Alessandro Pace's Forum Nokia Blog

I am a Flash Lite enthusiast and will try to share the knowledge.

Flash Lite player, different implementations

biskero | 24 November, 2006 21:45

Flash Lite is been implemented in different ways on different mobile platforms and mobile manufactures.
For example Nokia has decided to use Flash Lite to allow development of standalone applications, games, wallpapers, screensavers and web pages, while other manufactures use Flash Lite for the User Interface, for menus and other content.

In Japan more then 60% of i-mode sites have Flash Lite content from simple animations to games. Very popular are animated ringtones.

So what about the Nokia? Well Nokia decided to have different Flash Lite implementations on the Series 60 and Series 40 platforms. Here is a summary

Series 60 3rd Edition can execute Flash Lite 1.1 content as standalone such as games, applications and animations. Also you can view Flash Lite 1.1 content in the WAP browser.
Series 40 3rd Edition FP1 can execute Flash Lite 1.1 content as standalone, screensaver, wallpapers, subLCD and in web pages.

There are also some updates in the upcoming Series 60 3rd Edition FP1 and Series 40 3rd Edition FP2 which have Flash Lite 2 technology. The implementation of the player is similar to the previous implementations.

The Series 60 3rd Edition FP1 will have the possibility to view Flash Lite 2 content into the S60 Browser version 2. This seams a really interesting feature and since Flash Lite 2 supports streaming video, might be really compelling! First mobile phone supporting this Flash Lite implementation is the Nokia N95.
Also the Series 40 3rd Edition FP2 have Flash Lite 2 but some things are different regarding the Flash Lite 2 API. For example the Nokia 5300, which is a Flash Lite 2 enable phone, does not support loading external video using the video API. But it supports video embedded into Flash Lite 2 content. So you can create wallpapers that has embedded video!

If you want experiment developing Flash Lite content check my previous posts regarding how to start developing using Flash Lite. Also remember that there is a Flash Lite contest running until the end of February.

It will be great if the Flash Lite implementation would be consistent across devices and platforms. For example I would like to see Series 60 support all Flash Lite implementations. Also seams that future Series 60 will support Flash Lite animated ringtones.

Alessandro