Why I think the Open Screen project matters…
It’s all about user experience. I could just end this post right here because that’s what I think is the main reason the Open Screen project matters. The Flash platform has really revolutionized the user experience on the web and we have all gotten used to having this rich experience. With more and more devices being connected to the web, people expect these devices to have the same experience they are used to. Just the other day, I was witnessing a new high-end-phone user surfing the web. She could not understand why some parts of the sites she was browsing to, worked fine on a PC but not on that new, shiny and expensive high-end-phone. Things like little widgets on a page or even full sites would only show a little “missing plugin” icon. “That’s because this phone doesn’t have Flash”, I remember saying which she just couldn’t grasp.
We’ve all become accustomed to things just working without having to think about it and also to having rich interfaces on the web. We are used to seeing animated menus on DVD’s and are rapidly getting used to seeing interactive menus on Bluray discs. We’re used to animated rich menus on game consoles and its games. So why can’t we have this experience everywhere?
If I switch on my digital TV set-top box at home, it’s far from a rich ‘engaging’ user experience. The interface is dull and dead slow with no connectivity to online information and communities. I always think about what I could do with Flash to have a richer experience Flash only were available on this STB. The same thing goes for the menus in TV’s. How much more could you do if you could ask a Flash designer/developer to make the menu instead of having to write it in some obscure language that offers no richness whatsoever. How much more exciting would it be to control your TV/STB/PVR with a rich connected user interface that immediately gets online reviews, ratings and comments about the TV-shows you are programming?
This is why I think the Open Screen project matters. It’s not just about bringing Flash/AIR to mobile devices, I think it’s about bringing that rich experience that people are used to, everywhere.
On AIR tour part 2: 2000km of 3500 done
Some 2000 kilometers (about 1300 miles), about 31 hours on 5 different trains and about 10 battery charges later, we arrived in Prague today. Well… Actually, I’m writing this on the train from Warsaw to Prague so we’re not actually there yet and we still have about 5 hours left on this train but I can’t actually post this until we do arrive in Prague. But anyway, I thought this would be a great time to look back at last week.
Buzzword out in the open on newly released Acrobat.com
One of the apps we have been demoing a lot is Buzzword. Buzzword is a web-based word processor that can be used to co-author and share documents for comment and review–but you could just as easily create high-quality print results with it. It’s not because I work for Adobe, but I really think this is the best online word processor to date and I can’t wait for the AIR version to become available. But that’s not all we’re releasing today. Buzzword is now part of Acrobat.com, a set of online services that take advantage of PDF, Flash and AIR. Acrobat.com has everything you need for file sharing and storage, converting files to PDF, online word processing and web conferencing. The cherry on the cake is that Acrobat.com has a full set of developer APIs that you can use in your own Flash/Flex/AIR applications to easily enable real-time collaboration, file sharing and conversion. Go check it out.
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