MWC wrap-up: my favorite devices
While sitting in the airport waiting for my flight home from Mobile World Congress I thought it was a good idea to sum up some of my favorite MWC announcements. One thing that definitely stood out was Android. The little green robot was everywhere! Google provided all their partners with Android candy and a robot display. This was also the first time that Google had a booth at MWC and it was the talk of the town! It was one of the biggest booths on the show floor and was always crowded. I’m guessing the slide and the giveaways had something to do with that.
Google asked a bunch of developers and partners to showcase their Android app on their booth and I think that really worked. Adobe partner Condé Nast showed off Wired Magazine and The New Yorker on a Motorola Xoom on the Android booth. The electronic versions of Wired and The New Yorker are built with Adobe’s Digital Publishing Suite.
MWC was full of tablets. The Motorola Xoom, Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 and the LG OptimusPad all look very interesting. NVidia even showed the LG OptimusPad with Flash Player 10.2 on Honeycomb! My favorite was definitely the HTC Flyer. Well… That and the PlayBook.
I really like the HTC Sense UI and HTC seems to have done a fantastic job at building a tablet specific version of the Sense UI. Sadly they were only showing it behind glass so they probably still have a bit of work to do. The specs look great though and this is high on my wish list. I also like BlackBerry’s PlayBook. RIM made a balsy move by opting for a brand new OS instead of picking one that already exists. And you know what… It works… The PlayBook is incredibly fast and the UI brings a nice breath of fresh air to the soon to be crowded tablet market. It’s completely different from anything else on the market. I also like the touch enabled bezel on the PlayBook.
There were also plenty of new smartphones at MWC. The ones that really popped out were the Samsung Galaxy S2, the LG Optimus 2X and the HTC Incredible S. The Galaxy S2 is incredibly light. It’s so light that it felt like there was no battery inside. The LG Optimus 2X is also very light and it runs on NVidia’s Tegra 2 making it incredibly fast. My favorite was again an HTC device. The Incredible S looks more or less like what I have in my Desire HD except that it’s faster and has a front facing camera.
Oh… I should probably say that all of the devices mentioned in this post have Flash Player preinstalled and there were dozens of other devices that also come with Flash Player preinstalled. These are just my favorites. It’s been an amazing show and I already look forward to next year’s edition.
Digital magazines coming to Android built on AIR
I’m sure you’ve heard about the Wired, Martha Stewart, and New Yorker magazines on iPad, right? Those were created with a new suite of tools that we’ve been working on. The Digital Publishing Suite allows you to use your existing staff, skills, and Creative Suite publishing tools to design and deliver publisher-branded reading experiences to mobile devices.
Currently these magazines were only available on iOS devices but this week at MWC we announced that the Android viewer is now available. The application is actually built on AIR!
Condé Nast, publisher of WIRED magazine, showed off the magazine at MWC on the Motorola Xoom running Honeycomb. Check out the video below for more info (courtesy Seattle Times):
MWC off to a great start
Mobile World Congress kicked off in Barcelona today and Adobe announced some amazing numbers. Developers and content publishers can now deploy Adobe AIR applications to more than 84 million smartphones and tablets running Android and iOS. Thousands of applications have been created and made available on Android Market and Apple’s App Store to date. By the end of 2011, Adobe expects more than 200 million smartphones and tablets to support Adobe AIR applications.
More than 20 million smartphones were shipped or upgraded with Flash Player 10.1 on over 35 certified devices in the first six months following the launch. For 2011, we’re expecting Flash Player to be supported on more than 132 million units worldwide. More than 50 tablets are expected to support Flash Player this year alone.
I’m really proud of what Adobe has achieved in such a short amount of time. This is my third year at MWC and we were actually talking about the things we’ve been showing at the show the last couple of years. It’s pretty amazing to see where we are today and to see the momentum in the market.
For more info check out http://adobe.ly/FlashMWC2011
Flash on!
The MWC 2010 Flash Challenge
At the recent Mobile World Congress my colleagues gave me a map… and 10 minutes to find all Flash-enabled devices at Mobile World Congress 2010. You should know that there is 65.000 square meters of exhibition space at MWC and there are over 1300 exhibitors. You also need to navigate between over 50.000 attendees. I’m sure you get the idea… This was not an easy challenge… But… I’m always up for a challenge… So here’s the video…
Video: AOL Media explains the benefits of Flash Player 10.1
Sun Sachs from AOL Media explains how Flash Player 10.1 coming to mobile devices is going to change the way they publish their 88+ brands across multiple devices.
For more videos from Mobile World Congress, check out the MWC page on Adobe TV.
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