Tag Archives: Flash Player

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: The Web and TV marriage: Google TV

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

A few years ago I used to work for Belgium’s biggest commercial broadcaster. In my last year there (now 7 years ago) I investigated interactive TV. I was pretty disappointed to see what was available at that time. Almost 5 years ago my local cable operator (Telenet) launched interactive digital TV in Belgium and I was still disappointed. While their set-top box is connected to the web, it only uses it to “call home” when you order VOD content. Ooh… and you can read your email on it…

A few weeks ago, Telenet updated their set-top box UI… And I was still disappointed. Telenet is in a unique position. They are already in my house with an Internet connected STB that is connected to my big screen TV. This is where I want to see my web content. When I search for my favorite TV show, I want to see when it plays on my favorite TV channels but I also want it to show me related web content from YouTube, Flickr, Twitter, … When I browse their VOD content, I want to read other people’s reviews from IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes, Twitter, … That is what I want from my digital tv… And Google just launched it at Google I/O. Google TV is exactly what I want to see on my TV… It’s 2010 for God’s sake! Unfortunately I live in Belgium and I probably will not see Google TV any time soon…

Here’s a demo of Google TV recorded by the Adobe TV team. Oh… And before I forget: Google TV runs Flash Player 10.1 and AIR!

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Flash Player 10.1 for Android still on track for H1 release

by Serge Jespers on 19. Apr, 2010 in Flash Player, android

There seems to be some confusion around whether or not Flash Player 10.1 for mobile devices (including Android) will ship in the first half of 2010 like we promised. It’s very energizing and refreshing to see the excitement about Flash Player coming to Android! However, I do want to set the record straight.

Flash Player 10.1 for mobile devices (including Android) is still on track for an H1 2010 release!

The confusion started when an interview with Adobe’s CEO Shantanu Narayen was misinterpreted. He said that Android devices with Flash Player 10.1 preinstalled will start shipping in H2.

It’s perfectly normal that devices with Flash Player preinstalled ship a little bit later than the actual release. That said, Flash Player 10.1 will also be available in the Android Market, on our website and/or via an OTA update of the OS. If you already own a recent Android device like the Nexus One, you will be able to download and install Flash Player yourself.

Make sure you sign up for the Flash Player 10.1 for Android beta notification and you may also be interested in signing up for the AIR2 for Android beta notification.

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6 lesser known features in Flash Player 10.1

by Serge Jespers on 13. Apr, 2010 in Flash Player

I’m sure by now you know about all the new features in Flash Player 10.1 but I’m also sure that there are a few that you don’t know about yet. Some of them are pretty cool and very useful/good to know. That is why I wanted to give you a quick list of 6 lesser known features.

  1. Disabled screen saver in full screen mode
    There’s nothing more annoying than having to press the keyboard or moving your mouse every few minutes to prevent the screensaver from kicking in while watching a video in full screen. Flash Player 10.1 now temporarily disables your screensaver if video is playing and not paused, stopped or buffering. But it also works with audio. So… if you’re running a full screen app that plays audio and it is not paused, stopped or buffering and actually has volume the screensaver will not kick in.
  2. Flash Player throttling
    Before Flash Player 10.1 the runtime would just render out all SWFs at the maximum possible frame rate even when they were not visible. In 10.1 this is now changing as Flash Player can detect whether or not a SWF is visible or not… if the browser actually supports it. Check out Tinic’s blog post on this topic and his follow up on which browsers support it.
  3. Mobile text input
    I’ve been asked this question a couple of times over the last few weeks which is why I wanted to highlight it in this post. Flash Player 10.1 provides support for use of native device virtual keyboards with TextField support if no physical keyboard is detected. A virtual keyboard is automatically raised and lowered in response to focus changes on text fields.
  4. Globalization API
    The new ActionScript globalization APIs allow Flash Player to use the values chosen in the operating system locale preferences to process text and lists and present information based on location context. Locale specific information and processing can include: date, time, currency and number formatting; currency and number parsing; string comparison for sorting or searching for text; and upper/lower case conversions.
  5. Graphics hardware acceleration on mobile
    A GPU-based vector renderer replaces the software renderer on smartphones and other mobile devices, resulting in faster rendering performance for more expressive user experiences while consuming less power. This supports hardware acceleration of all rendering, including vector graphics, bitmaps, 3D effects, filters, color transforms, alpha, device and embedded text, Saffron type, and cacheAsBitmap.
  6. Private browsing mode
    Flash Player 10.1 now automatically respects the host browser’s “private browsing” mode (Supported in Firefox, Chrome, and Internet Explorer), where local data and browsing activity are not persisted locally, providing a consistent private browsing mechanism for SWF and HTML content.

The release of Flash Player 10.1 is just around the corner now but you can already start developing applications that target the new APIs today. The release candidate of Flash Player 10.1 as well as all the information on how to start building apps today is available on Adobe Labs.

Flash on!

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Google and Adobe bringing improved Flash Player support in Chrome

by Serge Jespers on 30. Mar, 2010 in Flash Platform, Flash Player

There’s been lot of buzz in the blogs about this over the last 24 hours. Now, the news is official: Google and Adobe are bringing improved Flash Player support in Chrome.

Paul Betlem: Today, Google is releasing the initial integration of Flash Player with Chrome in their developer channel (behind a command line flag). Moving forward, Google will be including Flash Player in Chrome so users will always have the most current release and a safer and more seamless experience. The robust integration between Chrome and Flash Player will serve as a showcase for more consistent, seamless, and efficient Web browsing experiences. We feel that this significant effort by both Google and Adobe will directly improve the speed of innovation and move the Web forward, benefiting the entire community of developers and end-users.

Adobe is also working with Google, Mozilla and the broader community on a new plugin integration API that will be OS- and browser-neutral and thus maximize consistency across platforms. The new API will also provide performance benefits as the browser will be able to directly share more information about its current state and also provide a more secure browsing experience.

For more information, check out the Chromium Blog and Paul Betlem’s blog post on the Flash Player team blog.

To enable the internal Flash Player on OS X, download and install the Chrome developer channel version. Then open up Terminal and type: “open -a Google\ Chrome –args –enable-internal-flash”

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The power of the Flash Platform: Audiotool

by Serge Jespers on 24. Mar, 2010 in Flash Platform, Flash Player

Andre Michelle and Joa Ebert have inspired and amazed me many times. The things they do with Flash are unbelievable. The new version (completely rewritten from the ground up) of their Audiotool is absolutely amazing and a must see. They built an entire electronic music studio with the Flash Platform. I cannot think of a better way to demonstrate the power of the Flash Platform than to point you to http://www.audiotool.com

Aah man… This is going to keep me busy for hours and hours and hours!

Visit audiotool.com

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Flash Player 10.1 and battery life on mobile devices

by Serge Jespers on 25. Feb, 2010 in Flash Player, mobile

It’s great to see all the excitement about Flash Player 10.1 coming to mobile devices! Though some people need to learn to get their facts straight before jumping to conclusions.

One of the biggest improvements in Flash Player 10.1 is the memory and CPU consumption which obviously also has a big impact on the battery life. Battery life on mobile devices is very important and thus always top of mind for the engineering team!

There was a lot of commotion around the video that my colleague Michael Chaize published. He showcased a number of Flash based apps to show off the performance of FP10.1. Some of the applications he showed are CPU intensive and thus also potential battery drainers.

Mark Doherty posted a great follow up post with some background information on how we test battery consumption and performance internally. He also recorded a 17 minute YouTube video which resulted in a 6% battery drain. That results to being able to watch over 4 hours worth of YouTube video over WiFi using Flash Player. I can’t even do that on my brand new MacBook Pro (which is supposed to be able to give me 8 hours of battery life)… I’m not even sure I can do that on my Apple phone using their native YouTube app…

Today, Michael posted a follow up video where he plays a 26 minute video and plays a Flash based game for 12 minutes.

He noted a 10% battery drain after the playing the video which calculates down to 4.3 hours of video. Playing the Flash based game for 12 minutes resulted in a 4% drain which boils down to 5 hours of continuous gaming in the browser using Flash Player 10.1.

Those numbers are pretty impressive to me! Especially when you consider that this is still a pre-release version of the Flash Player running on a pre-release version of Android.

Kudos to the Flash Player team! Flash on!

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Flash Player 10.1 and AIR coming to BlackBerry devices

by Serge Jespers on 17. Feb, 2010 in mobile

For me, day two of Mobile World Congress started with a demo on how to build Flash based applications for BlackBerry devices. Since RIM is one of our Open Screen Partners you will soon see Flash Player 10.1 and AIR on BlackBerry devices. As a Flash developer I am obviously very excited about that. BlackBerry has traditionally been an enterprise platform, one that uses Java as its core developer platform. Bringing Flash Player 10.1 and AIR to these devices opens up a whole new world for Flash Developers but also for BlackBerry users.

At today’s BlackBerry Developer Day we showed some of the new workflows between Adobe’s creative tools and both RIM’s and Adobe’s development environments. With the upcoming BlackBerry plugin for Illustrator, it’s incredibly easy to create assets for different screen sizes. It also simplifies communicating with the developer as he only needs to import one file in to the BlackBerry development environment he’s comfortable with. We’ve also demoed how you can soon build Flash based applications for BlackBerry phones and how Device Central makes it easy to test those applications as if you were using it on the actual device. Developers can use Device Central to test and tweak different screen resolutions and test the application as if it was running on the phone. The next version of Device Central will even allow you to test features like the accelerometer and multi-touch.

I talked to a number of BlackBerry application developers (video will be available on Adobe TV soon) who were at the keynote this morning and it was great to see their enthusiasm. Not only are they very excited about the improvements both RIM and Adobe are trying to make to streamline the communication between designers and developers but I could definitely feel the excitement about Flash Player and AIR coming to these devices as well.

I really like how RIM and the BlackBerry community are embracing the idea of being able to include Flash content in their mobile sites and applications. I can’t wait to see which types of “super apps” the BlackBerry community is going to build once they have Flash Player and AIR on the devices and to see what types of apps the Flash community is going to build for BlackBerry devices.

Make sure you keep an eye on the BlackBerry developer blog. A video of the keynote will be posted there as well as a bunch of information on how to build apps for BlackBerry devices.

Flash on!

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Help improve Flash Player 10.1 and AIR 2.0

by Serge Jespers on 08. Feb, 2010 in AIR, Flash Player

Adobe engineering is headed into the final stretch of development of Flash Player 10.1 and AIR 2.0. We need community help to identify quality issues with your deployed and in-development content. While both Flash and AIR are tested extensively internally, every beta we receive valuable feedback from the Flash community and beyond.

Here is how you can get involved:

  1. Download and install Flash Player 10.1 Beta 2 and AIR 2.0 Beta 2
  2. Test the new beta runtimes with your content and applications.
  3. Log bugs at bugs.adobe.com. Engineering teams use your bug reports to reproduce errors and improve the runtime quality.

As far as beta timelines, beta 3 releases are a few weeks away and release candidates are expected within 60 days. Your involvement and assistance during this critical development window are really important and will only improve Flash Player and AIR quality.

Please also help spread the word about the beta process via Twitter:
Improve Flash 10.1 & AIR 2.0 via Beta 2 http://bit.ly/aN4Qk0 READ & RT #Flash #AIR #QUALITY

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The iPad’s browsing experience

by Serge Jespers on 29. Jan, 2010 in Industry

My fellow evangelist Lee Brimelow created an accurate view of  the browsing experience on Apple’s new iPad. Sometimes a picture does say more than a thousand words… Go check it out on Lee’s blog.

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