Although Flash On The Beach is only 4 years old this year, it has already become a highlight in the Flash community. There something about FOTB that makes this one of the “must-go” conferences of the year. And it seems to be growing year after year!

This is going to be the first year that I’m actually doing a session at FOTB. “I’d better come up with an appealing session”, was my first thought when I got accepted as a speaker. After all, I am sharing the billboard with Flash rock stars like Keith Peters, Mario Klingemann, Mike Jones, Grant Skinner, Joa Ebert, Colin Moock and many more.

But… I think I have an interesting session lined up. With multi-screen development becoming increasingly important, I thought it was a good idea to do a session about that. Even more so because we have some interesting announcements lined up around the MAX timeframe which coincidentally happens to be just 2 weeks after FOTB… So… I’ll show you how to build an application that runs on multiple screens sharing the same code-base and using the capabilities available in the different runtimes.

Can you read between the lines…? “Same code-base across the different runtimes…” Anyone? ;-)

Early bird pricing for FOTB ends on July 24th and FOTB did sell out the last 2 years… So… What are you waiting for? See you in Brighton!

More info and tickets on http://www.flashonthebeach.com/

When I talk to developers about mobile application development, they all seem to think that Apple’s App Store is the only outlet where you can make money with mobile apps. Sure, Apple has done a terrific job making it easier for the consumer to buy and install apps on their iPhone but that doesn’t mean this is the only way. The iPhone market is also only a fraction of the total amount of mobile devices out there and people have been making money from mobile phone users for years now.

Here’s a little test. Turn on your television and tune in to any music channel. (Try to) Leave it on for half an hour and count the commercials for ringtone and application subscriptions you see. I’m pretty sure that after half an hour you’ve seen at least five for companies like the Ringtoneking, Jamster and Jamba. All of these (worldwide) providers allow users of just about any mobile phone to buy, download and install mobile applications. All it takes is a simple premium SMS that returns a download link. People have been doing this for years now and the Ringtonekings of this world are obviously making a ton of money from it.

Sure, it’s not the most ideal solution and again, Apple has done a fantastic job with the App Store. However, if these ringtone/app providers have been making money for so long, that means that people have been buying and installing ringtones, games and apps way before the iPhone was even conceived.

Conclusion: If you want to make money from mobile application development, why not do it for the broadest possible audience? And if you’ve made that choice, look in to Flash for mobile devices. It’s available on more than 400 650 (source: Device Central CS4) different mobile phones from just about all manufacturers including Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Samsung, HTC, LG, …

Facebook and Adobe have just released an ActionScript 3.0 Client Library for the Facebook Platform API. This will make it a whole lot easier for Flash developers to build applications for the Facebook Platform using Flash, Flex and AIR.

If you have already built a Flash based application for Facebook in the past, you’re probably wondering what is so new about this release. While there are some unofficial libraries out there, many of these struggle to stay up to date with the rapidly evolving Facebook Platform. Today’s release makes ActionScript one of three officially supported languages of the Facebook Platform. The new AS3.0 Client Library is fully supported by Facebook and Adobe. Both Facebook and Adobe are committed to making sure that this library is kept up to date and provides the best experience for developers building on both platforms.

Danny Dura published a quick start video tutorial that will get you building Flash apps for the Facebook Platform in no time. We’ve also created a dedicated area on the Adobe Developer Connection that has everything you need to get inspired and get started.

Flash on!

From Wikipedia:

As of June 2008, the number of personal computers in use worldwide hit one billion, while another billion is expected to be reached by 2014. Mature markets like the United States, Western Europe and Japan accounted for 58 percent of the worldwide installed PCs. The emerging markets were expected to double their installed PCs by 2013 and to take 70 percent of the second billion PCs.

As I’m sure you know, PCs are everywhere these days and the market is still growing rapidly. I’m also sure you know that Adobe AIR can run on most of these as well (provided they run Windows Vista Home Premium, Business, Ultimate, or Enterprise, Windows Vista SP1, Windows XP Tablet PC Edition SP2 and SP3, Windows XP SP2 and SP3, Windows 2000 SP4, Windows 2003 Server, Mac OS X 10.4.11 or higher or Linux). That means that, building an application that runs on Adobe AIR has a potential user base of 1 billion users that is growing rapidly every quarter!

“That’s cool, Serge. But how do I make money from building AIR apps? Where’s the AIR app store like Apple’s app store for the iPhone?”
I think Apple has done a tremendous job at making buying and installing applications completely foolproof. But the real question is: “Do you really need an app store for AIR applications?”. There are lots of ways to monetize your application. And there are already lots of good examples of people making money with AIR applications.

For example: EarthBrowser, Agile Agenda, Broadchoice, Tanager Audioworks and Balsamiq all sell licenses per user. No developer programs to sign up to and no middle man (with the exception of the payment provider). Easy to set up and you have total control.

Selling software licenses is just one way of monetizing your AIR application. Robert Christensen, one of the AIR product managers, did a session on this topic at MAX in Milan. If you want more information on how to monetize your application, I would suggest you check out Rob’s blog post on this. Rob has a few real world cases that will definitely inspire you. You really don’t need an app store and thus you don’t have to wait to make money with your work!

Now the only things left to do, is start building your AIR applications, make money with them and send me a percentage of what you make with them ;-).

I get to see and play with a lot of really cool AIR applications (even when they’re still being developed). Every now and then I come across an app that totally ignores any best practices or usability rules. AIR provides developers with a lot of features that could potentially annoy users if not used wisely. I thought it was a good idea to write this article. I’m not saying you shouldn’t use these features, I just want you to think about them before you add them to your application.

1. Launching your application on login

   NativeApplication.nativeApplication.startAtLogin = true;

   That’s all it takes to have your application launch whenever your user logs in to his account on his computer. However, if this is something that you set automatically without telling the user about it, you may find your application to be uninstalled faster than it was installed. There really is no reason why you should set this automatically. You can also set this on runtime. So why not ask the user if he wants to launch your application on login when he first launches the app? And why not provide a small preferences panel that allows the user to easily change this setting?

2. Always in front

   NativeWindow.alwaysInFront = true;

   Again, very easy to do and in some cases it totally makes sense to have an application stay on top but it should be the user’s decision and not yours.

3. Automatically setting the filetype

   NativeApplication.nativeApplication.setAsDefaultApplication("mp3");

   Imagine you’re building an application that can play MP3 files. Are you sure you want to automatically open your application whenever the user clicks on an MP3 file? This is also one of those things you may want to check first and we provide all the methods to do so.
   When you first launch your application, you can first check if your application is already set as the default for this filetype.

   NativeApplication.nativeApplication.isSetAsDefaultApplication("mp3");

   If it’s not, check which application is the default for the filetype you want to use.

   NativeApplication.nativeApplication.getDefaultApplication("mp3");

   This returns the path to the application registered as the default app for this filetype. You can then ask the user something like: “Hey I see you play MP3-files with QuickTime but I can also play these files. Can I set myself as the default application?”.

   Since you already added a prefs panel for setting the launch on login and always in front preferences, you can also add this one. To remove your application as the default for a specific filetype, just call:

   NativeApplication.nativeApplication.removeAsDefaultApplication("mp3");

4. Full screen applications

   I think there are only a couple of valid use cases for full screen applications (not the fullscreen displaystate but just taking over the entire screen with the exception of the menu bar). The obvious ones are video and kiosk applications. If your application fits in this category or you think taking over the entire screen is totally acceptable for your app, please do make sure that you add close and minimize buttons. If quitting your application is the only way to quickly check an email, the user may never return to your app.

5. Custom chrome

   This is actually related to #4. If you are making an application that has custom chrome, you should always add the standard close, minimize and maximize buttons. Everyone is used to having these in an application window so make sure you don’t forget to add them. These are the methods to call whenever one of these buttons gets clicked.

   NativeWindow.close();
   NativeWindow.minimize();
   NativeWindow.maximize();

   You should also be aware that because of the way custom chrome is rendered on a user’s machine, an application with custom chrome can take a performance hit.

6. Self signed applications

   What is “Joe The Plumber” going to do when he sees 2 red icons in the installation screen of the app he’s trying to install? As a rule, no AIR application should be publicly launched without being signed with a code signing certificate. We are aware of the fact that individuals can’t get these certificates anywhere right now and this is something that we are working on. Individuals can get a code signing certificate from Chosen Security. However, for companies, it’s really easy to get a cert.

I hope these “rules” will help you build better applications. I’m sure some of you can think of other rules developers should think about, so feel free to add them to the comments if you know of any.