by DaveLaFontaine on March 10, 2010
Thanks to Eric Schwartzel at the Post-Gazette for sending me this great, funny video. The P-G has rolled out 2D barcodes (aka QR codes) in their print product that are designed to be used by smartphones.
I’m all in favor of videos like this, that guide our readers/users through the process of learning what 2D barcodes are all about, and how to use them. I’d like to see a little more of an explanation of what these codes do, to make the case to the readers as to why they should use them. One of the real interesting possibilities is using these codes alongside of reviews of concerts or movies to take the readers to m-commerce sites, where the paper will get a slice of the ticket sales.
Of course, that’s going to take some time/development money, but for an industry looking for a viable business model to replace the dwindling dead-tree advertising revenues, shifting towards a more PPC-like biz model makes a lot of sense.
by Mark Jenkins on March 9, 2010
Some people say Flash is dead because it doesn’t work on the iPhone and many other mobile devices. Others see Adobe Flash as the future of rich content on mobile phones. In the words of science fiction writer William Gibson: “The future has already happened, it just isn’t very well distributed.”
The reason I say this is because Japanese wireless carrier NTT DoCoMo was the first carrier to support Flash Lite on its handsets in 2003. In 2006, Verizon Wireless added support for Flash Lite as an extension of its BREW platform. Flash Lite didn’t just grow in distribution, it evolved by adding capabilities such as streaming video in Flash Lite 3 in 2007. According to Strategy Analytics, there will be more than 2.5 billion Flash Lite enabled devices shipped by the end of 2010.
Why is there still such a desire for Flash in the mobile ecosystem? For two reasons: First, the success of Flash Lite came almost exclusively from the Asian and European markets. NTT DoCoMo and Nokia were two of Flash’s biggest champions. Unfortunately, neither of them has a strong presence in the United States. Second, it has not been successfully integrated into mobile browsers. While consumers could download Flash content to play on their devices, they could not experience it within the mobile browser.
While most developers wait for the full Flash experience to come to the mobile platforms, Nokia is taking the mobile platform to Flash. Nokia’s latest mobile operating system (Maemo) and browser were developed to provide full Flash (9.4) support. This approach to mobile operating system design is expected to continue as Nokia and Intel have agreed to combine Maemo and Intel’s Mimo operating system to create the MeeGo operating system.
Nokia and Intel are members of the Open Screen Project which was established by Adobe on May 1, 2008. The Open Screen Project is an initiative to promote rich mobile content across many devices and platforms, and today includes more than 50 software companies, wireless carriers, device manufacturers, and content providers.
Adobe announced Flash 10.1 as the future of rich mobile content on February 15, 2010 at the Mobile World Congress, with availability sometime in the first half of 2010. The press release that accompanied the announcement stated:
“Mobile platforms that will support the full Flash Player include Android, the BlackBerry® platform, Symbian® OS, Palm® webOS and Windows Mobile®.”
Notably absent from the list was Apple’s iPhone and iPad platforms. This absence is at the heart of corporate, political, and technical debates over the future of rich mobile content.
Adobe claims that they are ready with a Flash player for the ever popular Apple mobile platforms, but Apple claims that Flash degrades performance and battery life to a point that is unacceptable for Apple. Some bloggers have posted test results that defend Flash as a stable, battery friendly plug-in. Others have documented that Flash is a power hungry resource hog that leaves mobile devices downright painful to use.
There have been some more recent developments that shine a light on the performance controversy. A forum comment by an Adobe employee on February 9th came back to life in the last week of February. The commenter claims that Flash 10.1 will only work on Android devices with the most recent versions of the OS and with an ARMv7 (Cortex) based processor. In early February, this was written off as a commitment regarding support for future products. Now, the forums are reinterpreting this as an admission of Flash’s high resource requirements. The same comment also claimed that Flash will not be supported on Windows Mobile 6.5 or earlier.
With Adobe’s announcement at the Mobile World Congress, and the comments that have come to light since then, it now appears that Flash 10.1 will be supported by some Android devices and Palm’s Pre and Pixi webOS devices within the next few months. Windows Mobile users will have to wait for Windows Phone 7 which isn’t expected to be commercially available until the 2010 holiday season. BlackBerry’s manufacturer, Research In Motion, is working on a new browser and OS that is assumed to be the recipients of Flash support. No date has been announced for these developments. Nokia has also announced its intention to support Flash 10.1 in devices to be delivered in 2010.
As with browsers, operating systems and even hardware features, Flash 10.1 will penetrate the mobile ecosystem slowly. On the other hand, it will probably be met with simultaneous cheers and jeers from those who have taken sides in the Apple / Adobe clash.
Despite the differences with Apple, most analysts believe that there is room for Flash in the mobile ecosystem. Whether Flash is the future of rich mobile content will depend on how well it is distributed.
by janinewarner on February 23, 2010
I have a pile of mobile phones at my disposal for testing web sites — you may not be enough of a freak to make that kind of investment, but you don’t have to.
My goal on this site is to start publishing the results of my testing and invite others to comment, test, and submit code for review.
In the meantime, there are many ways to test sites. (You’ll find a growing list of online browser emulators here and I add more as I find them..)
I have an iPhone, a Blackberry, a Nokia, aPalm, a Kindle, and that’s just what I have handy at the moment. I’m always collecting more, and I have a team of testers who review site designs with me using other devices.
We’re working on running a series of tests to better develop best practices across as many devices and browsers as possible.
Among the ones we’re already testing: Safari on the iPhone, the new mobile Firefox browser, Google’s Android, and Windows Mobile.
If you want to be considered for a position as a tester on my team, send me a note telling my why you’d like to play the mobile design testing game with us.
Thanks, janine@digitalfamily.com
by janinewarner on February 21, 2010
Some of the coolest sites on the Internet are designed to deliver a different version to the iPhone, than to Nokia phones, or to someone using a Blackberry (you could create a different version for each model), and that’s just the beginning.
Even if you don’t have time for all that, I recommend creating at least one special version of your web site that is mobile-optimized, or at least mobile friendly.
Then you just set up an ‘auto-detect’ script on your web server and deliver one version to computer users, and the other to cell phones.
That doesn’t mean you have to completely recreate everything on your web site for mobile, but put the most important information — like you’re phone number and a map to your office or restaurant — where people can find it when, say, they want to call you from the mobile phone they’re using to try to find you on the way there…
As you plan for a mobile site, consider how your visitors are likely to use your site when they are mobile, not just the limitations of the screen. If you get a lot of traffic to your pet store or accounting firm, make sure people can find you easily when they’re mobile.
I am dedicated to helping you find practical ways to redesign web sites for mobile phones that work today
If you have the time, budget, and a complex interactive web site, the more you can optimize it for the differences among the limitations of a feature phone, the new opportunities of a touchscreen, and the easy access of smart phones, the better.
If you want to be able to show off your photos or other creative work, create a mobile-optimized slide show or add video (YouTube is one of the best places to post video that works on mobile).
