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Adobe Flash Lite

Adobe Flash Lite is a lightweight version of Adobe Flash Player, a software application published by Adobe Systems. This version is intended for mobile phones and other non-phone, portable electronic devices like Chumby and iRiver, and allows users of these devices to view multimedia content and applications developed using Adobe's Flash tools, which had previously been available only on personal computers.

Technical overview

Flash Lite is a development technology implemented at the client-side, or user interface layer. In this realm Flash Lite competes with other technologies like Qualcomm's uiOne markup language and Sun Microsystems's JavaFX Script. Recent changes to ActionScript allow Flash Lite to better integrate with and even compete with device-layer technologies like Java ME and BREW. Flash Lite should not be considered a mobile operating system like Symbian OS, Windows Mobile, Mac OS X for mobile: it is a technology for developing applications that run on a mobile operating system.

Flash Lite 1.1 supports Flash 4 ActionScript. Flash Lite 2.0, based on Flash Player 7, supports Flash 7's newer ActionScript 2.0. Both versions also support the World Wide Web Consortium's Standard SVG Tiny, a mobile profile of the consortium's Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) recommendation. Unlike SVG, Flash Lite can add audio and interactive elements without the use of other technologies such as JavaScript. As with Flash, Flash Lite is able to read and redraw external XML content. Flash Lite 3 is based on Flash 8, which brings closer the gap between mobile and desktop content by supporting H.264 video standard, as well as On2 VP6 and Sorenson video codecs. It also introduces the support to FLV video content.

History

In 2005 Adobe Systems completed its acquisition of Macromedia, the original developers of Flash. At that time, Flash Lite had been available to mobile users in Japan and Europe for some time prior to its availability in the United States. NTT DoCoMo and au by KDDI were the first carriers to adopt Flash Lite in June 2005.

As a promotion for Flash Lite in February 2005, Macromedia conducted its first Mobile Flash Content Contest. From the over 150 applications submitted, nine winners were selected in areas of Best Business and Productivity Application, Most Innovative use of Flash Lite, Best Animation, Best Business Application, Best Educational Content, Best Game, Best Interactive Content, Best Productivity Application, and Best Overall Use of Flash Lite.

In May 2006, the iriver U10 (later re-branded as the iriver clix) was released, which supported Flash Lite content in a landscape page orientation. The U10 was the first digital audio player to support Flash Lite.

In 2005, almost 100% of Flash Lite enabled devices were found in Japan. In February 2007, Adobe claimed that over 70% of Flash Lite devices were shipped outside of Japan .

In October 2006, Verizon Wireless announced support for Flash Lite , making it the first operator in the USA to adopt the technology. Flash Lite was initially available on four handset models (Motorola RAZR V3c and V3m, Samsung SCH-a950 and LG The V (VX9800)) as a BREW extension. This allows users to download Flash Lite applications from Verizon's "Get It Now" service, but it does not allow users to view Flash objects from their web browser.

In February 2007, Adobe announced at the 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona that the next release of Flash Lite (version 3) would support video, including streaming video . In October 2007, Adobe announced the release of Flash Lite 3.

At Adobe's 2007 Financial Analyst Meeting, Al Ramadan, then senior vice-president of Adobe's Mobile and Voice Solutions Business Unit, announced that by December 2006, 220M Flash Lite devices had been shipped. He also noted Adobe's acquisition of certain vector rendering technology by Actimagine, intended to reduce the Flash Lite player's memory footprint in future versions.

As of March 2008, neither Adobe nor Verizon Wireless have announced the availability of Adobe Flash Cast, per the February 2007 press release for availability by the end of calendar year 2007.

Flash Lite compared to similar development platforms

Flash Lite is a mobile development platform that can either be used in place of Java ME or run on top of Java ME in a Flash Lite Player. Other platforms include BREW, Symbian, and Windows Mobile. In 2006 Qualcomm announced a partnership with Adobe to bring the Flash Lite player to the BREW runtime.

Flash Lite content may be viewed on handsets installed with the Flash Lite player in the same way that Java content may be viewed on phones with a Java ME runtime. Both of these technologies may be present on the same handset and do not compete directly.

Applications, games and other content may be developed in either technology. Flash Lite has several advantages and several disadvantages when compared to Java ME.

Advantages:

Rapid development due to the Adobe Flash IDE makes iterative software prototyping and software testing relatively easy.
Better support for the Write once, run anywhere (WORA) methodology that does not depend on specific APIs being available. This results in little or no porting, which is a major cost in Java ME development
Graphics are vector based (bitmap support is also included) which allows for scaling, rotation and other transformations without loss of graphic quality
Ability to pack more animation and graphics into the same file size provided by the use of vector graphics
Ability to convert web-based (desktop) Flash content to mobile and vice versa, with minimal effort
Flash development skills -- understanding of the IDE and of the scripting language -- readily ports from the desktop IDE to the mobile development environment

Disadvantages:

As of April 2008, only a minority of phones offer support for Flash Lite. However this is changing rapidly in North America and Europe with carriers like Verizon and manufacturers like Nokia, Sony Ericsson and LG having announced Flash Lite devices in 2006 and 2007. Its limited availability means a limited audience compared with that of Java ME, Symbian, or BREW.
Relatively poor graphical performance (due to higher processing required for vector graphics)
Poor handling of sound

Project Capuchin

On April 30 2008, Sony Ericsson announced Project Capuchin , a bridge that allows Flash Lite to run as a front-end to Java ME and in this way, combine Java's APIs and direct communication with the mobile phone's hardware (bluetooth, WiFi and others) with Flash's graphical interface.