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Adobe AIR for Mobile Devices at Mobile World Congress

by Serge Jespers on 15. Feb, 2010 in Flash Platform, devices, mobile

Today Mobile World Congress kicks off in Barcelona. If you follow my Tweets or are a regular reader of my blog, you already knew we had some big announcements coming to the show. I’m so happy we can finally talk about this ;-)

Adobe AIR for mobile devices
If you are in Barcelona for MWC, make sure you drop by our booth! We are demoing AIR applications running on Android devices. This is fantastic news for Flash Platform developers who can now build applications that not only run across different desktop operating systems but can now also be deployed to Android devices. It’s obvious that AIR for Android takes full advantage of the improvements and new features we added to Flash Player 10.1. Those include multi-touch, gesture inputs, accelerometer input, GPS and screen rotation. My fellow evangelist Kevin Hoyt recently recorded a demo showing a couple of AIR mobile apps (Tweetbox, Southpark, Acrobat Connect) on the Motorola Droid. For more information, visit www.adobe.com/go/airmobile.

Flash Player 10.1 for mobile devices
I’ve been using Google’s Nexus One for a week now. One of the perks of working for Adobe is having access to the prerelease bits of new technology we are working on. The Nexus One I’m using actually has Flash Player 10.1 installed on it. It is extremely refreshing to be able to use the full web on your mobile device! Just the other day I wanted to view a video on Qik.com. While Qik has a mobile HTML5 site, the Nexus One didn’t seem to have the correct video codec. So I opened the normal Qik site which uses Flash Player to play the video… I pressed play and the video played. No blue Lego blocks, no missing plugin headaches. It just worked and that’s the way it should be. So far, I haven’t seen any Flash content that didn’t work on my Nexus One. I think that’s pretty impressive seeing as this is still a prerelease version. So yes… We are still working on it and no… you can’t download it today. But it’s coming soon and it truly is the missing piece in the mobile web puzzle. Whether you are addicted to Farmville or Bejeweled or if you’re like me and don’t want to install an app for every single news site you visit, you’ll be able to use those games and watch those videos in your mobile browser soon!

While most of the content just works, you should really think about tailoring your content to deliver the best possible user experience on mobile devices. Get a head start and learn how to do just that on Adobe Devnet.

I’m also really excited to see the Dell Mini 5 Tablet in action. In the video below Alan Tam shows a sneak peek of Flash content running on Dell’s upcoming touch-based tablet.

We’re demoing Flash and AIR content on a number of different devices at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this week but if you can’t make it, make sure you don’t miss these demo videos. I’ll also record a few demos at the booth today and post them to my blog later… If there’s anything specific you’d like to see, don’t hesitate to leave a comment. Stay tuned!

It’s a great time to be a Flash Platform developer! Flash on!

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Open letter from a Mac-head

by Serge Jespers on 28. Jan, 2010 in Industry

DISCLAIMER: I work for Adobe on the platform evangelism team. I’ve been a Flash designer/developer for the last 12 years. Even though I work for Adobe. I’m pretty sure I would have also written this post if I was still a freelance Flash developer. The views expressed on this blog are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer.

Dear Steve,

After working on Windows PCs for over 15 years, I switched to Mac about 6 years ago. I was sick and tired of spending more time keeping my system up and running than being creative. I remember it well. I actually borrowed a G5 to test both Mac and Windows head to head… and I never looked back. I immediately fell in love with OS X and the simplicity of using a Mac. Everything just worked and I could finally be creative again without worrying about crashes or driver conflicts. It wasn’t long before every single PC in the house was replaced by a Mac. I got a G5 to work on, bought a Power Book for work on the road, an iMac for my girlfriend and even an eMac for my mom.

When you announced the iPhone, I had my credit card in my hand somewhere halfway through your presentation. Sadly you only released it in the US at first and so I had to wait a little bit. I’m not ashamed to say that I “imported” one and hacked it so I could use it in Europe. You did a fantastic job with the iPhone and you truly changed the mobile industry. I could even live with the fact that the first version did not have the Flash plugin in the mobile Safari browser. I didn’t think I would, but I was standing in line the day you launched the iPhone 3G in Belgium and yes… I was also in waiting in line the day you launched the iPhone 3GS.

It was definitely harder to swallow that you still didn’t allow Flash on the 3GS. I totally found it plausible that the original iPhone’s CPU was struggling with Flash content but you said that the 3GS was a lot faster than the original iPhone. Add to that that Flash runs just fine on Android, WebOS, WinMo and Symbian smartphones… Together with the Open Screen Project partners, Adobe is working very hard on making sure that Flash Player 10.1 runs smoothly on these devices.

Yesterday, you announced the iPad. I recently bought an HP TouchSmart TX2 tablet (running Windows 7, which allows me to install both Flash Player, AIR and any other plugin) because you are right. There is room for something between the iPhone and my MacBook Pro. There definitely is room for a tablet to browse the web, play games, watch movies or read books on. However… this time you failed to enthuse me.

While the iPad’s form factor seems spot on, the limited operating system isn’t. When you demonstrated the web browser, it was very obvious that the browser did not support Flash (or any other plugins). When you showed the New York Times website, the video player was missing and a big missing plugin icon showed up on screen. Surely this is not the experience you wanted to demonstrate. You said you can browse the full web on the iPad but it clearly isn’t the full web… Isn’t that exactly why you would use a beautiful device like this? To watch video on sites like Facebook, CNN, ESPN, ABC, Fox, Hulu, MSNBC, Epix, … while you’re on the road? But it’s not just about video. What about those hundreds –maybe thousands– of sites that rely on advertisers to pay their bills? Sure… web ads can be really annoying but the reality is that advertisers like to use Flash for their ads. And what about games? Millions of people play Flash games on sites like Facebook, Miniclip, Kongregate and Disney every single day. Flash is a big part of the web today and when you promise “the best way to experience the web” I expect it to be the full web and not the crippled version you demonstrated on stage yesterday.

I’m sure Adobe would welcome you with open arms if you decided to join the Open Screen Project and help us to build an optimized version of Flash Player for the iPad. Some of our OSP partners have already demonstrated full HD 1080P Flash Video on a netbook so I see no reason why it wouldn’t work on the iPad.

I’m sorry to say that even though I am a Mac-head, I won’t be standing in line to get an iPad if I can’t browse the full web on it.

Serge

To anyone reading this: Make sure you blog your thoughts and/or leave a comment.

Update: Also read Ralph Hauwert’s and Mike Chambers’ post.

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Adobe at Mobile World Congress

by Serge Jespers on 14. Jan, 2010 in Events, devices, iPhone, mobile

Mobile World Congress in Barcelona is just around the corner and you can already feel the excitement building.

2010 is going to be an amazing year for Flash developers who want to create mobile applications. Not only did we announce the Flash CS5 iPhone compiler but we’ve already demoed Flash Player 10.1 on a variety of devices from Android to WebOS to Windows Mobile. At Mobile World Congres in Barcelona we will be demonstrating uncompromised rich web experiences in Flash on the latest smartphones, netbooks, and smartbooks with some of the Open Screen Project partners. If you plan to attend the show, come visit us in Hall 1 and experience them firsthand.

We’re also offering Flash Platform developers a limited number of complimentary exhibition visitor passes (a value of € 599 per person) on a first-come, first-served basis. Email us with your name, company name, and email address (for each pass) if you’re interested. For more details, visit http://www.adobe.com/go/mwc2010.

From the evangelism team, Mark Doherty, Tom Krcha, Enrique Duvos and I will be there to answer your questions. Hope to see you in Barcelona!

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10 leading CEOs discuss the Open Screen Project and Flash

by Serge Jespers on 06. Oct, 2009 in open screen project

CEOs from ARM, Broadcom, DoCoMo, Google, HTC, Motorola, NVIDIA, Palm, QUALCOMM, and RIM talk about how they’re bringing Flash Platform technologies to their devices and platforms as part of the Open Screen Project and why they think it’s important to have Flash on their devices and platforms.

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HD video (720p) on a netbook? With NVIDIA & Flash Player you can!

by Serge Jespers on 28. Sep, 2009 in Flash Platform, open screen project

If you’ve toyed around with netbooks, you know that they are not the fastest machines you can get these days. Playing HD video is out of the question… or… WAS out of the question. Today German site Notebook Journal posted a video showing a demo of a netbook running a new NVIDIA (partner in the Open Screen Project) graphics chip. The NVIDIA ION chip does hardware acceleration for Flash Video and – as you can see in the video below – does an amazing job at it.

The video starts by showing an HD clip on a device not using hardware acceleration. Around the 1:20 minute mark, you can see how big the difference is when using NVIDIA’s new chipset.

[Via CrunchGear & Engadget]

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Open at Adobe

by Serge Jespers on 21. Jul, 2009 in open screen project, open source

What is “open”? It’s a question I’ve been asking for quite a while now and I can’t seem to find a definitive answer.

Dave McAllister (Adobe’s Open Standards Evangelist) actually sums it up nicely: “Open is the currently most misused word in the IT space,” he says. “Open really comes down and says it’s accessible, extensible and can be freely used by anyone. Most companies define open as a single dimensional aspect. For Adobe it’s all aspects of communications and technologies. For us, those are open source, standards and community.”

Check out this video to learn more about the open initiatives at Adobe and just how open the Flash Platform really is.

Today we also released the Open Source Media Framework (formerly known as Strobe) and the Text Layout Framework on our Open Source website.

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Why I love the Flash Platform…

by Serge Jespers on 16. Jul, 2009 in Flash Platform

Before we start and just so we get this out of the way… For 2 years now, Adobe pays my paycheck. That said, I “saw the light” of Flash more than 13 years ago. Because of my long history with Flash, I feel I can say that this is an unbiased post.

Everywhere
First of all, Flash is everywhere. I’m not just talking about its ubiquity but also about the variety of devices it is available on. It’s not just a browser plugin anymore. The Flash Platform now extends from desktop to mobile to consumer electronics. There are already more than 1 billion devices in the market today that support Flash content. While this is a “lighter” version of the Flash Player, it already has a lot of its bigger brother’s features and is already used for lots of mobile applications, games and promotional content. Together with the Open Screen Project partners, Adobe aims to bring the same consistent runtime that you’re used to in your browser to a broad variety of devices. In the not too distant future, you’ll be able to repurpose the code base across multiple devices. I’m actually doing a workshop about that very topic at MAX this year!

Consistent
With Flash, you never needed to worry about how your application will look in browser X or on operating system Z. And you still don’t have to worry about that. If Flash Player is installed, the application works and behaves consistently across all browsers and operating systems. Even applications/sites built with Flash 1 still work as designed. If you want to use any of the new features that are available with a new release of Flash Player, you (as the developer) can use express install to transparently upgrade the Flash Player. The same thing goes for desktop development with AIR. A single AIR application installer runs on Mac, Windows and Linux machines without having to worry about operating specific settings or features.

Community
Even back in the early days of Flash, the community around it grew every day. Just about all of the early community sites around Flash are still alive and kicking. Ultrashock and FlashKit, for instance, are still going strong. If you get stuck somewhere, there’s always someone around to help out. If you’re looking for a particular ActionScript library, chances are that someone has already created one. Some of these ActionScript libraries have even caused some amazing innovations on their own. Papervision 3D and FLARToolkit are just a couple examples. Many sites and applications like Facebook, Flickr and Twitter even have dedicated ActionScript 3.0 libraries.

Open
Yes… Open! Not only is Adobe very open about what it’s doing and future roadmaps, the file formats used by Flash Player are also open. The specs for the SWF and FLV file formats are open as well as the specs for AMF (the binary format for exchanging data used by the Flash Player) and RTMP. Adobe also uses and supports many open source projects like Eclipse and WebKit and also contributes to the open source community.

But the most important reason is actually pretty simple. The Flash Platform is just a lot of fun to develop for and it’s very clear that the future is looking very bright for Flash Platform developers. Flash on!

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Adobe and HTC Bring Flash Platform to Android

by Serge Jespers on 24. Jun, 2009 in Flash Platform, mobile, open screen project

HTC Hero_ The first Android device with Flash | Adobe Developer Connection.jpg

There’s been a lot of buzz about Flash on mobile devices the last couple of days and today HTC announces the release of the first Flash enabled Android phone. This HTC Hero delivers a more complete Web browsing experience and provides access to a broad variety of Flash technology based content available on the Web today. Users can browse and discover a broad set of Web content and applications not supported by mobile phones in the past. People can also view YouTube videos using Flash technology, and enable full screen viewing mode by simply double tapping the screen.

The HTC Hero delivers powerful, compatible video playback performance using Flash technology, and interactive content enabled by ActionScript 2.0. Users can enjoy and navigate through Web videos using intuitive video controls. With progressive streaming of large MP3 audio files from a Web server and the local file storage, the HTC Hero provides a seamless audio experience. Support for Sorenson and On2 VP6 codecs enables higher quality video and playback of existing Web content.

This is also a very important step towards full Web browsing with Flash Player 10 on mobile phones in the future.

Check out a demo of the HTC Hero on http://adobe.com/go/htchero. I can’t wait to get my hands on one!

Adobe versus the ‘Open Web’

by Serge Jespers on 27. May, 2009 in Industry, adobe, open screen project

Lately, I’ve read and heard a lot of conversations about how “HTML 5 is going to kill Flash” and how Adobe is bad for “breaking the open web” with the “proprietary” Flash Player.

So… Let’s think about this for a second. People have been talking about HTML 5 for quite some time now and it seems that it will be just that for still quite some time more. The release for HTML 5 is scheduled for 2012. Sure… Internet Explorer 8 already has some HTML 5 features enabled but the full blown “Flash killer” is not going to be available until 2012… and even that is an optimistic schedule. If I look at what HTML 5 is going to bring to the table, it seems that its features can be compared to a smaller feature set of Flash Player 7. That version of the Flash Player was released in September 2003… So those features have been available for at least 6 years now. Sure, HTML 5 will still evolve but so will the Flash Player. Every 12 months or so, a new version of the Flash Player is released bringing new features to the web. People have been installing updates faster and faster and within just a few months developers can use those new features in their sites/applications. So by the time HTML 5 gets to critical mass, the Flash Player will be at version 12 or 13 with even more functionality and exciting features that will not be available in standard browsers.

So why is Flash evil? The “skip intro” era is already far behind us and it’s not just about advertising. These days developers are also using the power of the Flash Platform for full blown online/offline applications. Just have a look at Picnik, Sumo Paint or Hobnox. Even organizations like NATO for instance use the Flash Platform in ways that you would not be able to do with HTML 5.

Flash has also greatly improved the video experience on the web. Remember the old days where you had to choose between Windows Media Player, Real Player and Quicktime? And when you made your selection, you still had to pick your connection speed. And when you finally got through all your selections, chances were you still didn’t have the right codec and you still wouldn’t see the video. With Flash, ‘play video’ actually means ‘play video’ and today over 85% of all the video on the web is viewed using Flash Player. YouTube, CNN, Vimeo, NY Times, Flickr, Last.fm, Facebook and many many more all use Flash.

Now don’t get me wrong. I am not saying the Open Web is a bad thing. I welcome all forms of innovation but Open Web supporters also need to open their eyes and see that Adobe is not as bad as they think.

So why don’t we open source the Flash Player? Well… First of all… I’m not sure what good that would do? That said, Adobe doesn’t own the rights to every single bit in the Flash Player. We don’t own the rights for the video and graphics codecs for example. It also seems that not many people know that we opened up the specs for the SWF and FLV file formats as part of the Open Screen Project. We also published the specs for AMF (the binary format for exchanging data used by the Flash Player) and announced that we’ll also publish the specs for RTMP. We also have a bunch of Open Source projects within Adobe. The Flex SDK being one of them. On top of having our own Open Source projects we also support and contribute to existing Open Source projects like WebKit, the Mozilla Foundation and Eclipse.

I know… Adobe pays my paycheck but I honestly think that we are trying our very best to be a good web citizen. However, I also think we don’t get much credit for it. Hopefully this blog post can change your mind a little bit. Feel free to comment.

UPDATE: Ryan Stewart just posted a list of HTML 5 features and when similar features were introduced in the Flash Player.

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Flash on TVs, Set-Top Boxes and Blu-Ray Players

by Serge Jespers on 20. Apr, 2009 in Flash Platform, devices, open screen project

If you switch on your satellite or cable box today, chances are you are not very impressed with the user experience. I know I’m not. Even though these boxes are connected to the Internet, they often don’t use it to its full potential.

When I browse through the on demand library on my cable provider’s (Telenet in Belgium) set-top box, the only info I get is a short description. I’m lucky if it even shows the movie poster or a list of actors. Even more lucky if they have a trailer available. Those are just my minimum requirements. ;-) What I really want to see is recommendations from my friends on Twitter or Facebook. Reviews from IMDB or Rotten Tomatoes. Trailers or clips from YouTube. All this information is out there and no one seems to be using it on these devices. Why? Good question… Before I joined Adobe, I worked for a large Belgian media company. My last year there (is that really already 5 years ago?), I investigated the digital TV platform (MHP) the cable provider set out to use. So I do know quite a bit about this technology. Sadly, I also found that this platform and many other like it have a very limited graphical and functional feature set. Programming for these platforms is definitely not as straightforward as it should be. In this world, there are no APIs to talk to Facebook or YouTube so you basically have nothing to start from… and it shows…

Now what if TVs and set-top boxes would have a Flash player on board? That would certainly make this a whole lot easier! That is exactly what Adobe is announcing today. We’re also showing a demo on a set-top box at NAB in Las Vegas this week.

This may sound a little bit strange, but this is exactly what I’ve been dreaming about for a long long time and I hope that cable/satellite providers everywhere will soon start building their UIs and apps on set-top boxes and TVs that support it. I’d love to see them use the full potential of the Flash Platform and the information available on the Internet. Are you listening, Telenet? ;-)

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