Poulpytris available on Mobango

Some weeks ago, I found another content aggregator open to everyone :

I'm actually testing it with Poulpytris, and I must say the results after 3 days are VERY interesting (more info in 1 month)

Poulpytris available on GetJar

At last, after so many months trying to handle in app advertising, Poulpytris is freely available on GetJar

Poulpytris handles several ads networks
- Admob
- ZestAds
- InMobi
- Webmoblink
- AdFonic (disabled right now because their server is so sloooow)

See you in one month for the first report (on Poulpytris success and each ads network)

Thanks again to Alessandro for the ultimate tip which allowed me to finish this project

Admob now support Palm's WebOs

I forgot to talk about the new SDK released by Admob.

I know some of you are interested in Palm so you'll be happy to learn WebOs is now Admob enabled.
So, Admon has now a SDK for
- Mobile Web (and so Flash Lite!)
- IPhone
- Android
- WebOS

They just need to add Blackberries !
Right now, I only saw Mojiva with a BBerry SDK...and RIM themself

Developer’s Guide to In‐Application Advertising

Last week, while making some final research on InApp advertising, I found a very interesting guide from Skyhook Wireless : Developer’s Guide to In‐Application Advertising

Althought it is based on mainly Iphone, its comparaison of Paid vs Free and its description of the mobile ads world are still a must read

Poulpy's Game : 9 months analysis

In March'09 I released Poulpy's Game on GetJar.
1 month later, I made a quick analysis of the download.

Just before I release my new one Poulpytris, I thought it was time to make another analysis, with more data on these 9 last month and 15K downloads!
Following current move on Flash Lite world, I wanted to make an analysis of the version download : raw SWF vs SIS packaged vs CAB packaged

Here come the stats


This the evolution of the number of downloads
Apart the big drop after 2 months, you can notice the 'poor' result of the SIS version
More on the SWF and CAB version below



This is the exact percent of each version for each month
Here you can see how the CAB version became more and more important against the raw SWF
After a slow start, the CAB version is near the 50% of the total download each month!

I made this analysis to find if the CAB version was really needed.
You can see it is! This information made me think again about Adobe goal on Flash mobile.

Adobe will stop in 11 months to support the Adobe Mobile Packager, the actually (?) only solution to distribute in CAB format.
From what I understood, Adobe is working on Flash Lite 4 IN A BROWSER, not standalone.
The so waiting solution to distribute is the announced AIR for mobile (and I really hope it won't be as bugged as the first version of AIR for desktop)
But do you REALLY think EVERY phones will support AIR for mobile in 2010 ?
I talk about phones not smartphones, since market like India doesn't use smartphones a lot (see AdMob stats)
We're still dealing with phones based on FL2 while FL3 is arround for 1 year now.
We'll have to wait how many years to see AIR as a global solution ?
More than one year, for sure ! So between the end of AMP and the full AIR deployment, we'll be without solution. It's awful.

I'm just feeling like I lost my time...that Flash on mobile isn't ready enought...
or, at least, that it will change its face on the coming years.

SWF Launcher / Opener for S60 5th

Saji released some days ago an interesting tool : SajiFS Launcher lets you open (and play) any SWF located on data/others on your S60 5th
A FL standalone player - like ?

Use KuneriLite with another SDK

KuneriLite uses S60 3rd Maintenance Release SDK
I have nothing against this, it's only because I use another one with Adobe Mobile Packager than I tried to setup KuneriLite another way.

Simply edit start.cmd on KuneriLite root folder and add a line at the end
SET EPOCROOT=\S60\devices\S60_3rd_FP2_SDK_v1.1\ (or any path)
notice there is no C: nor D:
the only drawback is that the SDK must be on the same drive than KuneriLite

Of course, it's only after I fixed my setup that I found the tip on KuneriLite's wiki !

Now I have to find how to disable this annoying "Release Note"...

WillNa SIS packer bug : web call doesn't work

I spent the last 2 days to fight with a bug :
Trying to load my ads, I was unable to make it work when SIS packaged
I first think about a FL3 issue, moved my SWF to Trusted folder...nothing...
Not even a call sent (checked using proxy)

Strange thing, the SWF launched as-is (ie not SIS packaged) works like a charm so...no doubt, it's the stub ! but it's Nokia's one !
Tried some other ways to launch SWF without success...unless I finally find a way to configure KuneriLite with 3rd FP2 SDK
If it works using KuneriLite, it means it is possible!
After some hours this evening/night I finally found the reason : CAPABILITY

On Nokia Stub source code, they defined the CAPABILITY to None
It means that even if you "Allow Flash content to establish network connection", it will not work if the stub hasn't the network capability !

So, wait for the coming WillNa SIS packer update or simply change the _stub.mmp
CAPABILITY None
to
CAPABILITY NetworkServices
(more info on existing capabilities)

and thanks to Saji who helped me on Forum Nokia!

InApp advertising : silly me!

For some months now I'm trying to use InApp advertising.
I just discovered that "In app" doesn't mean "everything must be done in app"
Silly me! I was fighting with AdMob, Adfonic... ads engines & security models from within Flash Lite when the solution was simply to make a static web page on my site to call...

When Alessandro explained me how he handles AdMob ads I almost died : sooooo easy !

It seems Kirk was looking for the same solution himself (or mailed Alessandro like I did) since he wrote 2 day later a great tutorial on this point

I'll just add to use , for easier parsing,
$admob_params['OPTIONAL']['f'] = "html_no_js";
and, to force for text ads,
$admob_params['OPTIONAL']['y'] = "text";

you should also take a look to AdMob analytics, to know your users!

KuneriLite : SWFPack offline ?

Reading Yahoo group, I suddenly releazed I forgot a great SWFPack alternative, by the same authors (!): KuneriLite

This tool has the same functionnality than SWFPack (on the free version, w/o plugins)
Follow the wiki and you'll be able to make a .sis in a few second
The only drawback is it only uses S60 3rd MR SDK

SVG 1 - William 0

While I was working on WillNa Packer, a third (yes A THIRD!) of my time was about this $*^$* SVG icon

I tried everything again : AI CS3, AI CS4, Inkspace, export/import from one to another!
But I wasn't able to make a true/pure/beautiful/fully compatible SVG icon

AI doesn't export SVG, it exports a XML with PNG in base64
Inkspace isn't fully compatible with S60 3rd AND S60 5th

So, it's now official : I lost
I used an AI export, knowing it won't perfectly work on S60 5th but isn't 24Ko (!)
So, it's your turn, make your own SVG icon
Else this is what you'll get using WillNa packer

on N95

on N97

WillNa SIS packer

Like I said, some months ago I started a stub+packager.
At that time, I was fighting with a bug (on my side) about a SVG icon SWFPack didn't like.

Due to the recent events, I finally took some times to finish it.
Of course, it's mainly based on Nokia's Library "Create a stub application" article
But, I added a way to configure everything throught an ini file

You could use it like it or use it as a start project to make your own.
I plan to make an AIR (with the FINALLY available 2.0 version) app with CAB, SIS & NFL support, projects management,etc... but for now, this batch is enought for me

Download WillNa Packer

Return of the Evil Publish dilemma

My return from a 5 days trip was hard.

Last week, Google came to the mobile scene (yes, for me it's a bad news).
This week, I learnt throught Alessandro, that Adobe will drop the Distributable Player

I already said what I think about the Distributable Player solution, so I won't personnaly miss it....apart it was the only solution for CAB packaging!

From what I read, there are 2 kind of views :
- AMP was a solution to the fragmentation (installing the last FL player)
or
- AMP was a packaging tool

Since I can't see AMP like an answer to the fragmentation problem (the FL player installed isn't compatible with Nokia's Services), I used AMP like a packaging tool.
A CAB packaging tool because I use Nokia/Kuneri SWFPack for SIS and NFL packaging.

I must say I USED SWFPack since it was also shut down this week end!

So, until today, I lost
- my mobile website ad provider
- my CAB packaging tool (sort-of since I still can use it...but will it still install FL on WiMo 5 ?)
- my SIS/NFL packaging tool

Exactly what you need to stop everything, sell your computer and start playing in the garden

Hopefully, I'll need more to drop everything.
So I get back to my old SIS packaging solution:
- Nokia stub application
- Leonardo Risuleo's SWF launcher

While I was fighting with Symbian C++ evilness, Alessandro posted some hope : SWFPack will be back soon !

What 'soon' means ? I don't know...and even Nokia doesn't know :)

Sorry, Poulpytris free version won't be released soon :
I have to make some progress on Symbian C++ programming then on VisualC++/C# ...

New game of GamesPlaza : Jungle Snake

Another one I missed,

A simple avoider game, for standard or touch phones.

New game of GamesPlaza : Tomb Escape

A new free game is available on GamesPlaza

Or when Indiana Jones plays to Sokoban !

Photoshop on Android

Adobe released a mobile Photoshop for the Android phones...I wonder how useful it is...

Google acquires AdMob

Today, Admob officially announced Google acquired them for 750 millions $ (sic!)

Now, Google (almost) rules the Web ads and the Mobile ads...(plus mobile stats!!!)
I really don't like it...
I mean, which Web site haven't a Google ads ? only free-ads web site!
Soon, you'll see these horrible text ads everywhere on mobile....
Internet is becoming a pure ads board...an ugly ads board

It remembered me of how much I was sad when MochiAds added Google ads on their ads engine ... now it's AdMob turns....

Don't know if we'll earn much, but I think I could say goodbye to Paypal payment...
No, I don't want a Google account! Google already had a lot of personal infos on me, they won't gain my bank account number!

It seems I'll have to found another advertiser network....
Not a big deal, I was about to change since AdMob didn't seem to like the idea of a crossdomain.xml on their website...
So, I plan to move to Adfonic (hope they'll succed and won't disappear like a lot of their competitors) but if you had a better option (required : paypal payment and crossdomain.xml), drop a comment !

New tool : Export To Android command

Export To Android command
(click icon to download)

This little tool will help you to convert a Flash animation to an Android animation.
No, it won't convert your .swf to an .apk, it will export from Flash IDE the current timeline animation to Android res.anim and res.drawable resources.

Of course, the clip to export must be a timeline animation, not a script animation nor a multi depth animation.

This Flash command must be installed throught the Adobe Extension Manager.
You'll then be able
- export each frame or each keyframe to alpha PNG
- export using clip or movie size
- convert fps to duration
- skip empty frames (optional)
- re-align to top left (optional but recommanded on sub clip)

resource name is defined according movieclip name, and following JAVA naming convention.


You'll also find in the release package a sample Android SDK 2.0 project to test your export.

PS: command was tested on Flash CS3, let me know if it works/doesn't work on Flash CS4

BOOK : Rich Internet Applications with Adobe Flex & Java

I read this book looking for advanced topics on Flex.
Since Flex<->Java is a totally unknown world to me, it thought it was a good one (in fact, it was the only one at the time I got it)

Unfortunatly, only 2 of the 15 chapters were really interesting for me.
Why ? it's too much for people ALREADY knowing Java, so I was totally lost on some of the more technical parts.
I would say it's on my own fault, it's in the title "Flex AND Java"....

So if you're not in Java part (yet), this book is still interesting for these chapters

Chapter 7 : How to simulate LiveCycle without LiveCycle ?
I made some test using AMFPHP and I would say it's the very intersting way to make RPC.
Plus you could switch to BlazeDS/LCDS more easily
Just a warning, the way they make their own Flex component to be more 'destination-aware' friendly is, for my point of view, too much dependent on your application.


Chapter 10 : How to handle REAL application ?
VERY important subject I don't see much coverage on.
You'll see where are the limits of the Flex linking process and how it can't be optimized at its much but not fixed...I so miss .DLL :(


So, if you found it on a libray for some bucks, get it....else I don't think it's that valuable to buy this 70$ book UNLESS you're a Java pro too

New screensaver : Poulpyween

In 2 days, it's Halloween...so we made this free screensaver/wallpaper :

It's our first screensaver/wallpaper so we fall into some holes !

Apart the fscommand2(fullscreen) not supported on almost half of the phones (replaced by a Stage.scaleMode = "noBorder"), we needed to optimize it a lot because it was so slow on a S40.
Lesson learned : always use simulate performance on Device central!

We made some changes (use graphic not clip on still image and avoid alpha animated stuff) et voilà...

New game : Poulpytris

This year is the 25th anniversary of Tetris...I couldn't miss it !

So here comes Poulpytris, our tribute to this fabulous game!

Hope you'll like it...

How to debug LoadVars call on phones - phones

Go to showip.com or show-ip.com or whatismyipaddress.com or http://www.find-ip-address.org/ or whatever ip lookup website to retrieve your IP

Go to RDA (or launch your phone and configure it in a similar way)
Choose a phone (here the Nokia N95 8GB)
Go into Tools > Settings > Connection > Access points

Select your access point (here I choose 'Rda')

Using left softkey menu, choose Advanced Settings

Enter your IP in Proxy server address and 80 in Proxy port number

Et voila, launch a webpage or your SWF, choose the correct access point (here 'Rda') and look to your access.log and error.log
On google, I have
194.137.80.96 - - [08/Oct/2009:23:51:18 +0200] "GET http://www.google.com/ HTTP/1.1" 302 218 "-" "Mozilla/50 (SymbianOS/9.2; U; Series60/3.1 NokiaN95_8GB/31.0.015; Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 ) AppleWebKit/413 (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/413"
194.137.80.96 - - [08/Oct/2009:23:51:18 +0200] "GET http://www.google.fr/ HTTP/1.1" 200 948 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (SymbianOS/9.2; U; Series60/3.1 NokiaN95_8GB/31.0.015; Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 ) AppleWebKit/413 (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/413"
you see a Nokia95 8GB asking for http://www.google.com/ and get redirected (code 302) without problem (code 200) to google.fr which is 948bytes

194.137.80.96 - - [12/Oct/2009:23:15:25 +0200] "GET http://www.wwf.mobi/ HTTP/1.1" 200 2936 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (SymbianOS/9.3; Series60/3.2 NokiaE72-1/021.011; Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 ) AppleWebKit/525 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 BrowserNG/7.1.14371"
Here, using a Nokia E72, I connected to WWF.mobi
Using Ctrl Panel > Connectivity > WLAN wizard > (Options)> Edit access point > (Options)> Advanced Settings
or
Ctrl Panel>Settings>Connection>Destinations>Internet>Rda> (Options)>Edit>(Options)> Advanced Settings

194.137.80.96 - - [12/Oct/2009:23:21:58 +0200] "GET http://ea.mobile.nokia.com/ea/ HTTP/1.1" 302 - "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (SymbianOS/9.2; U; Series60/3.1 NokiaE71-1/300.21.012; Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 ) AppleWebKit/413 (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/413"
Using a Nokia E71, using Connectivity > WLAN wizard > (Options)> Edit access point > (Options)> Advanced Settings
or
Tools>Settings>Connection>Access points> Rda> (Options)>Edit>(Options)> Advanced Settings

The interesting part : you could find an error looking for 404 error like in
194.137.80.96 - - [08/Oct/2009:23:54:18 +0200] "GET http://www.find-ip-address.org/crossdomain.xml HTTP/1.1" 404 948 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (SymbianOS/9.2; U; Series60/3.1 NokiaN95_8GB/31.0.015; Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 ) AppleWebKit/413 (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/413"

More info on HTTP Error codes

If the problem is on the POST/GET data itself, look into the error.log
To be honest, it's a real mess so you'll know what to do with it knowing what you're looking for only !

And remember to reset the proxy settings BEFORE the end of your reservation on RDA !
Note you could also duplicate an access point and add the proxy settings if you want to avoid killing pre-defined access points.

How to debug LoadVars call on phones - WampServer

NOTE : I'm not a web server administrator, I found this using Google and lot of test'n'try.If you know a better way to do this, tell us!

So, how to configure a Forward Proxy on your desktop ?
First you'll need a http server : Apache.
You can download a ready to use version like WampServer
Install it then edit the file httpd.conf to configure our proxy for our need

First the proxy itself
find and uncomment these 3 lines
LoadModule proxy_module modules/mod_proxy.so
LoadModule proxy_connect_module modules/mod_proxy_connect.so
LoadModule proxy_http_module modules/mod_proxy_http.so

add/update these lines
<IfModule mod_proxy.c>
#enable forward proxy
ProxyRequests On
#enable any address to use the proxy
<Proxy *>
Allow from all
</Proxy>
</IfModule>

you limit the valid address using
Order deny,allow
Deny from all
Allow from
you could also use mask, domain name and UserAgent filter
To only allow Nokia phones, use 194.137.80.*
You could also define the allowed ip on the element (see below)

Second, optional, add the UserAgent in log
be sure you have
LogFormat "%h %l %u %t \"%r\" %>s %b \"%{Referer}i\" \"%{User-Agent}i\"" combined
and uncomment
LoadModule logio_module modules/mod_logio.so
CustomLog "logs/access.log" combined
(note 'combined' reference to LogFormat xxxx 'combined' ... and adjust the path of the log to access.log)
comment
#CustomLog "c:/wamp/logs/access.log" common
to avoid mix of the 2 logs

Third, to log POST/GET data on the error.log (not on the acces.log)
uncomment
LoadModule dumpio_module modules/mod_dumpio.so
and add
<IfModule dumpio_module>
LogLevel debug
DumpIOInput On
DumpIOOutput On
</IfModule>

Then, put it online using, on <Directory "???/www">
Order Allow,Deny
Allow from all (or any specific IP/domain/mask like 194.137.80.*)
and not
Order Allow,Deny
Deny from all
Allow from 127.0.0.1

on WampServer, it will give you

How to debug LoadVars call on phones - intro

To debug RPC and others http calls on PC, I use the brilliant Charles Http Proxy Monitor shareware.
You can also use the free WireShark (also knows as Ethereal)
It helps you to find a bug or a wrong return in seconds, without altering Flash code using a lot of trace.
I was looking for a solution for mobile, mainly a Symbian port of WireShark but never found it .
I only found IPTrace for Symbian (with output compatible with WireShark) but no chance to test it.
Note you could easily use WireShark if your phone is using a WiFi connection (more on this later...)
Plus, if difficulty wasn't enought, I would like to be able to debug RPC on the phones available at Nokia's Remote Device Access service.

What is Charles ? A HTTP proxy. So I looked for something similar for Symbian.
I found some but I also found a lot of people got strange behaviors on Flash Lite with local/on the phone proxy.
So I finally looked for a way to make my own proxy on my own server which will be useful for any kind of remote debugging (mobile or PC, FlashLite or others...)
You could use something called phpproxy but I personnally didn't try...I found the idea to control the proxy right from my desktop a more powerfull solution.
Do to that, I need to

• install & configure an Apache server
• tell my phone how to go throught it

BOOK : Professional Android Application Development

I was looking for a book to learn 'what can be done' with Android...without reading the SDK documentation.
This book is an introduction to Android development, with a lot of examples.
The author even talks about locked features, if Google ever reenable them.

So good book for an introduction but not for developement...for me the title (Professional Development) is wrong.
It's more for CTO than for developers.
It was a good surprise because it's exactly what I was looking for but I'll need another one if I ever want to develop something.

S40 fullscreen bug also affects Playyoo games

Today, I was playing the best game on Playyoo : Bog Frog
After a Game Over, I tried to submit my score BUT I lost my full screen, as expected...
So it's really a bug, not something I did wrong on my own game...
Someone with a Nokia 5310XM to confirm this ?

Using Playyoo, I found a way to restore fullscreen
1/ you must go to a screen without LeftSoftKey definied (SetSoftKey, "", "xxx")
2/ press the Left soft key, which will open the default 'Options' menu of Flash
3/ select pause
4/ re-open Options menu with left soft key
5/ select play

About the White Screen Of Death, reboot your phone at first crash since it seems to corrupt memory: WSOD occurs anytimes after that, even on games which are sure to be fully working

Mobile Advertising Solution : Adfonic

Like I said some days ago, I'm currently looking for the best ads solution to use in VGTrailers, my Flash Lite developer challenge entry.

I contacted 6 companies and got 4 replies.
I already reviewed Smaato & Admob, here comes Adfonic

Adfonic is a new challenger (less than 6 months?) but I read the compagny is managed by former employees of a now defunct adverstising company, so they know what they are talking about!

If you didn't read my AdMob review, I suggest you to do it now because Adfonic is very similar to AdMob.
For our goal, the important thing to know is that you'll also need to use the 2 requests trick.
But, good news, they are open to any request to improve their API.
And I can personnaly confirm this point since, soon after I posted a request on their forum, they added urlencode format: no need to parse XML, just use a classic LoadVars!

Another good point : you can select which ads you want to see in your app/site.
And when I said select, I mean select EACH one, not select categories.

So what ? Well, between Adfonic (the little) and AdMob (the big), I really don't know :
AdMob has some interesting features
Adfonic is not a 'major company' yet
Adfonic supports LoadVars
AdMob lets you add your own ads
Adfonic lets you select your ads
...

I will use AdMob on a release and Adfonic on another one so I'll see which one is the best.

See you soon for my last review.

Mobile Advertising Networks analysis

MobiThinking got an interesting White Paper about the most important mobile advertising network.
the more interesting part is the real coverage of each one (some are mainly for US, some are for Asia...) to help you select the network according the target.

BUG : lost full screen and crash on S40

NOTE : I only have 1 S40 phone for testing so I don't know if this bug is only available on the 5310XM or on other S40 phones

While testing advertizing on S40, I found a strange behavior :
if you call an fscommand2("Fullscreen", true) on any frame before a loadvars.load or a xml.load, you'll lost fullscreen for ever
+ calling fscommand2("Fullscreen", true) has no effect
+ calling fscommand2("Fullscreen", false) will crash Flash player (White Screen Of Death!)

To avoid this, I needed to make my call in the same frame as the fscommand2 OR on a frame before the one with the fscommand2

If you answer "no" when Flash Player asks you to accept Internet connection, bug doesn't happen.

HERE is a file with source to test it.

I tested on several S60 available on Nokia's RDA but I was unable to get a valid internect connection to fully test it.
At this time, I don't know if this bug is present
only on my phone or
only on the 5310XM or
only on S40 or
only on FL2 phones or
on every phones

Iphone vs NDS & PSP ? Is it April fool's day ?!

Last week, Apple announced "DS & PSP games are not fun and too expensive...Iphone and its games are better" (or something like that)
Yeah sure...and the coming Apple Tablet will be better than PS3+X360+Wii, for sure!
I don't know if I must laught or cry.....

I'm pretty sure fun factor on pittyPhone games are great....but how many games in the AppStore are REALLY games, not casual games (ie games you end within 30minutes) ?


I also can't resist to compare these 2 speaks of Id Software' Carmarck :
The first is one year old and say how much the "iPhone [is] more powerful than Nintendo DS, PSP combined" (sic)
The second is from 2 months ago where he said the iPhone can't compete with DS or PSP on ' complete, dedicated titles' (so he means on good games?) and is not a true game platform because it lacks button
I also reproduce these lines because they explains why the pittyPhone will NEVER be a gaming platform (just a casual platform)

I mean, you look at DS and PSP titles, and you're talking a $20, $30 price point. But on the app store, a $10 game is considered super-ultra premium. So while the numbers are good in terms of sales, you certainly couldn't put in a Mario or Zelda-like development budget and expect to have a great chance of getting your money back.

Another interesting point of view is from a 'veteran game developper' :
too much people, too much games...no way to make a game on front of others ugly ones (unless big money and marketing of course)


Honestly I was waiting for this announce....since I discovered the pittyPhone had a TV Output, a feature which like some others are in fact present since the pittyPhone2 but not available until you jailbreak it...or buy the pittyPhone3

Wait and see...I'm happy to see pittyPhone lovers suddenly lost their smiles with this announce ("What is Apple thinking ?!!!") but, with no doubt, Apple will fix it soon ("Don't worry, We are genious")

LG's first Android phone

LG announced yesterday its first android Phone : GW620

As usual with all Android phones, no Flash Lite ?

New game of GamesPlaza : Underwater Treasure

Gameplaza just announced their new game : 'Underwater Treasure'.



A Puzzle Bubble clone.

On a side, GamesPlaza.net home page announce a coming soon developer website...
We'll need to wait a little more!

Inside the Chumby

From Embedded.com, an inside view (electronic part) of the Chumby...if you don't want to open it, someone made it for you !

Important AS command on touch devices

I was testing my last game (coming this month), when I suddenly found a strange behavior : pressing the OK key, I come back to the title screen...
It's not a crash since I didn't exit the game.
I tried to make this bug again without success...until I realized I was on a touch device : the N97.
I finally found the reason : OK key valids (similar to a press command) the current selected movieclip.
I didn't notice it before since I set _focusrect to false.

So, the AS commands needed to handle a touch AND a non touch game are

- focusRect = false to avoid the ugly rect around movieClip
- if(System.capabilities.hasStylus || System.capabilities.hasMouse) to handle touch-only stuff, like myfakesoftkey.onRelease =
- myfakesoftkey.trackAsMenu = true to handle touch move while pressing a touchbouton
- myfakesoftkey.tabEnabled = false to avoid movieclip to be 'selected' while using right and left key (and I assume you use them a lot on a game!)
- fscommand2("DisableKeypadCompatibilityMode"); to hide the ugly fake keyboard on Nokia touch devices

Nokia X and others series

Nokia devices names are becoming more and more difficult to read...not as much as Samsung but ...
Not so long ago, you could say, according the name of the device, if it was a S40, a S60, a entry level or a professional phone...
Now, we have a 5310 (a S40 entry level) and the 5320 wich is a S60 entry (?) level....
I assume it's following Nokia announcement to make S60 for every one and not only professional (sorry, I can't find the link...)

And today, Nokia announced 2 phones
- the X3 : after the E & N series (for professional phones), here comes the X...for S40 6th Ed phones...so not professional phones !?! oh, and why X3 ? not X1 ? because of Xperia1 & Xperia2 of SE ?! ;)
- the N97 mini : do they try to make like Sony or Nintendo with their "buy the same device than 1 or 2 years ago but smaller !!!" ?

I must say I'm very confused...and I'm very happy Nokia helped me to fix my Flash Lite phones browser because I'm totally lost without it (no, it's not a self promoted advertising!)

Maemo day

Sometimes, life plays with you.
It's fun because Nokia announced the N900 the day I received my....Nokia 770 :)
The Nokia 770 is the first (?) device based on maemo. I'm now playing with it (can't wait to play SCUMMVM games on it) for some days and I like it. I'm a little sad to not be able to access anything I want (like a TRUE file explorer) but it's not why I bought it.
In fact, I needed a cheap internet tablet, pdf reader and universal media controller ;)

The N800 is far better (with webcam and SD support) but twice the price of the 700 (on eBay)

Wii with Flash Lite 3.1, free!

Thanks to scott, I just installed the Wii Internet Channel for free and with the last update (yes, even here in France)!
I planned to install it for so long...but I wasn't able to admit I had to pay for it!

It's a very good news (no just for me) because it means almost any Wii player will now be able to play Flash Lite games, for free.
A better stuff would be to Nintendo to include the browser on the next release of the Wii (with system 4.1+)

Now, the only problem is to find how to attract Wii gamers to our site.
All the Wii only websites I found about games are full of all Flash 6 games....

Why Android won't beat iPhone

I found an interesting post about the 'Android opportunity'.

The author explains why android couldn't 'beat' pittyPhone : to keep it simple, if Google doesn't follow the marketing machine of Apple, Android won't success.
The Apple's marketing bulldozer worked like a charm, you won't beat the pittyPhone if you don't beat its main weapon : marketing.
And, right now, Google isn't fighting with marketing...it lets device makers do this.
And right now, a Samsung Android phone or a Moto Android phone isn't as much wanted as a pittyPhone 4.0....because it's not more than 'another Samsung/Moto phone'.


Even if it makes me sad, I think I'm agree with this....and it means future won't be as good as it should be :(
As always fight agains the pittyPhone because of this and now, it's becoming the way to do : how many years before we see a b&w flat screen sold as 'the best TV in the world' just because the marketing was the best ?!
I already knew marketing is the 'science' to sell you a 'dream' (read sell you trash as if it was gold) but I realized with the pittyPhone WHICH trash for HOW MUCH. (and I won't talk about the air book, the first Apple computer even Apple Fans critizes!)


On a side, it's interesting to notice people which start to complain about pittyPhone are...developers (or any people trying to make money with pittyPhone).
So, unfortunalty, and even it the pittyPhone got some minor problems (everybody knows exploding is only a minor problem), it will take some times before Apple will start to loose market share....and while I'll waiting for this, Apple already started to fight with its competitors not with great phones (it would be a surprise) but with lobbying and false informations.

BSquare announces FL on Android

I missed this one : following HTC Hero's support to Flash Lite, Bsquare announced they have successfully ported Flash Lite to Android, throught a web plugin.

This follows their previous announcement on March.

New game of GamesPlaza : Summer Girl

GamesPlaza released totay a new free flash lite game : Summer Girl


This time, it's for girls and women since it's a dress up game.
It's the second dressup game of GamesPlaza...but it seems it's a popular kind of game for this category of gamers

AppStore : the magic disappears slowly ?

You could find a very instersting post at TechCentral about the App Store "anti-competitive and arrogant"
Also this very interesting point of view (which I share!) about the viability of the AppStore for developer.

BUG : NetStream/NetConnection memory leak

If you follow Flash Lite doc about Video.attachMovie, you should play a streamed FLV using this method

var my_video:Video; //my_video is a video object on stage
var my_nc:NetConnection = new NetConnection();
my_nc.connect(null);
var my_ns:NetStream = new NetStream(my_nc);
my_video.attachVideo(my_ns);
my_ns.play("video1.flv");

I just found a very annoying bug on this one :
when you call my_ns.play( filepath ), something is done on the background, then the video starts to stream & play when buffer is full
if you ever kill everything while 'something is done on the background', the 'something' doesn't stop and the first blocks of memory used by buffer are filled.

This is what I did for testing

var keyListener:Object = new Object( );
keyListener.onKeyDown = function()
{
 handleKey(Key.getCode()+"" );
}
Key.addListener(keyListener);

function handleKey( keycode:String ):Void
{ 
 switch (keycode)
 {
  case ExtendedKey.SOFT1:
   trace(_root.stream_ns);
   trace(_root.connection_nc);
   break;
  case ExtendedKey.SOFT2:
   Key.removeListener(keyListener);

   _root.stream_ns.close();
   _root.connection_nc.close();             
   delete _root.stream_ns;
   delete _root.connection_nc;
   // nothing still present in memory

   _root.gotoAndPlay("menu"); //get out of the frame with the video object
   break;
 }
}

Test this with a video (or download my sample)
Don't click the softkey yet, wait for the video to start playing
When you click the softkey, you could see on the memory manager every video data is deleted

Then retest, but quickly (or at least BEFORE the video start playing or you could see 'Connect to file_path' on the trace) click the softkey
At first, nothing happens (like you want to), you even have the wanted

FTPS116: Flash Video status : (NetConnection.Connect.Closed)

on the trace

BUT while the video is deconnected, closed, deleted and nulled, some (milli)seconds after you'll see a 'Connect to file_path' and the memory manager will show you something big on memory!

What happened?
I ask for a video
Flash Lite player starts something
I cancel the video and deleted it
Flash Lite doesn't know about it
Flash Lite finished its something
Flash Lite want to start the video but...err...where is my netstream ?! ok, forget it
Unfortunatly, it forget to kill its something

I fought a long time against this one, and I wasn't able to find a workaround....
The only thing I could do is to active the keylistener when the video is ready.
So no way to exit the screen before it starts playing...and so downloaded some Kbytes the user pay for! Very bad user experience !!
VGTrailers is like this, and I retried again this sunday to fix it without success...

I think it's NetStream/NetConnection bug. Not a Video bug, because if I don't use a video object and don't attachVideo, I have the same problem (and so I had sound but no video when I test)

If you ever got this one and found a solution, please, share it with me !

EDIT : I forgot to tell I tested it on read hardware, it's why you'll find oxygen's memchecker on the available test file

Motorola future phones...

Following Adobe Flash Lite post, I checked Motorola website to get more info (version, video support, etc..) and found nothing. As usual Flash Lite info are very hard to find (apart at Nokia & SE)...if someone got a better technical link...

BUT, the interesting thing is the road Motorola is taking, just jump to Motorola developer website and you'll see what I mean : Android everywhere !

I REALLY hope is making an fully available Flash (Lite) player, not like HTC dedicated one, so we can access to every android phone.

Play Flash SWF on your HTC Hero

Find on Mark's blog hints to open Flash file using Android SDK

New SE capuchin phone : Jalou

Sony Ericsson announced a new phone : Jalou

This phone is Flash Lite 2.0 enabled and use Capuchin.
Apart the motion gaming (EyeToy on phone), this phone is...well...a bling bling phone.
It means the limited mirror-pink-24carats-D&G phone will be for girls who makes Paris Hilton their idol.
Guys have the pittyPhone to shine, girls now have the Jalou.

Sorry SE, but I hate the phones who aren't what they must be : a phone!
Satio seems far better than this...shinning toy.

BUG : Include Device Font

While I was optimizing size of VGTrailers (I always try to be under 100K), I find something strange about device fonts, on Flash CS3 IDE.
Your best friend about size optimizing is size report (I suggest you to read this interesting post at Paul Burnett's madblog)

So, about the bug
If you create a dynamic textfield with a special font (I'll use Arno Pro) but with 'Use device fonts', you'll got something like this on the report size

Arno Pro 31

Switch to 'Bitmap text (no-alias)' and include the Latin character set
you have now

Arno Pro  12 pts 4539 !"#$%&'()*+,-./0123456789:;<=>?@ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ[\]^_`abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz{}~

now switch to a static textfield THEN come back to 'Use device fonts'

Arno Pro 31

if you switch back to a dynamic textfield (still using 'Use device fonts'), you should still find 31bytes...but you have

Arno Pro 29683 !"#$%&'()*+,-./0123456789:;<=>?@ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ[\]^_`abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz{}~

congratulation, you now have a font included for nothing...and 29k!
Why 29k ? switch to 'anti alias for animation' and you'll find the same size!
So, this bug includes an anti-aliased font while asking to include nothing but use system font.

I know you'll almost never make all these steps but I did, while trying the best font vs the best size, which ended to select a device font and so...

Note I was also able to include a '_sans' font if I switch to '_sans' while switching to dynamic field

Top 136 Mobile Advertising Companies

GomoNews published a very interesting list of the Top Mobile Advertising Companies

It seems I have some more companies to contact!

New game of GamesPlaza : Miner's Castle

2 weeks ago, GamesPlaza.mobi published a new free Flash Lite game : Miner's Castle.

This game include a score API available to any game on GamesPlaza
More info coming soon.

Playyoo helps you to win 100$ minimum

I'll already talked about Playyoo Premium Program some weeks ago.
Basically, if you upload a game which include Playyoo API and it's cool enought, you may win 100$ each 5000 download.

Now, to add more and more great games, Playyoo gives you the first 100$ !!
It means that even if you never reach the 5000 download, you'll win 100$
Of course, it means you need to reach the 10000 download to win another 100$

Check Playyoo blog for more info.
Note Playyoo selects the games they want to include in the PPP and so give 100$).

Mobile Advertising Solution : AdMob

Like I said some days ago, I'm currently looking for the best ads solution to use in VGTrailers, my Flash Lite developer challenge entry.

I contacted 6 companies and got 4 replies.
I already reviewed Smaato, I'll now review AdMob

AdMob is the solution I'm currently using on my mobile version of WillNa
I really like their publisher program, with analytics, smart support and their Google group.
Plus their new House Ads product seems very interesting : include ads for others of your products on your site or app...for free !
I also note they are one of the ads networks Smaato is linked to...

Their solutions includes Web, pittyPhone and Android support...but no longer 'any' client support.
They abandonned the Client Solution early this year, right when I was about to use it.
So, while my AS code was ready, I had to look back to existing mobile ads solutions.

Why, if they dropped their Client Solution, AdMob is still a solution ?
Because the xhtml their api gives back is easy to parse.

If you want to know more about their API, you should browse their AdMob for Developers Wiki.

Using urlencoded key/value pairs parameters, you could ask for an ad.
You should use ma=xhtml&f=html_no_js to get a useful return.
Good points, a 'test' parameter let you make test (only text) and an optional 'k' (keyword) parameter will help you to get targetted ads. Hint : don't use 'search', it won't return anything on false search!
Bad points for Flash Lite developer, you NEED to send ip, user agent and headers.
And no way to ask for a specific ads size (even MMA's one)....

Like you know, you can't retrieve ip, user agent and headers within Flash Lite.
To bypass this problem, I wrote a server side PHP script which gives them back to my Flash Lite app...
But it means you had to make 2 requests to got your first ad !
1 - get ip, user agent and headers
2 - using these data, ask for ads
On some phones, Flash Lite player won't let you make 2 requests on the same frame...
So you need to handle this problem using a frame to ask information THEN, on success, jump to the frame which ask for ads.

It's not that easy, unfortunatly.
The tests I made with my AdMob renderer were successfull but I didn't test on a lot of REAL platforms.


Besides technical point, I still don't understand why they support pittyPhone & Android but not Flash Lite or J2ME or WiMo....
They aren't alone, a lot of others ads network got a SDK for each platform, so it seems I'm missing a point : why not use a common API ?!
If you have hint, post a comment please !


Their previous Client Application solution was very easy to use, if they ever re-open it, I will be the first to promote it but, waiting for this time, I'll avoid my 'hacked' solution.
I personnaly will use it ONLY if I don't find a better solution and, only after tests on more phones....

See you soon for the 2 others reviews !

FlashLite Phone Browser v1.2

At last, I just released FlashLite Phone Browser v1.2.
Nokia listing is now fully functionnal.
Thanks to Forum Nokia Team for their support after they made some changes on the database access process.

If you have v1.1, it will updated at next launch.

Else you could launch the v1.2 install using the install button at the right.

note : AIR 1.5.2 was released this week, it will perhaps be updated at the same time.

Flash Lite Nokia phone browser

Good news, someone on the forum point me to the correct person and I finally got an answer about my no longer available Nokia db access.
I hope to fix it soon. This time, I hope Flash Lite Phone Browser will automatically be updated !

Meanwhile, you can use Forum Nokia Advanced Search.

Samsung Application Store is now open

Soon after SE's one, it's now Samsung which launched its own application store.
Well, at least the Seller site since the application store will be available on Q3 2009.

Not as much information as for Nokia's OVI or SE's PlayNow like validation process, etc.., so I tried to register and what did I found ?

If you want to sell applications under your personal name, you should register as a private seller

It seems individuals could register and sell apps on Samsung Application Store for a 1$ registration fee.

It is a good idea BUT I suppose you also had to sign your apps...
It means 200$+20$/ea symbian ! (I need to check WiMo signing fees)
And, as some people already point out on OVI forums, you'll need a PublisherID to sign a symbian app....but you need to be a compagny to had a PublisherID !
I read some weeks ago changes are coming on this part but I don't know what and when.

So it seems we finally had a store opened to individuals BUT we still can't sign our apps to submit them...unless Samsung accepts unsigned app or selfsigned app ?
I don't know since I'm not registered yet and didn't find any information on this point...

Samsung Innovator new website

Samsung redesigned its developer website (Sammi !) 3 weeks ago.

Unless previous one, it seems it's easier to find what you're looking for so it's a good news !

Mobile Advertising Solution : Smaato

Like I said some days ago, I'm currently looking for the best ads solution to use in VGTrailers, my Flash Lite developer challenge entry.

I contacted 6 companies and got 4 replies.
From my developer point of view, the best of them is Smaato.

Smaato selects ads from others ads networks (from their homepage : AdMob, Third Screen Media,...) so no need to register in every ads network, only register on Smaato.

They made a test server available so you can ask for test ads without problem.
And I won't talk about their support who get an answer to every of my questions...and I got a lot (Thanks Robert!)

XML API is very well done and documented.
Among the cool features of the API, I noticed
- clean XML results
- IP and UserAgent are optional parameters, unlike other solutions
- ask any MMA standard ads size you want (XLarge, Large, Medium, Small), linked or not to phone' screen size since they don't userAgent
- ask any number of ads you want (so you can place 1 or X ads on a screen)
- keywords and categories target : you can almost 'select' the ads you want for better CTR.

I spent some days making a SmaatoAdRenderer, it wasn't very difficult but I wanted a generic one.
So I thought I find THE ads solution I was looking for and, with my renderer ready, asked for a publisher ID (ie registration).
And, then, the dream came to an end : Smaato is a professional solution for... professionals.
You MUST be able to reach 1 million ads/month else Smaato will close your account.
I found it out 1week ago and I'm still sad thinking about it.

Anyway, I got back to the 3 other solutions !
Like I did with Smaato, I'll share my impression soon....

Capuchin dedicated forum on SE

I found by chance the newly opened Project Capuchin and Flash Lite forum at SE Developer World.

I hope I'll read there as much interesting information as in Forum Nokia.

SE PlayNow app store submission opened to developers

While PlayNow submissim was only available to 'selected developers' at launch, SE announced 3 days ago the full opening.

Note that, as I already talked about, you need to be a company (for payment) and to sign your app to successfully submit content...like always

I was unable to even try submission since you must fill a form asking for company name, vat and bank info to access submission.
hopefully a Step by Step example is available, for illustration.

Samir's PTA on GetJar

Samir just released Pocket Travel Assistant (Beta) on GetJar while it was only available to 35 selected people.
Thanks for this, Samir!

For info, PTA is Samir's entry for the ended Flash Lite Developer Challenge.
My (less impressive) one is coming soon.

FlashLite Phone Browser - Nokia unavailable

It seems I won't be able to release a fully working version of Flash Lite Phone Browser!
For some days now, Nokia's Mobile Device Specifications Database is not working.
I don't know if it's final or not, I don't have a reply (yet) on my post on Forum Nokia.

I'll of course let you know if Nokia's phones list comes back.

New Alpha app on SE Labs : FMRadio

A new Capuchin app has been added on SE Labs this morning

FM Radio

FM radio use the Tuner capability for JSR 234 (scroll to the bottom), with full RDS support

Note: download and mobile links are now working (they were broken on first post)

Some known ways to increase download on GetJar

After the success of Almium Clock screensaver, I tried to find the ways to achieve this goal.
I'm here talking about GetJar only, not globaly since it uses GetJar's specific services...

So, to increase the number of downloads, there are, at least, these ways


Make a the new-thing everyone will talk about

yeah, I know, it's the Holy Graal, but it's a way ;)


Add a link to your app everywhere, waiting for the result of this viral marketing

it's the common way.
Samir was very good at this on the Playyoo contest 2 years ago...and it seems he's still good since its PTA appeared in an India's newspaper ;)
Unfortunatly, it takes a lot of times and you could easily gain the status of "spammer" on each forum you advertize for your app.


Hope GetJar will find your app interesting

I had this chance with Poulpy Game.
As soon as GetJar recommanded Poulpy, my downloads increased to almost 3 times more per day !
Of course, what you think to be a good app may not be recommanded by GetJar.
I (unfortunatly) don't know how they choose their top apps.
Personnaly, I'm asking myself if rejected SE PlayNow apps will be good enough to be recommanded by GetJar...


Use GetJar PPD

What is PPD ? Pay Per Download...
Simply, you pay 1 to X cents each download....and to have your app in front of GetJar store
It seems it could work a lot
What I don't know is how much you must bid on download price ...
If you bid 1cent, does it mean you app will be visible only at midnight when almost nobody comes on GetJar ?
and if you bid 10 cents, when GetJar's servers almost die under the number of connections ?
Side note, minimum payment is 1000$ !!
They made a promotional campagnain when I submitted Poulpy Game so I had a 50$ gift...I'll try it in the future..



I also had to talk about the GetJar rank which give you more chance to be on the top of list in your app category.
How does it work ? well...nobody but GetJar knows , so I didn't add it on a way to increase your number since you have no control on it.
I think it's a factor based on number of downloads between each week : if download number of week X is higher than week X-1, your rank is better
as soon as your downloads drop, rank drops too.

Note I don't know if using GetJar MADI will update your rank or not.


If you see another way, share it with us ;)
ps: I don't know which one Almium used!

Playyoo Premium Program

Last week, Playyoo officialy launched their "Playyoo Premium Program"

What is the PPP ?
Well, for us, developpers, simply a way to make some money.
If you make a good game using their SDK, submit it for PPP enrollment and, if it's good enougth, your game will be available, at this point, on Vodaphone Italy.
else it will be available on Playyoo only...
Then, you'll receive (at least) 100$ every 5000 download...not a bad deal, no ?
Oh...and PPP accepts individuals...not only legal entities like others big ones

It's another way to make some revenues from fun.
I don't how good it is against a "70/30 share revenue" model...
See you in some weeks for my feedbacks since Poulpy's Game is actually accepted on the PPP!

The interesting point is the non-exclusive condition : it means your game could be anywhere, not ONLY on Playyoo....so, what are you waiting for ?!

I hope Ekleptica's Bog Frog is on the PPP too...it's, for me, the best game available on Playyoo

In App advertising - banner size

If you think you'll add in-app advertising, you should know which sizes are commonly used by the advertisers...
For this, you should check Table-3 in the page 3 of the MMA Mobile Advertising Guidelines

For people too lazy to load this (very interesting) PDF file :

X-Large : 300x50
Large : 216x36
Medium : 168x28
Small : 120x20
Tag lines : 10,12,18 or 24 characters width

SE PlayNow app store, 1st July launch!

Sony Ericsson PlayNow app store submissions seems to have started but I can't use it...not working yet ?!
Hopefully a step by step details and informations are available



The interesting points:

For premium content (end user pays to download) you receive 70% of net revenue from sales, after taxes, service charges and so on. You can also distribute free content

The classic 70/30....but if you read the detailled doc, you'll see SE allows ads-enabled app and isn't against subscribtion-enabled app (and others specific registering models like upgrade,etc...)

To submit content, you need to be a legally registered company or entity.This is required for payment processing and tax (VAT) reasons. We regret that we cannot accept submissions from private individuals.

Sadly, it means I personnaly won't be able to submit to SE App store...
Unlike OVI Store, SE explains why this choice....and shows interest in private individuals (not ignore them).
On the FAQ, they use "At this point"...I don't know if I could dream or not :)

How long will it take for my application to be reviewed once it is submitted?
At present our goal is 30 days

Ouchh! 30 days while people are complaining about OVI Store 'slow' process !

If your application is accepted but not signed, you must now complete JavaVerified™ or Symbian Signed certification

It's a good thing...you only have to pay and go throught the signing process AFTER SE validation.
And yes, Symbian also! for their S60 5th edition's device(s)...




If your app is rejected, you can use GetJar as 2nd option....
It's strange...does it mean GetJar will be the home of middle/low quality apps ?!

I didn't find enought information on how GetJar & SE will work together.
I thought SE PlayNow will 'only' be a filter view of GetJar (read SE PlayNow apps will ALSO be available on standard GetJar).
But it seems GetJar will be the second choice...



For more 'pro' details & guidelines, read the misc documents available.
You'll find which countries is supported and with which payment methods...

BUG : ExtendBacklightDuration on Distributable Player

When testing VGTrailers, I found something strange with ExtendBacklightDuration...
I first thought it was because I used a unsupported phone (Samsung I320)
Thanks to Darren, I know this bug also occurs on at least one supported phone : Samsung BlackJack

What is the bug ?
Well, when I play a video, I tried to extends backlight duration until the video ends...
Basically, I call fscommand2("ExtendBacklightDuration", 6); every 5 seconds (every 6 seconds I got some flicker)
Doing this, the backlight NEVER switch off, even after video ending...and using fscommand2("ExtendBacklightDuration", 0);

With AMP 1.1, I finally took the time to make some tests and was able to reproduce it (with AMP1.0 & AMP1.1)
I repeat : at this time, bug was only detected on 2 (Samsung) WiMo devices....
I unfortunatly can't test it on S60 devices since I don't own one and Nokia's RDA doesn't allow this kind of test...

So simply make a fla with this code

Stage.align = "TL";
Stage.scaleMode = "noScale";
fscommand2("DisableKeypadCompatibilityMode"); //patch for 5800, thanks Dale!
fscommand2("Fullscreen", true);


fscommand2("ExtendBacklightDuration", 35);
fscommand2("ExtendBacklightDuration", 35);

stop();

Publish it and deploy it using AMP....
BackLight 'should' never switch off again
even if you add a fscommand2("ExtendBacklightDuration", 0); or change the duration...

It's not the documented behavior...

If the time elapses without an additional call to this command, the backlight behavior reverts to the default duration.

So, if you first call fscommand2("ExtendBacklightDuration", XX)
you should never call fscommand2("ExtendBacklightDuration", YY) again before XX seconds

I got the same result publishing a 2.0, 2.1 or 3.0 SWF (I haven't CS4 so I was unable to test under 3.1)
If I load the SWF under FL2 player on my N70 w/o problem.

So, if you got this problem or could test it, I will happy to got your feedback.
If I missed something, I'm interested too!

Flash on Android...or the death of Flash Lite

I assume you know Adobe announced the first Android device with Flash

I first thought it was the port BSQuare talked about 4 months ago but it seems it's Adobe's own port.

So, why this title 'the death of Flash Lite' ?
Did you read on the press release or heard on Adobe spot these 2 words : "Flash Lite" ?
"Flash Platform" yes, but "Flash Lite" no
But, from the specs, we can say it's Flash Lite (AS2 support, Flash 10 in 2010...)
I personnally think we're seeing here the end of Flash Lite and the birth of Flash for mobile.
What the difference ? Probably none! ...except the resume nightmare (see below)

These last months, Adobe made a lot of change like with (Flash Platform, Flash Builder, Flash Catalyst...), I already told what I think about it and, now, I can add the mobile point of view...

So what is the 'resume nightmare' ?
Easy : what does a job title like "Flash Expert" will now mean ? Flash animator expert ? Flash Developper Expert ? Flash developper expert with Flex frameworks ? Flash developper expert in mobile ?!
Adobe already argued it's to make it clear...I still personnaly doubt it will !

My own experience : I'm receiving a lot of "Lead AS3 developper" job offers and I always have to explain I'm "Lead Flex developper", it's Flash, it's AS3...but I'm lost without my mx classes, components and Cairngorm !!!

So I can't imagine what a Flex developper will soon answer when he'll receive a Flash mobile job offer...or a Flash Lite developper an AIR/Flex job offer!

This said, I can't wait for AS3 on mobile !!!!!!

New SE capuchin phone : T715

Sony Ericsson announced yesterday a new phone : T715

A "credit-card sized slider style phone"...small screen...
It's strange since actually people are looking for wide screen for video & web browsing...

Support FL2.0 and capuchin

In App advertising - first look

As announced, I plan to release VGTrailers using in-app ads....

When I first looked to this kind of solution 1 year ago, I only found one company which, hélas, stopped it 2 months ago!

Now, the play has changed : almost half of the mobile adversting companies have an in-app ads solution.
Well, in fact, they have in-pittyPhone ads solutions !
Some of them also had Android solution and one had also BlackBerry and Palm solution...
Problem is these solutions need a SDK...it's not an API you can plug in using Flash Lite : no Actionscript SDK !

So I contacted 5(!) of the mobile advertising companies which seems to have a full API to find a solution.

See you in some days for, I hope, some results!

PS: If you already succeed to include dynamic ads on your Flash Lite app, please give me some feedback!

SE PlayNow app store submission in July

Finally, Sony Ericsson PlayNow submission website will open 1st July.
I know GetJar is behind the submission process so I can't wait to see how they mix SE PlayNow & GetJar !

Almium luxury clock : 130K in 2 months!

Today, while looking for news at GetJar, I noticed Almium luxury clock screensaver results : 129836 downloads in 2 months

At this rate, they'll beat Kamasutraining (remember, sex based games increase your traffic...but decrease your professional stats!)

I must say I'm VERY surprised...and even more looking at their 2nd screensaver, Aluminium luxury screensaver : only 25500 download

Do we see here the power of the famous "Recommended by GetJar" label ?
Note, it also helped me a lot ...

EDIT : I received an email this morning from FLite Developer Challenge sponsors. GetJar talks about this success. See Alessandro's post about it.

Flash Player 10 on Smartphones

From Mark, it's now official : the future of Flash on mobile will be Flash Player 10

I suggest you to listen to part 13 of Adobe Q2 Financial Results :
- OEM already got the beta version of this player
- Android & WebOs will support this player

3 notes :
- we're talking about SMARTPHONES not phones
- developer beta version available at MAX in October
- it seems it's about the Web Flash Player version ("web browsing experience")...what about standalone ?

Device Central CS3 #9

From Mark, a new update to Device Central CS3 is available.

I personnaly thanks Adobe for that...still using DC CS3, I missed Nokia 5800 and SE Capuchin phones !

So, what's new ?
- new Asian phones
- new Nokia phones (standard and luxe one)
- new Sony Ericsson capuchin phones

Mark added "Distributable Flash Player 3.1" but don't know what it means...nothing new on DC CS3 after update nor info on this on DC CS3 update page....
FL 3.1 + DC CS3 = ????

Unfortunatly, no Chumby profile :(
I had Scott Janousek's one but it's no longer up-to-date
I don't know if there is a Chumby profile on DC CS4....since Chumby is now a FL3.1 powered device, it should be...

FlashLite Phone Browser v1.1

This morning I released the new version of FlashLite Phone Browser (see on the right side the AIR badge to install it)

This version uses a database to store information and include Sony Ericsson phones.
You could also filter the Flash Lite version wanted.



Unfortunatly, when I made v1.0, I missed an important point about update so v1.0 users have to uninstall their versions before installing v1.1.
Sorry for that !

VGTrailers : video submitted to Flash Lite Developer Challenge

Here is the submitted video of VGTrailers, our entry to Flash Lite Developer Challenge.

You could see it's a very limited app...but, hé!, we made it in less than 1 month, using only sunday and some late hours ;)

Anyway, it was fun and we'll release it soon.

Chumby à Paris

2 months ago, I said Chumby will be 'soon' available in some Europeans countries.

It's done ! You can now buy Chumby if you live Spain, Germany, Italy, Portugal, France and UK !
Shipping cost is 24.95$ ... and doesn't move if you add TShirts!

So, I'll definitly get one soon !

(i)Phone UI prototyping

While reading info for the new iPhone (I still doesn't like it...for an user and developer point of view!), I found a very interesting idea : iPhone Stencil Kit

It could help a lot prototyping an app!

For more tools, I found an old post from Thomas Joos very interesting

From comments, I also found this "iPhone-Catalyst" :)



All of this may, of course, be ported to anything else than pittyPhone !

2009 : Android Year ?!

This morning, I was looking for all these new phones coming this year...
Link after link, I read more and more "new android phone by...", "first android phone of ..."
To summarize, I'll give you this link

the French Orange network will see Android powered handsets from Sony Ericsson, Motorola, LG, Samsung and HTC

So almost every 'big' phones companies will release their android phone...
One is missing : Nokia....

Iphone, Android, Nokia S60 5th (and Flash10)......2012 will be interesting...

Flash Lite Developer Challenge : Nominees

At last, nominees list is available on the Flash Lite Developer Challenge page

Unfortunatly, VGTrailers isn't on the list....
If I could, I'll say Gamesflash has a lot more of functionnalities so it wins

I'm also surprised to not see Samir's PTA ... perhaps Synctur is better, I don't know

Congratulations to the nominees !
See you in 6 days for the winners ! :)

ps: I'll give more info on my own entry soon

Poulpy Game was downloaded 10K times !

Last week, after 3 months on GetJar, Poulpy Game reached the 10000 downloads score.
We're very happy !

I already made a post about Poulpy's stats so I will only add some new stuff :

I provided SWF, CAB and SIS files....
77% of people downloaded the SWF version
20% the CAB version
3% the SIS version

7500 download in first month
2500 download in 2 following months


Sukodu Classic got the same result in one month


Thanks to everyone who downloaded Poulpy Game!
I really hope you enjoyed it, like you'll enjoy our future releases!

New SE capuchin phones : Naite & C901GH

From Sony Ericsson, it seems SE is launching a new kind of phone : Greenheart™
Note, they already announced the prototypes in September'08.

The Naite & C901 are so FL2.0 enabled devices with Capuchin support, made of recycled plastics and with a low power consumption.

New SE Capuchin services !

While Nokia added the new Device service (thanks Dale to pointing it), Sony, following Satio announcement, added 10 new services :
-Accelerometer
-Bluetooth (!!)
-Contacts
-File (!!!!!!)
-Internationalization
-Location
-Messaging
-Multimedia (record audio!)
-Persistency
-Radio
+ the availability to create your own !

It's me or Sony is fighting hard with Nokia ?!
I can't wait for the Satio !

SE Labs : lot of Capuchin app to try!

June is SE's month !! ;)

Sony Ericsson launched its beta lab
You already can test 5 capuchin apps...the most interesting is the Capuchin Twitter

The Capuchin Twitter application allows both browsing and posting of tweets

I want a Capuchin enabled phone!!!
Please Sony, launch something like Nokia's RDA and Samsung's Labs!

SE PlayNow app store

Via AVIarts, SE launched its "content and service platform" and...will accept submission !
After Nokia's OVI, it's Sony Ericsson and its PlayNow !

I tried to open the Submission page w/o success so no more information right now...

I really hope it won't cost as much fees as for OVI store...

Flash lite on linux ?

Since I just discovered the Azingo phone, I made some research on Flash Lite from Linux based devices...
Please note these devices uses or can play Flash Lite. I'm not sure how and what for (ie UI, browser, standalone, widget ?)

For mobile, I so found
- Azingo
- QTopia based devices, using FLite player port from Calsoft Labs (see below)
- Linux 2.4 based devices, using FLite player port from BSquare

I thought the ALP based devices will add Flash Lite support too, since they used NetFront browser but I can't find any information..


For others devices, I found
- Chumby (Chumby Power!!!)
- SysGo
- QNX (Flash Lite 3.1.7)
- BSquare
- Calsoft Labs


I also found the Freescale optimized chip for Linux based device which will compet with ARM, Adobe partner ?

Azingo & Vodafone

It's not a "fresh" news but I was reading some stuff about LiMo and discovered the Azingo phone.

Something between Android (for its SDK) and the iPhone (for the UI), the phone includes Flash Lite 3.1 support (on a linux platform!)

jump to 1:30 for more info on flash lite

From their news, I learnt they made a contract with Vodaphone to distribute their phone. Also note their partnership with Adobe.

Flash Lite developer challenge entry

I finally submitted my entry to the Flash Lite developer challenge.
Well...sort of...I'm very surprised to not be able to submit the application itself.
I submitted pictures, video and presentation but no entry field for the app ?

As I submitted yesterday, there is no way to contact NCC's people until monday...after the deadline.

I hope my entry will be valid......

New SE capuchin phone : Satio

Sony Ericsson announced yesterday the coming soon Satio phone.

According SE's Phone Gallery, Satio is capuchin enabled...but no FlashLite ?
I doubt Phone Gallery data is correct because, on the press release we can see Satio is in fact a S60 5th Edition phone so I hope!

I remember SE told they'll contribute to Symbian Fundation with capuchin...Is it the first Symbian phone with capuchin ?! If yes, it's defintly the perfect phone for me !!!!!

It's even more possible since in Phone Gallery, Satio is on "SymbianFundation" platform...what does it mean ?!

New SE capuchin phone : Yari

Sony Ericsson announced yesterday the coming soon Yari phone.
According SE's Phone Gallery, Yari is FL2 & capuchin enabled.
The funny stuff about that one is

gesture gaming technology

For the one who played with the EyeToy on the PS2, here we go..EyeToy on mobile !
Don't know if capuchin will allows Flash content to access this 'gesture gaming' API but it could be fun !

New SE capuchin phone : Aino

Sony Ericsson announced yesterday the coming soon Aino phone.
According SE's Phone Gallery, Aino is FL2 & capuchin enabled.
The funny stuff about that one is

Control your PLAYSTATION®3 and access its media content on your Aino anywhere, anytime using Remote Play with PLAYSTATION®3

Nokia's RDA tips

I'm only able to test my stuff on Nokia's RDA.
So I would like to share with you some tips I found playing with my daily 8hour/day on RDA (no, not EVERY day)

Quickly Test SWF (unique file)
Until recently, I had to transfer my swf to the device throught the File Browser then launch it from Gallery
I found a faster way : simply choose "Install", on the dialog box, select "all files" (its "sis, sisx, jar, wgtz" by default) and open your SWF...et voilà !

Don't use 30 minutes when you only need 15 !
When you select your phone on the "Phones" main page, it's at most 30 minutes.
On "Reservation", you can take a phone by 15 minutes timeblock (even started timeblock, if you only need 10min and it's 08:20PM)

Check firmware
Firmware info isn't visible on the "Phones" page but if you roll over each phone on the "Reservation" page, you'll see their firmware. Actually, there are 4 5800 devices available : 2 with firmware v11 & 2 with firmware v20

Test as soon as possible
If a phone is available and you have some credit, test your app now! Never wait for tomorrow! Phone models sometimes disappear, without notice, from some day to forever

Ovi Store launched...hard debut

Well, I didn't check Ovi Store myself but, from what I read on the web (here and here for ex), Ovi Store launching wasn't that well received...

"Total Disaster", "a failure", "fiasco"...these are the words coming up when you googled "ovi store launch".

It seems this launch was so much wanted that users crashed Nokia's servers !
Nokia fixed the issues but they'll have to work hard to make people forgot about this day...

and I won't talk about all the angry posts on ForumNokia from individuals who can't submit their work or can't afford the money to symbian sign them !

I hope Nokia will find a way to make users like developers happy.

For Flash Lite developper, via Biskero, check OviFlash!

GamesPlaza.mobi

Yesterday, BoosterMedia officialy launched GamesPlaza.mobi

GamesPlaza.mobi provides FREE mobile flash games.
You'll find games made by BoosterMedia and others developers...like myself ;)
They also plan to launch soon a developer zone.

It's a pleasure to have Poulpy's Game available on this platform.
Thanks again to Peter Moelker for his great support.

Fun with S60 SVG icons

To publish the SIS version of Poulpy's Game, I needed a SVG icon.
When I asked for it to my friend, I didn't think it will be so difficult!

First difficulty : create a SVG file from Flash
All gfx for Poulpy's Game was made directly in Flash so we had 2 solutions :
- export gfx to a vector file
- export gfx to a bitmap file
- redraw gfx on Illustrator

I tried all the possible format to export a vector file
- AI : I was very surprised to find Adobe still uses an old library for AI export !
No CS2 nor CS3 export! And I won't talk about the colors ! Whatever I do, AI uses CMYB colors to render RGB value....==> not useable
- EPS : a solution....BUT gradient is converted to bitmap data! ==> not useable
- PDF : priting to PDF give me good result, but as soon as I open it on Illustrator CS3, it converts the gradient to bitmap data and I was unable to import it on inkscape ==> not useable

The quick and dirty way I found was to export a png of your gfx and embed it on a SVG. Dirty because it's a bitmap data and so scaling is very ugly (like bitmap gradients are!)

We finally choose to export to EPS and then redraw everything by hand on Illustrator

Second difficulty : SVG quality
I was very surprised by the SVG quality on my first try....so I tried with Inkspace ( see Third difficulty )

Illustrator :



Inkspace



Third difficulty : valid SVG
So we imported the AI's SVG in Inkspace.
Unlike AI, Inkspace doesn't directly save in SVGT but this guide on Nokia Forum gives you the exact process to follow.
I followed this guide and tried to make a first try with Nokia's beta packager : "Error : icon too big"

After some tests, I finally found these 2 links about SVG's viewbox :
- viewBox error on Inkspace
- Forum Nokia KISS0000398 : SVG rendering problems caused by missing viewBox attribute

In fact, AI defined its viewbox attribute from EPS size (Flash size : 320x240).
I was unable to find a way to correctly adjust it on Illustrator nor Inkspace so I adjusted the viewbox BY HAND on the SVG (which is a XML file).

And, finally, I produced Poulpy's Game final SVGT icon !
Ouf!

More (other) interesting info on SVG icon can be found on Ludicrous Software's blog