Mark has released some screen shots on this blog showing some sneak peeks of the new Adobe Mobile Packager 1.1 Beta that will soon be released on Adobe Labs.
There are some fundamental UI changes that will make the process (hopefully) more intuitive for developers, as well as some streamlining to the SDK installation and signing process. As before, Liz Meyers has been producing a series of AdobeTV videos as well on the new version as well as secondary topics like how to get a Publisher ID. I’ve also been including the new 1.1 version in the Flash Lite Application Developer training course that I’ve been rewriting and bringing up to date.
Watch out for it hitting Labs soon, but in the meantime, have a read to see what’s new in Adobe Mobile Packager 1.1 Beta.
Same content, just a different blog engine (Wordpress) and a different look and feel. Still don’t know if I’m happy with the theme I’m hacking here, but I do like white and lots of space, so it’s not too bad. One new feature is a custom layout that’s designed for viewing on iPhone, iPod Touch, Blackberry and Android browsers – making it easier to read and navigate on the small screen.
I’ve added some new sections to the site (one big reason for getting off Blogger) as you can see from the nav options across the top. I’m planning on loading up some code samples and applications over the coming months to the Downloads section, but for now I’ve just been focused on getting the site up 
Due to an epic FAIL with exporting and importing my blog from Blogger to Wordpress, I’ve repopulated this new blog with posts back to February 09 (and without any comments unfortunately). If you’re looking for older content, I’ve got that all stored on an archive site at http://dalearchive.blogspot.com/ so you can search through that.
If you use the RSS feed from the blog, please note that it has now changed to http://dalerankine.com/index.php/feed
so please update your readers, etc.
** UPDATE. Seems my friend “WL” has either scammed me and everyone else, had his app rejected and didn’t want to fess up, or has been contacted by Adobe Legal Either way, his blog post has now been removed. **
I received a comment on my InsideRIA blog this morning from a developer (“WL”) who has posted on his own iPhone-related blog that he has created a custom installer for “Adobe Flash mobile” for Safari …
Great news everybody. For the past few months I have been working on an app called “Flash Installer” that does exactaly what you would think it does. Installs Adobe Flash mobile for use in Safari and all UIWebViews (when a web page opens up in an app). It does this by targeting files in the webView and tweaking a .plist and installing my custom made plugin. It was extremely hard to do this and not break any rules. After a lot of thinking, I have decided to make Flash Installer free.
More than a few questions sprung to mind when I read this, not the least was Apple’s response to this submission. The developer claims that this doesn’t break any SDK guidelines or rules (and I don’t know all of them personally) but I fail to see how Apple would allow a third party application to modify Safari on an iPhone to run a third party player that they have been very vocal about not needing (as far as I can tell, Apple seems determined to keep Flash OUT of the iPhone browser)
Going on the comments made after this post, there’s more than a few of us that are sceptical about the success of a submission to the App Store of this nature. Even with the App Store’s absimal record with their submission process, I can’t see this one slipping through the cracks. Will try and follow up anyway and see what happens.
Via Mark: You can now register for an upcoming Adobe webinar featuring David Brown from AgencyNet (the guys who built Atlantic Records Fanbase), talking about mobile development for Flash developers:
Mobile for Flash Developers
Thursday, April 30, 2009 11:00 A.M. PST
In this session David Brown from AgencyNet will uncover the key factors to consider when developing and deploying content to multiple devices with Adobe’s distributable player solution. Topics include Multilingual content, multiple input types, and consistent user experiences across screens.
Register here!
Posted 20 Apr 2009 — by Dale
Category Moket
***UPDATED - Seems that I should have read the documentation more closely, but it seems that Ovi at this time does not support the sale of Flash mobile personalisation content, but just the standard JPG, GIF, PNG and SVG image formats instead. Funny that in our conversations with Ovi and Nokia, and through the application process, no one pulled us up on this when we were asking to sell Flash mobile wallpapers as well as applications and games? Anyway, we’ll sell the static content we have in the meantime, and hope that the Ovi system expands to accommodate Flash mobile personalisation in the future (although for the life of me I honestly can’t work out why this isn’t the case right from the start!?) ***
For those of you who haven’t heard, Nokia’s new Ovi “app store” will be launching in May, giving developers of Flash, Symbian, Java and WRT applications a new global distribution channel to 10’s of millions of devices (estimated 400 million by the end of 2010). Moket, along with many other Flash mobile developers that we know, have been accepted as publishers for the initial intake of application/game content. However, we’ve also become a Premium Publisher which means that we can also sell mobile personalisation content.
Some may be wondering why selling wallpapers would come under a “premium status” and selling full blown applications and games is the easier option. Good question I guess My guess (and it’s just a guess – am prepared to be given more info from a Nokia person if they would like to comment) is that Nokia want to be seen competing on the “app store” front first and foremost. This means a good QA system and a steady stream of targeted applications and games at various price points. These are not the types of content that are generally “mass produced”.
On the other hand, personalisation content is much more common with a huge gap in what is “good” and what is “not so good”, if you know what I mean Nokia would be wanting to keep a tighter grip on what kind of content they populate the store with, to avoid it becoming another over-stocked portal with a million “hot babes” or “glowing skull” wallpapers!
Anyway, you can watch a recent Nokia webinar from Bill Perry to learn more about Publish to Ovi, and stay tuned for the launch in early May.
