A lot of people getting into Flash Lite development get confused with the capabilities of Flash Lite 1.1 versus 2.x offer.
Disclaimer, this post targets Nokia devices, other devices might have some  differences in the Flash Lite player implementation. I will try to explain some of the differences.

• Flash Lite 1.1 is based on Flash 4/5 and ActionScript 1.0
• Flash Lite 2.x is based on Flash 7 and ActionScript 1.0/2.0

Now if you do not know Flash and ActionScript, this might not help you much. So here a summary of the main funcionality of Flash Lite 1.1 and 2.x

Flash Lite 1.1

Can do:

• load text data over http/https
• load swf (Flash 1.1 or 4 version) over http/https
• invoke the SMS, MMS, Tel, Email mobile phone system and pass some parameters such as Telephone number or SMS body
• invoke browser using getURL API
• retrieve IMEI
• retrieve some specific phone information via Fscommad2 API

Cannot do:

• cannot save data (text or binary) to the phone
• cannot directly load images (jpeg/png/gif), you need to embed the images into a swf (version FL1.1 or 4)
• cannot directly load sound you need to embed the sound into a swf (version FL1.1 or 4), this is tricky since there are different type of sounds. So read this great tutorial wrtten by Hayden.
• cannot define functions (there are some tricks to simulate functions!)
• no arrays (there are some tricks to simulate arrays!)
• no Video

check Adobe site for more infos on FL 1.1

Flash Lite 2.0

Can do: everything Flash Lite 1.1 can do plus,

• save data as Mobile Shared Objects (pretty much cookies)
• load text data over http/https
• load images (jpeg, png, gif) via http/https
• load sound (mp3, aac...) via http/https/local file/embedded (sounds is loaded into memory and then played back)
• play video (3gp, mp4, mov) via streaming http/rtsp, local files/embedded (it uses the mobile phone video player inside the FL movie clip)
• define functions and classes
• define arrays
• and more ....

Cannot do:

• streaming audio
• cannot save binary data

check the Adobe site for more infos on FL2

Flash Lite 2.1 add to everything supported by Flash Lite 2, inline text and XML Sockets

This is just a summary and if the Flash Lite experts out there find some missing infos, please let me know and I will update it.
In any case for specific API/features take a look at the official documentation in the IDE or the Adobe Flash Lite documentation.

All these functionalities are available in general on the Flash Lite standalone player, other implementations such as browser, wallpaper, screensaver etc. support a subset of them.

You might noticed that there are big differences between Flash Lite 1.1 and 2.x. Nevertheless Flash Lite developers created great content in Flash Lite 1.1. I guess is more challenging and more fun!!

Alessandro

PS. thanks to the Flash Lite gurus for the corrections!