Aral on Flash, SWX, Flex, ActionScript, and life.
My friend and fellow Brightoner Simon Willison of Django/OpenID fame has just released a lovely little mashup called wikinear that uses FireEagle and Wikipedia to show you Wikipedia articles that are relevant to your current location.
If you are on the FireEagle beta, you can play with it right now. Otherwise, Simon has four invites that will go to the first four people to comment on his blog post (as I write this, there are three remaining, so hurry!)
Related links:
First Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen announced that they were working on Flash for the iPhone, now Adobe clarifies that no, they're actually not.
You know, I don't even have the energy to go into the details. Here, read this.
Damn you Apple for hooking me in with your wonderfuckingly cool UI and then shackling me with your sub-par feature-set. I want my Flash Player and my 3G, you hear?
You've spoilt me; I can't use any other handset now without feeling like I'm handling ancient relic and yet I can't do simple things like copy-and-paste and connect my laptop to the Internet through my phone.
Flash Lite definitely has its place on mobile phones but that place is not to play back web-based Flash content. Flash Lite plays back Flash Lite content specifically created for phones and other devices like the Chumby. The best uses of it that I've seen are to build interface elements and other apps that integrate into the phone's operating system. Flash Lite cuts down development and testing time (and thus costs and time-to-market) considerably for such use cases.
What would excite me far more would have been an announcement that a mobile phone supported the full version of the Flash Player. There are, of course, optimization issues to consider. Steve Jobs mentioned that the iPhone cannot run the full version of the latest Flash Player. He also spoke about how Flash Lite is too light. As I mentioned previously, he's spot on.
What we need is a Flash Player for mobile phones that can play back existing Flash content on the web.
Phone and mobile device processors are increasing in speed to the point where I can run Flex sites on my Nokia N800 which supports the full Flash 9 Player.
Next step: Flash 9 (10?) on a phone?
I don't see Flash Lite going away as it has important uses in creating UIs for phone OSes and native apps but don't confuse the presence of Flash Lite on a phone with Flash support. I understand Flash support as the ability to play back existing Flash content on the web. As far as I know, no phone currently does this.
The iPhone created the expectation that mobile devices should be able to faithfully display the web. That's an expectation that Apple can only half meet at the moment (and they're the closest ones to meeting it at all.) As such, a mobile Flash Player that rendered existing content would be a game changer. I can only wonder if Apple is working on such a third option.
I also wonder if this is the goal that Microsoft is aiming for with mobile Silverlight? If mobile Silverlight can render existing web Silverlight content then it will have a technical leg up on Flash in the mobile arena. On the flip side, there isn't really that much Silverlight content on the web today to start with (this is a situation that I know Microsoft is pushing very hard to change).
To conclude, I applaud Microsoft's adoption of Flash Lite in its Windows Mobile phones and look forward to seeing how they implement and use it. I'm not as excited about this development, however, as I would have been by the announcement of web Flash content support by a mobile device. That would truly be an exciting turning point for mobile Flash.
Linux is an operating system that's used mainly by hardcore geeks who think in binary and don't mind spending hours compiling their own device drivers. Oh wait, sorry, the year is 2008, not 1998. Scratch that, today, Linux is the operating system that came pre-installed on my easy-to-use Asus Eee PC and my flashy little Nokia N800 Internet tablet.
Both of those devices, by the way, are excellent candidates for my dream video blogging machine. The N800 more so than the Eee PC.
Both the Eee PC (at least the 4GB model I have) and the N800 have internal web cams and WiFi. They're both tiny enough to carry around easily (far more so than a full-size laptop like my MacBook Pro), and, in the case of the N800, the camera actually swivels around so you can shoot your subject while looking at the screen.
And they both support Flash Player 9.
So, budding video bloggers, grab your N800s, connect to Seesmic, and start vlogging away, live, from anywhere with a WiFi Internet connection.
Not so fast. They're a slight niggle. The web cam on neither the N800 nor the Eee PC works with the Flash 9 Player for Linux. (And, reportedly, the same holds true for the newer N810.) In fact, according to reports on the Net, you would be hard-pressed to find a web cam that does work well with Flash Player 9 on Linux.
The problem is that Flash Player 9 on Linux supports an outdated interface (Video4Linux 1) for connecting to web cams; leaving the built-in web cam in many newer devices, including Nokia N800 and the Asus Eee PC, unsupported. What Adobe must do is add Video4Linux 2 support to Flash Player on Linux.
As video blogging becomes mainstream, I can't help but feel that Adobe is about to miss another chance in the mobile arena by not implementing proper web cam support in the Flash Player for devices like the N800 that run Linux.
If I was Nokia, I would be talking to Adobe right now about what we can do to realize web cam support for Flash Player 9 on Linux as soon as possible and start pushing the N800 and N810 as the perfect live video blogging tools.
If I was Loic Le Meur, I would be emailing Adobe about how important this feature would be for my popular Flex-based RIA, Seesmic. I would probably also be on the phone to Nokia too to have Seesmic included as a standard application link in the N800 series OS.
And, finally, if I was calling the shots at Adobe, I would be redoubling my efforts to get proper web cam support into the Linux version of the Flash Player as part of my mobile strategy. I would make it a priority to support and encourage the use of Flash-and-WiFi-enabled Linux devices with web cams, coupled with Flash applications like Yahoo! Live and Seesmic, as low-cost live video blogging and real-time web news-gathering and reporting tools.
Devices like the Nokia N800, N810, and Asus Eee PC are already on the market and in the hands of content creators. With an update to Flash Player 9 on Linux that implements proper web cam support, we have the chance to give them a whole new use case and make the Flash the de-facto standard platform for mobile video blogging.
Heading to Amsterdam for the FITC conference this weekend? Make sure you grab Thomas Joos's mobile conference guide on your FlashLite 2-enabled phone.
(Oh yeah, and Shawn emailed me at some point to let me know that Colin's going to be presenting a free day of ActionScript 3 training in Amsterdam on February 27th so if you want to get into AS3, make sure you sign up for that.)
My FITC Amsterdam session is titled Beyond the Buttons on the morning of the first day. My talk is not about the technology but about everything else that you can do with the wonderful tools that we have at our disposal. It's going to be an inspirational and interactive journey (so get ready to get involved).
Oh yeah, and our not-so-little-some-might-even-say-quite-large band, Phlash5, is going to give its second ever concert at the after party. Expect classic hits like Papervision (Girls they'd laugh and look away/They'd point and stare at my forms/I had a bitmap-and-vectorstantial existence/That was somewhat flat/You can't get laid like that...) 
It looks like two different solutions were released several days ago but those had issues (the location feature in Google Maps not working, etc.)
This morning, cash7c3f, who owns modmyifone, posted that they have a new software jailbreak method for 1.1.3 that you can run from Installer.app.
And, if your phone was unlocked at 1.1.2, it should retain its unlock after the upgrade. (My phone retained its unlock from 1.0.2 to 1.1.1 and 1.1.1 to 1.1.2).
To get it, you have to add the modmyifone repository to your Sources in Installer.app.
Once you've done that, you can see it under the System category.
I'm going to keep and eye on this but probably won't install it until I see some feedback on whether it breaks anything.
I'm really happy with 1.1.2 because I finally have caller ID again for UK numbers and that was my biggest complaint. (If you had numbers in your phone book in international format +44 0779 etc. under 1.0.2, caller ID would not work when people called you from the UK; the numbers would show up as 0779 etc.)
Update: More info on the 1.1.3 official jailbreak from ModiPhone. They also report "a contacts-related issue" with the method that should give you further pause before trying it out.
Due to the manageable number of entries, we're going to forego the first round of public voting (although you are welcome to leave comments on the entries) and allow our outstanding panel of judges to pick the winners from the Web, API, and Mobile categories in a single round of voting.
We received 8 9 10 entries in the web category, 3 4 in the mobile category, and we now have 8 new SWX APIs thanks to the contest, ranging from a generic XML to SWX parser called SWXml to APIs for popular services such as Wordpress, Backpack, Technorati, Kuler, and Verisign/Paypal Payments Pro.
I want to take this opportunity to thank all the contestants for their hard work. Here's wishing all of you the best of luck!
The winners will be announced on December 24th, 2007.
Also, a big thank you to our sponsors: Adobe UK, Lynda.com, Burak Kalayci (ASV), Friends of ED, and yours truly (Nabaztag bunnies and iPod Touches).
Update: I messed up and forgot to add Julio Rodriguez's entry to the Web category this morning. I've now updated the page with his entry and informed the judges. Thanks for getting in touch with me Julio and apologies for the initial omission.
Update: John Hattan's entries in the Web and Mobile categories also somehow ended up in the black hole of my email. Sorry, John, I've added them to the contest page and informed the judges now.
So, on to news about my iPhone: I've got it working with EDGE on T-Mobile UK! Yay!
Aaron, in the comments to my Unlocking the iPhone for T-Mobile UK pointed me to Ross Barkman's GPRS Info Page with a note that he got his iPhone to connect via EDGE by using the settings on that page. Lo and behold, it doth truly worketh!
So, if you're on T-Mobile UK and want to use EDGE, go to Settings -> General -> Network -> EDGE and enter the following details:
APN: general.t-mobile.uk Username: user Password: user
That's it! It should really work on any network via the settings on Ross Barkman's site but I've only tested it on T-Mobile UK.
Yay! I've got a phone that does mobile data again!
Now what remains to be seen is whether this will be included in my unlimited data plan or whether I'll be charged extra for it (I'm assuming it will be included!) Thanks, Aaron, for the tip!
Flashforward Day 3 is about to begin and I can't wait to see John Maeda's keynote. I saw him speak once before (on simplicity) and loved it. I'm sure this morning's talk is going to be great too.
Technical difficulties: I haven't been able to post as many video updates as I would have liked thanks to a combination of YouTube's 10 minute limit and an annoying hiss with the Sony camcorder I got that almost had me returning it (until we realized at the store that all the camcorders had it!)
iPhone update: My iPhone's finally hacked and working on T-Mobile and I'm playing with all the lovely apps you can install on it using AppTapp (installer.app).
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