMaDUG (Boston Adobe Mobile and Device User Group) podcast. We covered a lot of topics from the Adobe MAX conference, the new Flash Lite OTA Player, CS4, and more. And I ALMOST got to try Scott’s homebrew belgian beer, but one of Cambridge One’s fine waitstaff shut us down before I could grab some. Oh well, next time.

If interested and local to Boston, please do come and attend our next get together. Or join our google group or newly created Adobe group.

December 19th, 2008 | Posted in Flash Lite, Flash Lite Blogs, Mobile General | No Comments »

Adobe MAX 2008/09 Mobile Guide

Author: Maxim Antinori

The Adobe MAX 2008 Mobile Guide app is available now for your Flash Lite 3.0 enabled Symbian phone. I developed this app for Untravel Media, and hope folks find it useful for exploring some of the MAX sessions on the go. There’s some video segments in there as well related to mobile from some luminaries of the Flash Lite community, Bill Perry, Peter Kacandes, James Talbot, Evan Kirchhoff…
MAX Guide

This is an unsigned app currently, so make sure your App Mgr settings “Software Installation” is set to ALL to allow unsigned apps like this to install properly.

Also, if you experience problems with the .sis install, and your phone supports Nokia’s WRT, try downloading the .wgz install package, just below the .sis link, titled “Flash Lite 3.0 â€” North America”. In particular the WRT version is meant to address a bug in the Nokia North America firmware that prevents Flash Lite from accessing the network. (Thanks Rob Toole for that tip!) The WRT version also gets around the “auto-rotate” issue with videos in Flash Lite that exists in the currently released firmware, which hopefully will be fixed in the next firmware releases. Currently the rotation bug is handled by dynamically adjusting the layout on the fly.

Feel free to post any comments here on problems running the guide. Although I’ve tested successfully on a number of devices, I have had reports of issues with video/network connectivity, as well as a couple others. Devices it has been tested on (some via Nokia’s Remote Device Access, which isn’t as good as “real world” device testing, but…) are: N95, N95 8GB, N96, E71, N82, N78, E66, 6220 Classic. I have heard problems running videos with E71 from some users. So many phones, so many flavors of phones…

Lastly, if you have problems with the .sisx or .wgz versions, the raw SWF has been provided as an additional link.

Hope you enjoy it!

Max

November 13th, 2008 | Posted in Flash Lite | 2 Comments »

Species Explorer makes site of day

Author: Maxim Antinori

Just got word that my independent project, Species Explorer, was selected as Adobe’s Site of the Day for this Friday. Thanks Adobe! If you’re interested in nature and wildlife, please do check it out. And send along feedback to help me continue to improve the site and the web and mobile tools.

May 8th, 2008 | Posted in Flash Lite, Flex | No Comments »

Flex Incubator Group meeting – in person or online

Author: Maxim Antinori

This isn’t necessarily mobile…but with the latest developments with Flash Lite it may be sooner rather than later Anyway thought I’d post here that tonight (Monday 5/5) there will be a meeting of the Boston Flex Application Incubator Group at MassArt. Michael Labriola will be there, a Flex “champ” who’s authored several books on Flex and an upcoming one on AIR. So if you’ve been considering getting your feet wet in Flex and adding to your bag of tricks, show up in person, or show up online. Details in the blog announcement.

May 5th, 2008 | Posted in Flex | No Comments »

Boston Flex Incubator group presentation March 17

Author: Maxim Antinori

I’ll be presenting a bit about my independent project, Species Explorer, at the Boston Flex Application Incubator Group meeting this coming Monday eve from 7-9pm EST. In case anyone is interested, check out the announcement, it will be an online meeting so surf on over! While this meeting will focus on the Flex component of the project, I may talk about the mobile side as well if there’s interest. And although not currently Flash Lite, there may be a Flash Lite version upcoming…or iPhone…or Android…or Python/KuneriLite/FL

Hope to see you there!

Max

March 15th, 2008 | Posted in Flex, Mobile General | No Comments »

Nice piece to the “Where’s the Flash Lite” puzzle

Author: Maxim Antinori

Bill Perry posted a nice bit of stats on the forecasted devices with Flash pre-installed on his blog. It definitely should help folks understand how fast the various flavors of Flash Lite are getting out there in the marketplace.

Looking at the abstract accompanying the report, it’s ecnouraging to see that it’s predicted that 46% of devices 3 years from now will have Flash Lite pre-installed. While that’s a cool number, it would be good to know what percentage we’re at now, to answer the inevitable client’s question of “Cool mobile app! So…how many of our users can run this on their phone?” Maybe using some of the “network subs” numbers such as published by Mobile Entertainment could help do the math there, in a rough way.

Also a couple questions pop to mind looking at the Flash Lite 3.0 stats from the pdf. Is Chumby included? Is it presumed that the iPhone will continue to NOT support Flash through 2008? My guess is those are unknowns that can’t be included in a report like this, but still could alter these numbers substantially (esp iPhone) for 2008 if Apple/Adobe decide to hook up the iPhone with Flash. Also, am curious what devices are referenced by the FL 3.0 stats…

Anyway, thanks to Bill for providing this info, it’s a great piece to the puzzle and hard numbers to back up assurances to clients that Flash Lite is growing quickly, and worth throwing their money at.

January 11th, 2008 | Posted in Flash Lite, Mobile General | No Comments »

Chumby first impressions

Author: Maxim Antinori

I recently received my Chumby, an elegantly styled “latte” version, complete with chumby “charms”, little trinkets meant (I suppose) to bling up your Chumby, but which my 4 year old immediately absconded with. Setup was easy, and I’m now looking at it running happily next to my iMac, pushing rotating “widgets” of slashdot, digg, nytimes, youtube, and facebook onto its screen. The hook for us Flash Lite developers is of course that all these widgets are little Flash Lite swf’s, which are downloaded automatically to your Chumby from your My Chumby page on the main Chumby web site. An extra perk, this is Flash Lite 3! So props to the Chumby folks for getting a Flash Lite 3 device out there. Not to jump the gun, after all this is a “insider’s release” not the final release, but still a notable feat.

Chumby

Having played with it for just a limited time, these are definitely “first takes” so should be taken as such. But despite the bias I have toward devices that run Flash Lite, I find myself doubting how well Chumby is going to do compared to devices like the iPhone, iTouch, or other smartphones or wifi-equipped devices that have similar capabilities, not to mention bigger corporate forces behind them. For instance, the $300 iTouch, at about an extra $100 than the Chumby, may still be what the average consumer would prefer. And with the SDK coming out sometime soon, and possible additions of Flash in the next release (this is just a guess, not based on any facts, btw), it may offer some of the same “widget” potential as the Chumby.

But here maybe is where the ergonomic, “alarm clock” form factor of the Chumby distinguishes itself. It is designed to sit on your desk and feed you “channels” of content, whether they are blog feeds, cute animations, the weather, or twitter updates. And used like this, in a passive way, I actually find it pretty compelling. It’s nice to have a small dedicated device on my desk, wrapped in a cute physical design, feeding me the latest headlines. Now on my desk may not be what Chumby had in mind, as I could just as well have this info coming to me via my desktop computer. But the chumby on my bedside table, or on the kitchen counter, may be a nice way to stay connected to your various information sources.

And because the Chumby is always cycling through your channel of widgets, it doesn’t require any input by the user to show you that content. This is compared to most other devices, like the iPhone, which can show you the same information, but require you to launch the browser, navigate your way to a site, etc.

A couple things nag at me as I use the Chumby however. One is it feels like it has a bit of an identity crisis on what it wants to be, an interactive device that lets you interact with the widget via the touchscreen, or a passive device that feeds you content without any user input needed. I tend so far to prefer the latter, as it’s a bit too bulky, not to mention constrained by a power cord, to make interacting with it ideal. Not that Dizzy Zub Zub isn’t addictive!

Another thing is that the widgets on the Chumby are only as good as the, uh, widgets. What I mean is that you only can control them as far as the widget’s developer(s) programmed them. So if the developer didn’t put in controls to let you scroll the text, well, tough. That text ain’t gonna scroll. This isn’t so much a criticism of Chumby, but it may point to some kind of production process issues, standards, quality control that Chumby may consider in the future to make sure the “widget experience” is up to snuff.

These are just some first impressions. So far my gut feeling is that it’s the passive widgets that have the most potential for making the Chumby stand out from the competition. Other devices are probably going to do interactives like games better, in a smaller, more wireless package. But more passive apps like blog feeds, facebook status updates, twitter, flickr feeds (think of those “digital picture frames” that are so popular this holiday season) to me have the most appeal on the Chumby.

Of course, from the Flash Lite point of view, it’s great to have another device out there, esp. running Flash Lite 3! Thank you Chumby! So lots of potential to play around and experiment with Flash video. Check it out at the Chumby site, order one, and make some widgets!

December 14th, 2007 | Posted in Flash Lite | No Comments »

Moket Mania

Author: Maxim Antinori

Moket Just wanted to blog a bit of appreciation for Dale Rankine‘s eSeminar on Club Moket yesterday. Anyone languishing (as I have from time to time) in the question of “ok, I spent a ton of non-billable hours making a really cool Flash Lite app, now how do I SELL it?!” should do themselves a favor and jump over to Moket and see what he has been putting together to help independent Flash developers get their wares out there in the market.

I’ve been following Moket for a while, and it’s great to see them poised to bring Flash Lite into the mainstream market. I remember a couple years ago, when Flash Lite 1.1 was getting rolling, I for one had the feeling that things were going to “take off”. It hasn’t, unfortunately, at least for small developers, for a variety of reasons. But the one that Dale has identified and looks to solve with Club Moket, may be the biggest — no easy path to market. Just start going through the Verizon, Qualcomm BREW certification, testing, cataloguing process and you’ll see what I mean. This is not necessarily to point fingers and assign blame, just to make the observation that this problem hasn’t had many clear solutions, for quite a while now. And Moket is at least one company that is trying to resolve this issue.

The success of any aggregator of content is based on the quality of the content, and so far Moket seems to be putting high quality content into their “Moket Content Network” to make that success possible. The filtering of quality content is something often overlooked by many companies, driven by the very understandable temptation to get as many titles out there in their catalogues as possible. But the result can be an overwhelming mess of low-quality content, preventing most users from a good experience, and finding the true gems in that mess. So good to see Moket choosing the right path to avoid this pitfall.

If you haven’t checked out Moket, I recommend it highly to any Flash Lite developer who has a serious goal of taking their applications to market. You can request their information kit on the site. And if you want to help Dale spread the word, he has some little widgets/snippets you can add to your blog/site. Contact Dale for that info, or Dale if you read this please comment with a link for folks.

December 14th, 2007 | Posted in Flash Lite | 1 Comment »

Flash Lite gets a Second Life

Author: Maxim Antinori

Flash Lite in Second Life
Ok, it was only a matter of time. I have created a group in Second Life devoted to Flash Lite. Just do a search for Flash Lite in the groups search window, and you’ll find it. I’ve done so with some reservations, as I’m not entirely convinced Second Life is a good thing. I am torn back and forth between the sentiment of getafirstlife.com and the feeling of “this is really cool!”. Kind of like that public access channel you stumble upon at 3am…you want to change the channel, but you keep watching because every minute there’s some new, completely bizarre thing to see!

I partly have to blame Scott J (sorry Scott) for this, as he mentioned the idea of what would it be like to have a lunch meeting in SL, as a joke, and I was like “hey…that’s…an….AWESOME IDEA!” It was only several short synaptic jumps to the idea of a group, a meeting place where fellow developers can meet, present…but I’m getting ahead of myself. I won’t say I’ve gone so far as to run around Second Life wearing a custom-made virtual t-shirt with the Flash logo…but I did. So what? It’s not like I made a Flash Lite thong. Yet.

Some of you may not be surprised, namely those of you local to Boston who heard some of my Second Life anecdotes in one of our beer-enriched AMUG meetings. I’ve come a long way from the time I accidentally started dancing in a club (all alone, the band was having technical difficulties) and didn’t know how to stop. It was embarrassing, I admit, as forty or fifty virtual club-goers stood by and watched my contortions as I gyrated slowly toward the bar, asking for help. And after my red-faced avatar was finally able to stop doing the electric slide, I sat down at the virtual bar and ordered myself a virtual St. Pauli’s Girl (that’s a beer, not a Second Life “service”). Anyway, I’m over all that now. I’ve moved on.

I’ve learned there’s a lot more to SL than flying penises, virtual poetry readings, Hare Krishna virtual seminars, and really hot virtual women who are actually guys named Lou who just need to “escape.” There’s some really cool possibilities for virtual collaboration, meetings, prototyping, especially when folks are spread across the globe and geography is an obstacle to face to face interaction. As far as Flash Lite, currently anything that Quicktime can play can be played within SL, so that should include Flash Lite 1.1 apps (except of course for some phone-specific functionality like fscommands…).

I’m not going to say attending a presentation in SL is better than one of our familiar Adobe webinars, but now with the addition of voice capability, it does offer an intriguing alternative. And it does offer the possibility of being crashed by one of SL’s “griefers” who throw up a few flying penises. Anyway, all I’ve started is a group. I don’t own land, although that has potential if there starts to be interest in this stuff.

So check it out if you like. Sign up, download the SL client, do a search in groups for Flash Lite, and join up. There may even be a free t-shirt in it. Um, a virtual t-shirt, that is. And if you want to see if I’m in SL, just search for Cobalt Voom. No, I’m not kidding. Cobalt. Voom. I’m usually the one dancing uncontrollably.

October 11th, 2007 | Posted in Flash Lite | 4 Comments »

MITX: What’s next in mobile…takeaways

Author: Maxim Antinori

Yeah, it’s been over a week but finally getting around to blogging a few notes on the recent MITX half-day “summit”: What’s Next. Mobile: What Does the Consumer Want? This was a two part affair, with the first part focused on “what’s now” and the next panel focused on “what’s next”. Being the wild west scene that mobile is these days, predictions on mobile are about as dependable as, say, predictions on “what’s next on the internet” were 10 years ago. But, the panelists were knowledgeable and some interesting points were discussed. I’ll try to cover a few of them here, based on my scrawled notes from my Boston Park Plaza notepad.

LBS
I took my seat late, amidst talk of Nokia and Garmin, both of whom are making moves to get gps and location-aware capabilities into mobile devices. LBS is definitely a hot area, and one of those areas that helps distance mobile applications from their desktop counterparts. The panelists were quick to bring up, however, the major security concerns facing LBS, which I think to most users are not trivial. It’s easy to see the appeal of an application that lets you keep track of your friends around town, or your child’s location. But as a parent it’s chilling to imagine this information falling into the hands of child predators, or other “unfriendlies”. Besides these privacy issues, carriers have most of their LBS API’s on lockdown, making you jump through hoops to get access (see verizon for more info). Add to this the general fragmentation of handsets and os’s, and LBS is probably not taking off any time soon. But still, the huge potential it has for mobile perhaps may break down barriers faster than I expect. Also, there’s lots of ways to have “location-based” apps that don’t necessarily use GPS or other LBS techniques, but have the user provide their location. I believe Socialight does this with their service, and some others.

QRC
Jeremy Wright of Enpocket spoke several times about the value of the “quick response codes” that are common in Asia markets. These codes, analogous to our UPC barcodes, can be scanned by a cameraphone, then directing the user to say, a URL to a product page. Jeremy pointed out the appeal of QRC types of campaigns versus other types of “push” advertisements, whether opt-in or not. Have you ever gotten Bluetooth spam while walking near some random store in the mall? Kind of cool, maybe. Quickly annoying, definitely. Anyway, QRC leaves it in the hands of the consumer to learn more about a piece of content. It’s not flashy, but to me it has the appeal of simplicity and ease of implementation, never a bad thing in the maelstrom of mobile technology these days.

What’s Next
The What’s Next panel included Linda Barrabee, Program Manager, Consumer Research, Mobility, Yankee Group; Seamus McAteer, Chief Product Architect & Senior Analyst, M:Metrics; Eric Puterbaugh, Account Director, Mobile Media, Telephia. These folks had some interesting stats on the mobile industry and content. One of the first I found compelling was a stat that about 1 percent of visitors to carriers’ sites go to the video service links. Surprising just considering the amount of marketing space they devote to promoting watching videos on their phones, ala VCast, etc. And admittedly, unless I had an unlimited data plan, and on a 3G network, no way I am I going to be sitting there downloading a bunch of videos on my phone. Yes, I love YouTube on the iPhone, but only when I’m around a wifi hub. On a similar note, Seamus on the panel was negative on OTA music downloads, saying most users are just going to “side-load” this type of content onto their phones, not pay a buck a song to download over the carriers’ networks. Makes sense, no? That said, sites like seemetv has a cool thing going with letting people upload videos taken with their phones and competing for cash prizes. How long before YouTube horns in on that?

A stat that was brought up, actually by the previous panel, was that in a poll of mobile users asking “what is the most desired activity” on their mobile device, the top response was to “share pictures with family and friends.” Hmm, doesn’t Flickr have a mobile version…maybe m.flickr.com?

A recurring comment in this “summit” was that engaging, easy to use content is key to getting users to start gorging on mobile content. Apple’s iPhone has, IMO, made a huge leap forward in this area, bringing things like Facebook to mobile in a nice, easy to use interface, not to mention YouTube, and many other sites. One of the potentials of Flash Lite I think is to help bring engaging content to many other devices, perhaps hooking into the many API’s out there for sites like Flickr, Yahoo maps, etc. We may not be able to do the “pinch zoom” of the iPhone (or can we?), but the potential is there nonetheless to break out of the horrendously spartan wap sites that exist today and usher in a new level of mobile rich content.

That’s it on MITX for now. They have another one coming up November 13 entitled “Mobile / Wireless Series: Mobile Social Networking“, during the Mobile Internet World conference. Not sure who the panelists will be, but could be interesting as well.

October 11th, 2007 | Posted in Mobile General | No Comments »

M	T	W	T	F	S	S
« Jul
		1	2	3	4	5
6	7	8	9	10	11	12
13	14	15	16	17	18	19
20	21	22	23	24	25	26
27	28	29	30

Max Media | Mostly Mobile

Rob Toole’s award-winning BAMaDUG Podcasts continue with 3rd installment

Adobe MAX 2008/09 Mobile Guide

Species Explorer makes site of day

Flex Incubator Group meeting – in person or online

Boston Flex Incubator group presentation March 17

Nice piece to the “Where’s the Flash Lite” puzzle

Chumby first impressions

Moket Mania

Flash Lite gets a Second Life

MITX: What’s next in mobile…takeaways

Categories

Recent Comments

Meta