Maximiliano Firtman's Forum Nokia Blog - A Flash Lite alternative in Java ME?

Adnan,

I think Adobe is working on a standalone emulator so you can use it from outside Flash Professional software. I don't know anything about Nokia's emulator integration. It'll we very useful if Adobe can distribute a free SDK to develop Flash Lite app without buying Flash Professional, as they did with Flex 2 or as OpenLaszlo works.

Can you guide me when Nokia is goig to launch emulator which supports xhtml pages with Flashlite 2.0 based movies? right now it doesn't run on S60 emulator

Hi Carlos,

J2ME maybe a pain to work with (from what I have heard), but it is definately more powerful in terms of access to phone information, and rendering of graphics. There are plenty of things you just cannot do with Flash Lite because the frame rate just drops to 4,5,6 fps or there is no api - you need to inface with some other technology such as J2ME or C++. Admitedly FL 2.1 is a little better.

But I think the big hindrence will be deployment of the player. FL is licensed to Nokia, SE, Motorola, LG, Samsung, BenQ Siemens, BUT only Nokia are seriously deploying it and making it available to developers. SE are still working with it on limited handsets, but mainly just for closed to 3rd party UIs. Samsung - using it lots but for UI only. The rest have yet to deploy, if they do in fact deploy.

Cheers

Nick

Don't forget http://www.openlaszlo.org/ is an open source and you can get it for free.

Nice move from Sun and openlaszlo

Regards,
Arab
http://www.WeArab.Net/

Hi,

I had worked for mobile devices for many years, recently I tried Flash lite 1.1, honestly, it surprise me, it has a great implementation, good access to hardware resources, and. its Flash! :-)

I don't think that J2ME is more powerful that Flash Lite, J2ME is tied up by standards and security conventions. Ok, ok. Flash is a proprietary platform, but I think If Macromedia makes their moves in the correct ways, may take the first position on short time.

About OpenLaszlo, I enjoy XML coding, it's a very good alternative to Macromedia classic IDE, about J2ME output, mmm.., It seems easy in theory, but in the real world, the are a lot of hardware differences, and for mobile business is VERY important the optimization.

Carlos Olivera T.
http://www.series60.com.ar/blog/

Hi Maximiliano,

Sounds like it will help some types of developers, but I think one of Flash Lite's greatest assets is the IDE which people have acquired knowledge with. So even if OpenLaszlo gets a half decent IDE its never going to be something that designers can jump into having used it for years.

Especially with the Adobe/Macromedia unification I think the Flash IDE will become untouchable in terms of bringing design into the development process.

Of course Java is much more powerful than FL and given the long deployment process for the FL player, it may not matter how good the Flash IDE is. Java has dominated mobile for a good few years and FL will need more than just a good IDE and player to change that.

Cheers

Nick