Pop Images - Thoughts and Flash Lite

Pocket Gamer

Paul Lamonby — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 08:40:51 +0000

You may already know about this one, but I view Pocket Gamer almost every day and thought Id share the link.

Its a great resource for all you Flash Lite game developers out there. It has reviews on thousands on mobile games, including a few Flash Lite ones, but also a lot of industry news specific to mobile gaming and interviews and video demos of some of the newer games.

I use it mainly to see what else is out there and how the big development companies are handling different styles of game. If you're developing a game right now, check out the Games A-Z section and select your game type from the drop down list to see other games in that category.

The iPhone Debate

Paul Lamonby — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 19:45:05 +0000

Been watching the Flash on iPhone debate from the sidelines up to now, as it seems to me to have been a developer and media 'frenzy' that I cant be bothered with.

But over time, Ive been asking myself some questions on the Pro's and Con's of having Flash on the iPhone. I'm excluding the obvious that users can view .flv on their favourite video sites as I dont use those sites, so it wouldnt impact on me in the slightest. The questions Ive been asking are more along the lines of how can this help the Flash Lite ecosystem, and of course, our company.

This report iphone-owners-content-consumption-off-the-charts-report seems to suggest there is a very good reason for getting Flash Lite on the iPhone. Simply put iPhone users are willing to download content, and media companies are starting to realise this. If those same media companies could see the quality of user experience Flash Lite brings to the mobile space then those same companies could be interested in using Flash Lite. If we could then tell them that Flash Lite is also on another 500million handsets globally and we would only have to port the application a handful of times, they would surely have to sit up and listen and be very interested.

At the same time, we have all these users downloading and accessing all this data content on their iPhone. If they could see the quality of user experience Flash Lite brings to the mobile space and how it ties in with their favourite brands on the web, then they would be just as excited as the media companies. And the cycle continues...

Flash Lite brings a quality of user experience far beyond anything else on mobile and the more people that can see this and understand this, then the better for all of us, Adobe, the OEMs, the operators, the users and the developers.

Speaking at Mobile World Congress 2008

Paul Lamonby — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 19:52:44 +0000

aka 3GSM, why they changed the name I'll never know, 3GSM rolls off the tongue much better!

Anyway, I'll be speaking at the Adobe Booth on some of the exciting Flash Lite work we have been producing recently. Cant say more than that right now, but if you are there, come over and say hi. If you're not there, Im sure the news will be on biskero the moment it leaves my mouth. (No offence Alessandro, you are just so quick to post new stories :)

Review of 2007 - Thoughts for 2008

Paul Lamonby — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 13:10:22 +0000

2007 was a very busy year for me both personally and in business. But Ive been posting only personal stuff so far, so lets take a look at Flash Lite for a change.

3GSM in Barcelona in February seems to be the first milestone of every year in the mobile world and last year was no exception. Flash Lite was really picking up speed by this point, and announcements from Adobe and Nokia confirmed that this was going to speed up even more. More and more Flash Lite 2.x phones started to appear, not only on S60 but also on Series 40, which I see as a must for mass market penetration.

Our Games catalogue was also growing strongly, 12 titles in early 2007. As well as our Wallpaper/Screensaver catalogue, growing to some 30+.

In June, Chris and I spoke at Adobe Live in London, a free exhibition of Adobe products. Here we showed off the fantastic Adobe CS3 suite and how it was possible to integrate Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash and Device Central to coordinate your mobile work flow. I really like Flash CS3 and Device Central, but have found it to be very buggy, with intermittent crashes and freezes. Lets hope these get fixed soon.

2007 also saw me working on a very large project, from a very large mobile company, more news coming soon on that one. It was 6 months solid graft though, and a lot of hurdles to jump over.

In September, our Wallpaper/Screensaver catalogue was released on Sony Ericsson's 'Fun & Downloads' web site via the Smashing Content sales channel. This was a major coup for us and at last allowed us to get some real figures from real people downloading our content.

October was Adobe MAX, my yearly chance to meet all the guys from Adobe and the community and generally have a good time. I developed a simple Flash Lite 1.1 event guide for the conference, not sure how many people used it, but it helped me if nothing else :) It was also the first Adobe MAX in Europe, in Barcelona. I personally thought it was a great event, with a good number of people. The party and mid-session drinks could have been better, but that was the only real negatives.

Flash Lite 3 was the real talking point of the conference from a mobile perspective, the addition of .flv support is a massive step forward, as well as the hugh increase in processing speed, which really helps in game development. Obviously we wait in anticipation for the FL3 phones to start appearing, but as we all know by now, these things take time.

December has to have been the best month of the year for BlueskyNorth. Our Games catalogue and Wallpaper/Screensaver catalogue, was released on Verizon Wireless in North America, through the Smashing Content sales channels. Smashing Games and Smashing Screens is really going to make an impact in 2008, providing a sales outlet for all the professional and independent Flash Lite developers out there, to one of the largest sales channels of Flash Lite outside of Japan.

2008, what happens next?

A shit load more Flash Lite enabled phones hopefully!
More support for Flash Lite distribution on non-S60 devices, such as Series40 and Sony Ericsson.
Some exciting announcement's from BlueskyNorth. Stay tuned.
Phone UI, a very, very interesting format for Flash Lite.
Flash Cast, hopefully we'll start to see launches in Europe and North America very soon.

Let me know your thoughts on what you would like to see for Flash Lite in 2008?

Shitish Airways

Paul Lamonby — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 22:24:10 +0000

The British Airways Saga on our way to Italy...

Sunday 23rd December 2007
06:00 - Wake up excited about the trip ahead. Get a taxi to Newcastle airport for our 08:00 flight to Heathrow.
09:30 - Delayed 1 hour 30 mins on our flight from Newcastle to Heathrow.
11:00 - Land at Heathrow, flight to Rome scheduled for 14:30, but because of freezing fog, no departure time is displayed.
14:30 - Still no departure time, but we found a free cocktail bar in the departure lounge, so things were ok.
16:00 - We board the plane, but theres no flight crew.
17:30 - The pilot arrives, but theres no co-pilot.
18:30 - The flight is cancelled due to the missing co-pilot, we are informed we need to wait to be escorted off the plane.
19:00 - We disembark the plane and head to the baggage reclaim fiasco, where 100s of luggage bags are 'thrown' around from ours and several other cancelled flights.
20:00 - After finding our luggage and phoning the British Airways hotline, we manage to scrape onto a flight from Gatwick to Naples at 15:00 the following day.
21:15 - We arrive at Gatwick Airport after an hour bus journey and manage to get booked into the Gatwick Hilton for the night with free evening meal and breakfast. Thank God!
23:00 - After a buffet style evening meal and a well deserved drink, we go to bed looking forward to heading off the next day.

Monday 24th December 2007
10:00 - Wake up to enjoy the very nice free breakfast.
12:00 - Head to the airport to check in for the flight to Naples, scheduled for 15:00.
13:00 - After an hour of confusion checking in, due to our being transferred onto the flight, we arrive in the departure lounge, lunch and beer is enjoyed by all.
14:00 - Yay, the flight is delayed! SHIT...
15:00 - "Please wait in the departure lounge." We're getting annoyed.
16:00 - "Please wait in the departure lounge." We're really getting annoyed.
17:00 - "Please wait in the departure lounge." I'm going to kill someone.
18:00 - We get some drinks vouchers, lots of drinks vouchers, so we buy a bottle of champagne and a bottle of red wine, thinking we might be spending Christmas at Gatwick Airport.
18:05 - "Please go to Gate n" (I cant remember the gate number.) Luckily we didnt open the champagne or the wine, so we can enjoy that in Naples.
19:00 - We have lift off...! But not on British Airways, they had to call in some dodgy airline to cover the flight, 'Flystar Astreaus.'
22:00 (Italy time) - We finally land in Naples, 39 hours after setting off from my front door. Total flight time should have been 3 hours 30 minutes from Newcastle to London, London to Rome. It took British Airways 39 hours!

Thank you British Airways, may I never have the displeasure of flying with you again.