"We (Adobe) have access to several 3rd party resources to get that type
of information but currently we're not able to broadly distribute all of
the information because of our licensing terms.
One of the things we're doing is to determine what would be relevant for
the broader community to aid them in business decisions when considering
FL as a mobile platform.
So going back to your question are you asking about all phones, or FL
only phones? Also what region of Europe? I'm not saying that I can
provide that information but it would help me better understand whatspecific details you're interested in."
This information is the single most crucial thing for us in convincing clients to go with FL as opposed to xHTML or Java solutions
We would love to be able to give out info like:
What is the exact penetration of FL enabled phones in Denmark, Scandinavia, Europe and the rest of the world.
What number of these are FL 1.1 and how many are FL 2.x
What is the breakdown per manufacturer? In Denmark SE and Nokia are about 85% of the market - what about the rest of the world?
What will happen in the 6 months - 12 months timeframe - what are the manufacturers aiming for in regards to FL?
In general we need ammunition to help fire bullets when our clients kill FL projects because of the low percentage penetration in handsets today. Because our clients can not think in a broader spectrum than "if it isn’t 100% penetration, we can't use it" - and even when we then try to get them to give us examples of what actually has 100% penetration and they fail does it help them see the light...
Also in my opinion we as a community should start focusing more on developing for FL 1.1 and forget about higher versions. Penetration wise the rates are so low and besides - on most of the phones using stuff like the XML socket connections and high end programming just leads to poor user experiences because we all seem to think the phones have 4 gig ram and dual core processors :-)
You can do amazing stuff with 1.1 and you can actually have a reasonable penetration - our best bet is that its around 15-20% here in Denmark but we are seeing the beginning of the ketchup effect starting to happen now... And besides I think we should all look back at where we were 6-7 years ago when you couldn't really program anything in Flash - still some amazing user experiences evolved in that time. Stuff that we probably all have learned from and that have helped us get here today. It seems to me that we all are starting to focus too much on geeky techno stuff instead of actually creating cool content, that works in the real world on real peoples phones.
That attitude is the one that has gotten us clients like Nokia, Vertu, Carlsberg, ViaSat, Golfbox and others. And I think it would help us all a lot if more people would get into the beautiful no arrays, no script, timeline based world of FL 1.1 :-) The world just isn't ready for anything else at the moment...
11 comments:
Well put Anders!
We (Future Platforms) are starting to see clients interested in Flash Lite as a means of reducing development, porting and maintenance costs of JavaME apps - but when they weigh the available numbers most realistically won't commit to do much more with FL than prototype. The next option is mobile web, which MANY clients are starting to take much more seriously with companies such as Flirtomatic and Mippin leading the way.
In regards to FL 1.1 - I couldn't agree more. I began Orihon (http://code.google.com/p/orihon/) a few months back to help make FL 1.1 development easier - I'm planning on giving it an update over the holiday season with many more examples and 'components'.
Yes exactly :-) We are getting lots of clients on the FL platform right now - but when we cannot convince them penetration is not an issue we never get the contracts :-(
We also have in house developed a lot of easy ways to go about FL 1.1 apps such as lists and scrollbars and menus - as well as a gateway on our webserver making sure we handle all parsing and heavy data use on the webserver. This seems to get us good response times.
Check out http://wap.lbi.dk/samples.php to get some idea of what we are able to do in FL 1.1
I am glad that you have pushed a bit harder than most on this issue Anders.
The FL commumity is distributed round the world, connected, yes, but still distant from one another.
Were we to work in an environment where we actually saw one another, as well as Bill Perry, 'wasted time' at the water cooler or in the pub chatting about FL and associated issues, I doubt very much whether Adobe would get away not providing developers with accurate and up-to-date usage statistics.
Every conversation with potential customers leads to the same question:
How many people does FL actually reach?
Answer . I don't know.
And Bill Perry does know.
hehe very true - unfortunately Bill knowing is not the same as Bill being able to share :-)
I am sure Adobe would love to share what they could with us - the thing is i am unsure how much of this information Adobe actually has, as in my experience the manufacturers tend to be a very tight lipped bunch ... :-( And the carriers are so afraid the competion might gain an edge that they certainly won't share anything with anyone - this goes from everything from sharing information about yesterdays lunch to how many FL enabled phones have they actually sold in the alst year... :-)
Andershauch,
Until this viscious little closed loop is broken, you and I and all the other early adopters are paying the price.
I was interviewed for a media developer's job at the Open University this week. A more 'go-ahead media developer's environment' you could not get. And when I suggested the possibility of some course information being delivered through FL, I was given a sympathetic and very polite hearing. And apologetic smiles.
As for writing in 1.1 to broaden the user base for which we could write! I won't be giving up the day job.
Hi,
great post. Casual games on http://playyoo.com might be an answer - in terms of demand for fl-enabled handsets etc.
We are in the same boat after all.
Thomas
hmmm again - check out the link http://wap.lbi.dk/samples.php on your FL enabled Nokia phone ...
FL 1.1 is a great tool an great stuff can be accomplished easily if you know how to limit yourself :-)
Anders, Yes 1.1 is great; the limitation is mine. I just cannot go back to pre-OOP.
The thing that I love about Flash is that an Instructional Designer like me can, with a lot of effort, get up to speed in an OOP environment. And Flash is brilliant for that. But, I don't 'see' in code as do some of my very gifted colleagues (you lot).
So, for me, the effort of tell(ing)Target(s) to do things is too great.
And Biskero told us it was OK to go with 2+. So that's OK, then.
hehe I can't write any code at all - My personal experience allows me to make a little ball bounce with Timeline animation.... But I get your drift :-) The reason why i promote 1.1 is that as far as I can tell if there is a 15-20% FL penetration in Denmark - probably 12-15 of that is FL 1.1 - and since we are a company working solely on creating flash lite experiences we have a somewhat urgent need to get applications sold :-) So we focus on what works - not what is possible if you get my meaning :-)
You've got a mortgage like me. The biggest disciplinary tool in the world is owning a house
I've been tracking Flash Lite phone models released by North American networks.
Perhaps other folks can do something similar within their location.
http://www.aviarts.com/blog/?cat=4
One good source, for numbers of Flash Lite phones sold in a given regional market, is slide #8 from Bill Perry's "Creating and Selling your Flash mobile Content" Flash Forward 2007 presentation.
http://www.flashdevices.net/downloads/Creating-and-Selling-Your-Mobile-Flash-Content-bperry.zip
Hayden Porter
www.aviarts.com
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