Tag Archives: android

Flash on Android summer camp (in Belgium)

by Serge Jespers on 09. Jul, 2010 in AIR, Flash Platform, android

The summer is always a good time to learn about new technologies or brush up on new features in the technologies you already use.

Belgian training center Oak3 is organizing a 2 day Flash on Android Summer Camp on August 9th and 10th. On the first day you’ll learn everything you need to know to get development going, either from Flash Professional CS5 or from Flash Builder 4. The second day you will be assisted and guided in creating an app so you’ll be on your way for further mobile Flash Platform experimentation.

I’m going to pop in on the second day to see what you guys are building and to answer any questions you may have.

For more information and registration check out the Oak3 website.

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The apps on my Nexus One

by Serge Jespers on 04. Jun, 2010 in android

People have asked me which apps I use on my Nexus One quite a few times already so I thought I’d do a blog post on it.

Adobe AIR & Flash Player 10.1
I don’t think this needs too much explanation ;-) Having Flash Player 10.1 in the browser really is a blessing. When breaking news happens I can just open up the browser, browse to my favorite news site, and watch the news videos. When I’d like to play a game, I can just browse to Miniclip, Kongregate or any other casual gaming site and play the game in the browser. If I like the game I can later get the game as a standalone app built on top of the AIR runtime. With AIR on my Nexus One I can use the skills that I already know to build my own apps with ActionScript 3 and use the tools that I’m used to. Love it! If you have an Android device that runs on Eclair or Froyo you can get AIR on your device today! If you have Froyo on your device you can just get Flash Player 10.1 Beta in the Android Market!

Astro File Manager
I love that I have complete control over my file system. Astro helps you manage your files on your SD card, can make backups on the device, shows you which files and folders use the most storage space, and much much more.

Beautiful Widgets
One thing I really like about HTC’s Sense UI is the home screen weather/clock widget. The Nexus One doesn’t have the Sense UI but with Beautiful Widgets I can still have that weather/clock widget. As a frequent traveller I also like that it automatically updates the time and weather to wherever I am based on my GPS coordinates. With just one click on the home widget it shows me a 5-day forecast. It also comes with a bunch of other widgets. Those allow you to quickly change a setting with one click on the widget. I have the “silent”, “plane”, “wifi” and “bluetooth” widget on my second homescreen so I can quickly switch those on or off.

Chroma Circuit
Chroma Circuit is one of the first Flash-based games that was compiled as an AIR for Android application. It is very addictive ;-) Since it is a Flash-based app you can also play this in your browser today. On the Nexus One it takes full advantage of the new multi-touch API available in AIR 2.0 and Flash Player 10.1. (This application is currently only available in private pre-release.)

Photoshop.com Mobile
Want to change the exposure, saturation or contrast on a photo? Maybe add a quick effect or a border around it? Photoshop.com Mobile does exactly that. You simply pick an image from you camera roll, edit it and share it with your friends on Photoshop.com, Twitter or Facebook.

doubleTwist
doubleTwist just released a media player application a few days ago. It looks absolutely gorgeous and is very easy to use. I like it so much that I think it should be the default media player app on every Android device. As an added bonus, it integrates seamlessly with the doubleTwist desktop making syncing my media library as easy as it was on my iPhone.

NewsRob
As a regular reader of my blog you know that I am a news junkie. Google Reader is one of the first sites I open up in the morning. When I am on the road I use NewsRob. It syncs all my unread articles from Google Reader and allows me to read them on my phone even when I’m not connected.

Dropbox
I absolutely love Dropbox! I have all my Flash/Flex projects files on it as well as all my presentations, AS3 libs I regularly use, documents, … I use it a lot! The mobile app allows me to quickly send a link to a file to a colleague and allows me to review my slides on the go.

Evernote
Another app I use a lot. I use Evernote for various things. For instance when I park my car at the airport, I take a quick picture of where I actually parked it and store that in Evernote. When I use Twitter on my Nexus One and see a link to a site I want to check out, I just click the “share” button and add that tweet to Evernote. By the way… I really love how different apps are connected on Android. That share menu is available in a lot of apps and it just lists all the applications that can accept stuff to share. So with that same menu I can send that tweet via email, to Facebook, in an SMS message, … Love it!

Finance
I keep a close eye on the stock market. I use Google Finance in the browser on the desktop and in this app on my Nexus One. The app also comes with home screen widgets and I have a couple of those installed. These home screen widgets are really one of the major advantages of the Android platform. They update automatically and so you always have the latest info on your home screen.

Foursquare
Besides being a news junkie, I think I am also a social networking junkie… I joined FourSquare a few months ago but never really got in to it. I’m giving it another shot now. I love the tips people can leave about a certain venue/location.

Gridshock
Gridshock was also originally a browser based game built with Flash. I’m running it on the Nexus One as a standalone application on the AIR runtime. Very addictive! ;-) (This application is currently only available in private pre-release.)

Hello Proximus
This app is pretty simple but very useful. The app monitors my data usage. It tells me how many MB I have left in my overpriced data plan. It shows you exactly how much you have left on your national and roaming plan.

Let’s Golf
I used to play this game on my iPhone and wanted to see how well it performed on my Nexus One. It rocks! I bought it in Gameloft’s online shop which circumvents the need to get access to the Android Market. (Officially you still can’t get access to the Market in Belgium! Google needs to fix this ASAP!)

Qrossfire
Another AIR based game that originally started out as a browser based Flash game… I currently play this one the most. (This application is currently only available in private pre-release.)

RunKeeper
A few months ago I started running again. There are a lot of apps on the Android Market that keep track of your exercises but I like the UI on this one. Writing this reminds me that I should get back in to gear. It’s been a few weeks since I was last out running…

Tripit
I said this many times before but will repeat it again: If you are a frequent traveller, you have to use Tripit! I don’t think I could do this job without it. I really like the UI on their Android version much better than their iPhone version. It’s easier to read and just feels nicer.

Vignette
Vignette is one of those special effect camera type apps. It has 55 different LOMO, toy camera, tilt-shift and Polaroid style effects and 17 different frames.

WordPress
This also doesn’t need much explaining. I love how their Android version even allows me to get notifications of new comments.

These are just a couple of apps I use regularly. Besides these I also use the stock email and calendar app which now (in Froyo) works with our Exchange setup. I also use tethering quite a bit. Being able to share your 3G connection as a wifi access point is just amazing and it works very well. I also use the Twitter for Android and Facebook for Android app a lot and I really love how this data is also linked with your contacts. The navigation feature in Froyo is also a big plus although it is not available in Belgium (Please fix this Google!). I used it in London a few weeks ago and was really impressed. I have a Tom Tom with US maps on it for when I travel to the US but that’s going up for sale now.

So far there hasn’t been a single day that I missed my iPhone or any of the apps I used on it… Oh… wait… I’m lying. I miss the iPass app! As a frequent traveller I have access to iPass, a roaming service for wifi hotspots. I have it on my laptop but also used to have it on my iPhone. And I could also use an Android version of Concur, the system we use for expenses.

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Android week: Winner of the Google Nexus One

by Serge Jespers on 21. May, 2010 in android

Wow… 707 comments on my “Win A Google Nexus One” post… Thank you all for your birthday wishes and your thoughts on Flash and AIR coming to Android devices.

Using the SQL statement below, I picked a winner from all entries.

SELECT * FROM wp_comments WHERE comment_post_ID = 2558 ORDER BY RAND() limit 1

The lucky winner is Patrick Welfringer.

Thanks again for al your entries. It’s amazing to see the excitement for Flash Player 10.1 and AIR coming to Android and other mobile devices.

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Android week: Tech blogs about Flash Player 10.1 on Android

by Serge Jespers on 20. May, 2010 in Flash Player, android

Tech journalists always get to play with the coolest gadgets before everyone else. Luckily one of the benefits of working at Adobe is that I also had access to the early bits of Flash Player 10.1 for Android. I’m sure you’ve all seen us blog and tweet about how great it is to have Flash Player running on mobile devices. I’m also pretty sure that some of you also didn’t believe us ;-). I don’t blame you… I agree… I admit that I did indeed drink the Kool-Aid. Heck… I’ve been drunk on Flash Kool-Aid for at least 13 years now :D.

So… If you have a hard time believing us Flash junkies evangelists then hopefully these tech bloggers/journalists can convince you. Flash Player 10.1 on mobile devices rocks!

Financial Times: “I have been impressed with the fully featured experience of 10.1 after trying it for a few days on a Nexus One review unit running Android 2.2. Flash now not only plays video on websites flawlessly and enables full-screen gaming, but it also responds to touchscreen gestures so that objects in a game can be manipulated with a finger stroke. It also taps into accelerometers, meaning automatic adjustment to portrait or landscape mode.”

J/K On The Run: “Pretty reasonably impressed with Flash Player 10.1……[...] Yes, it rocks!”

CNet: “Unsurprisingly, the best performance came from Web sites that have already been optimized for mobile phones; that is, they’ll render the page with hardware accelerometers and trackballs in mind. When we off-roaded from Adobe-suggested sites, we found that Flash Player worked as it would in a desktop environment.”

Engadget: “It’s getting there, it works, it works surprisingly well.”

Mashable: “Adobe Flash 10.1 is also serious about performance. It includes hardware acceleration with H.264 video decoding, advanced memory management (which can decrease RAM usage by 50%), and a sleep mode that slows down the Flash player if an Android-powered device enters screensaver mode.”

Forrester Research: “I’ve been testing a Froyo-based Nexus One for the last week side-by-side with my iPhone, and I think it’s great to not have to deal with “little blue cubes” on the sites I visit every day.  The Froyo Nexus is fast, the multitasking is excellent, and contrary to assertion, I have not noticed a significant difference in battery life when I view Flash enable content (I barely get through a full day with my iPhone 3G even with a Mophie juice pack at full charge). When it comes to Flash apps running on Froyo itself, it’s also pretty clear to me that they can deliver an engaging mobile experience.”

Flash on!

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Android week: AIR for Android prerelease

by Serge Jespers on 20. May, 2010 in AIR, android

From the AIR Team Blog: “We are pleased today to announce the public availability of the Adobe AIR for Android Developer Prerelease program. Any designer or developer interested in building Android applications using the Flash Platform is welcome to join this program to get access to our beta SDK. Whether you are already an experienced Flash developer or just interested in learning Flash, we encourage you to join our prerelease program to get started on building Android applications today using AIR.”

Click here for more information on Adobe Labs

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Android week: Watch the Google I/O keynote online

by Serge Jespers on 19. May, 2010 in android

The Google I/O keynote is only a little over 3 hours away. I am super excited about Google I/O this year. I wish I was there… But if you’re like me and you couldn’t make it out to San Francisco you can still be a part of it.

Both today’s and tomorrow’s keynote will be streamed live on Google I/O’s YouTube channel. I can’t think of a better way of celebrating my birthday than to sit back with a nice glass of wine and watch the keynote live. I know… I am a bit of a geek :D. You can count on me doing the same thing tomorrow ;-). Trust me… You don’t want to miss this event… We have some very exciting announcements coming up and I’m sure Google also has a thing or two up their sleeves!

The keynote starts at 9:00 am PDT. That’s 12:00pm in New York, 5:00pm in London, 6:00pm in Belgium, 1:00am in Tokyo.

Oh… And just in case you missed it: I’m giving away a Google Nexus One!

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Android week: Win a Google Nexus One!

by Serge Jespers on 19. May, 2010 in android

So today is my birthday… ehr… I mean… Today is the start of Google I/O! To celebrate both occasions, I am giving away a Google Nexus One to one of my readers.

I’m sure you all know that Flash Player 10.1 and AIR 2 are coming to mobile devices. In order to win the Google Nexus One I want you to tell me which site(s)/app(s)/game(s) (built with Flash) you are most looking forward to using on your mobile device. What have you been missing on your current mobile device? Which application do you want to build with AIR for Android? Just leave a comment below and I will pick a random winner from all entries on Friday May 21st at 12pm GMT.

Easy, huh?

Just a few simple rules:

  • The Google Nexus One phone is unlocked and ready to be used anywhere in the world.
  • I will ship the device anywhere in the world using Fedex.
  • This contest is open to anyone anywhere unless prohibited by law in your country.
  • The winner will be picked randomly.
  • Entries can be submitted until Friday May 21st 11:59am GMT.
  • If you win, you will be notified by email. That means you have to enter a valid email address when you post a comment! If the email bounces, I will pick a new winner.
  • In order to fight spam, the comments on this blog are moderated. Don’t panic if your comment does not appear immediately.

Looking forward to your comments!

UPDATE: This contest is now over. The winner is Patrick Welfringer. Thank you all for your comments!

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Android week: On switching to Android

by Serge Jespers on 18. May, 2010 in android

When I first saw the iPhone I immediately fell in love with it. After walking around with an iPod, a PDA and a mobile phone I could finally have all of these things in one device. I was worried that when I switched to Android I would need to go back to using 2 devices instead of one. I was worried that the Nexus One wouldn’t play nice with iTunes and that I’d have to go back to using a separate device for listening to my music. But I was wrong…

doubleTwist as an iTunes alternative
doubleTwist is to my Nexus One what iTunes is to an iPhone. I just plug in the USB cable, open up doubleTwist and start syncing. doubleTwist taps in to your iTunes library and can sync all your music (if it’s not protected with the iTunes DRM) to your Android device (and not just Android devices). doubleTwist will also sync your photos (the Nexus One’s camera is amazing) with your iPhoto library and your movies if you want to. As an added bonus you can also purchase new music from the Amazon MP3 store right within the application. The most recent release of doubleTwist also includes the Android Market. You simply browse the Android Market or search for your favorite apps. You can read the reviews, take a look at the screenshots and if you want to install the app you just point your camera at it and take a photo of the QR barcode.

Android Market
This is also where you potentially get stuck. The Android Market is only available in a couple of countries and even then chances are that the app you want to buy is not available in your country. In Google’s defense: This was the same in the early days of the App Store and while the App Store is currently available in more countries than the Android Market some countries still don’t have access to it. Heck… You still can’t buy movies or TV shows on iTunes in Belgium. That said, this is seriously annoying. There is no technical reason why this wouldn’t work but I guess it has to do with different laws in different countries etc…  There are ways to enable the Android Market on your device but I’m not sure on the legality of doing that. It’s a little bit insane that you have to “break the law” (and potentially void your warranty) in order to be able to buy an app in the Android Market. Luckily there are a ton of free apps in the Android Market and some developers even allow you to purchase a license on their site and then upgrade the free version. It’s definitely not ideal and I hope this changes soon…

Apps.. Apps… and more apps…
With 65000 59430 (UPDATE: I thought I read that number somewhere but AndroLib is currently reporting 59430 apps. H/T Thomas) apps currently in the Android Market it’s definitely not as big as the App Store. That said… I think that in both stores the quality of the apps varies a lot. Most of the apps I regularly used on my iPhone are also available on Android. Apps like TripIt, Twitter, Dropbox, Facebook, Evernote and WordPress are also available on Android. Like I already mentioned yesterday, I feel that some of these apps look/feel better on Android. The official Twitter for Android app is just beautiful and very easy to use. The WordPress app allows you to get notified when new comments arrive. There always seems to be that little extra in the Android versions of these apps. I also like that these apps can also “plug in” to the operating system. When I’m in my photo gallery on my Nexus One and press the “share” button I can immediately send that photo to Twitter, Evernote or WordPress in exactly the same way as I would send it using email. When I’m in my Twitter app and click on contact I immediately see this user’s Twitter info but if that user is also in my contacts (as shown in the image on the right), I can directly call him or send a text message right from within the Twitter app. This type of cross-application operating system integration just makes Android feel very slick and fun/easy to use. And as Android already has multi-tasking, switching from one app to the other is just a breeze.

Flash Player 10.1: The cherry on top
I’m sure that by now you know that Flash Player 10.1 is coming to mobile devices. Android is one of the first mobile OSes that will get Flash Player 10.1. I’ve used the iPhone for a good 2.5 years and, in all honesty, I had become used to seeing the blue legos. On numerous occasions I thought “Aah yes… That won’t work on my phone. I’ll watch that later.” and ended up not using the mobile browser and forgetting about that link to that video. Now that I have FP10.1 on my mobile device, I catch myself using the mobile browser a lot more. As a news junkie I want to stay up to date with the latest news wherever I am. The first sites I visit in the morning are the local news sites, the BBC News site and then I open up Google Reader. While writing this I realized that I’ve probably used my mobile browser with FP10.1 a lot more than I realize. When I open up a news site and want to watch a news clip, I can just do that now. I’ve also already used it to watch live newscasts streamed with Flash and also already played games when I was stuck in traffic or waiting in the airport. It’s very refreshing to have ALL the content you are used to having on your desktop right there in the palm of your hand!

Conclusion
My switch to Android hasn’t been as scary or hard as I thought it would be. Even though I’ve been using prerelease versions of the Android OS with the usual alpha/beta quirks, I’ve been very happy with it. I’m still using the same apps and I’ve been able to sync my iTunes/iPhoto library in almost exactly the same way as I was used to. Having Flash Player 10.1 and AIR 2 on it are just the cherries on top of an already delicious “frozen yoghurt”.

PS: Don’t forget to sign up to be notified when the public beta for Flash Player 10.1 for Android is available and sign up to be notified when the beta release of AIR for Android is available.
PS2: Did I already mention that I am giving away a Google Nexus One on my blog this week? ;-)

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Declaring this week “Android week”

by Serge Jespers on 17. May, 2010 in android

February 9th 2010: The last day I used my iPhone. Or: The day I discovered Android. Or: The day I switched to the Google Nexus One. Well… You get the idea.

I was an iPhone user from the moment it came out. Before I continue this post, I want to repeat what I’ve been saying all along: Apple has done a fantastic job with the iPhone. I was very happy with my iPhone and never thought I would last more than a few days without it. Especially since I was so accustomed to having all my apps and my music there. But you know what…? Most of the apps I often used are also available on Android. And in all honesty… some of those apps look better on Android than they do on the iPhone.

Take Tripit for instance. If you are a frequent traveller, Tripit is your best friend. It was the first application I installed and when I first launched it, I immediately noticed how sexy the UI was. Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that the iPhone UI isn’t sexy. Trouble is that every app that uses the iPhone design guidelines looks just like the next one. It’s refreshing to see application designers/developer being creative with their UIs again. (And yes, I do know that there are some very creative UIs on iPhone apps as well). In this particular case, the app even becomes easier to use. The icons, dates and times are a lot clearer compared to the iPhone version.

Even though I (and some of my colleagues) thought I wouldn’t last longer than a few days without my iPhone I am now entering my 14th week without it. But back to the title of this post… With Google I/O just a few days away and some really exciting announcements coming up, I officially declare this week “Android week”. I am going to blog about Android at least once a day and you can even win a Google Nexus One on my blog this week!

So… Happy Android week everybody!

Also read “Android week: On switching to Android“.

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Package Assistant Pro

by Serge Jespers on 13. May, 2010 in AIR

A few months ago I released an early version of my Package Assistant application. The application made it easier to compile native installers for AIR 2. While it was a lot easier to use compared to using the command line the application wasn’t very user friendly. A few weeks ago I started working on a brand new version and I think you will like it!

When you first launch the application, it will ask you to enter the paths to ADT and your code signing certificate. When you have access to the AIR For Android Beta you can also add the AIR 2.5 ADT to package native Android installer packages. AIR For Android is currently in private beta but you can sign up to be notified when it is publicly available. When you have set your preferences, you are ready to go. Just point Package Assistant Pro to your application descriptor XML file and it will read and set all your parameters from it. Package Assistant Pro will also check if you correctly entered your code signing certificate password.

If you don’t mind playing around with beta quality software then check out http://bit.ly/papinfo for the downloads (available for OS X and Windows) and more information. If you run into an issue, have feedback and/or have a feature request, feel free to get in touch or leave a comment on this post.

Package Assistant Pro would not be possible without AIR 2. To learn how to use native processes in AIR 2, check out this article on Adobe Devnet.

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