Kuneri bloggy

Ramsey has an interesting post, stating his opinions about Flash Lite development on Windows mobile devices, and why it may be the best platform for web Flash designers and developers to jump into mobile market. I can not comment on that issue due haven’t put my hands on Windows mobile, but if you would like to discuss, check his post out.

Windows Mobile has a lot of things going for it that kind of ease the transition from web to mobile:

• Familiar operating system rules
• Easy to put the Flash player on the device
• Easy to install third-party apps on the device
• Wide range of Windows Mobile devices with fairly powerful processors and decent memory space
• Windows Mobile devices usually have great screen resolution

Phil launches a new Flash Lite tutorial blog. He is also looking for experienced Flash designers and/or vector artists with original Flash Lite menu creation ideas to collaborate. There are many tutorials already, check it out.

Vivek recently posted small tips about creating Flash Lite wallpapers and a small but useful template. For now there is only 240×320 resolution template for Series 40, but he promises more soon.

A new document from Forum Nokia: Avoiding common failures in Symbian Signed and Nokia test.

This document describes ten of the most common reasons why S60 applications fail to pass Symbian Signed and additional Nokia tests. Developers who carefully address the issues described in this document will end up with fewer test rounds and will save money. Applications that pass these test cases will also be of higher quality, which will improve the user experience.

Here are top ten failures:

1. Help or About is missing
2. User interface is inconsistent or not in accordance with the style guides
3. Application launches itself automatically at reboot
4. GSM Offline profile is not communicated to the user
5. Application doesn’t scale correctly
6. Privacy statement is missing or doesn’t declare all used services
7. Application cannot be closed through Task list
8. Application doesn’t request user’s permission before initiating a billable event
9. Uninstall does not remove all files
10. Startup takes too long

All these are S60 focused and there are still many question marks and gaps remaining for Flash Lite developers.

New white paper from Adobe: Designing Engaging Mobile Experiences by Josh Ulm. Paper aims to help understanding the guiding principles that are critical to designing great experiences for today’s mobile device users.

A new article by Forum Nokia; Mobile action games - Ready, set, action!

This article discusses the challenges and possibilities of designing action games for mobile devices. Many of the issues presented relate to overall game design and game mechanics that aim to improve the user experience, rather than details of technical implementation.

Forum Nokia released an example of an isometric adventure game for S60 platform. Although it demonstrates content creation using standard C/C++ libraries, generic game architecture design considerations for mobile platforms are applicable to all game developers, or those interested in becoming (mobile) game developers. Package also includes a game design document.

The new Sony Ericsson Macromediaâ„¢ Flash Liteâ„¢ 1.1 Developers’ Guidelines give an overview of how Macromedia Flash Lite is implemented in a range of Sony Ericsson mobile phones. This document outlines some of the issues faced when designing Flash Lite content for mobile phones and lists the Flash features supported by each phone in grid. Phones supported in this document include the W200, W810 and W850 Walkman® phones and the K610im i-modeâ„¢ phone.

via Aniway

Here is a free chapter from the brand new Flash Lite book “Foundation Flash for Mobile Devices”.

The following book excerpt is Chapter 5, “Application Development,” from Foundation Flash for Mobile Devices by Richard Leggett, Scott Janousek, and Weyert de Boer, published by friends of ED. It is just the book you need to learn how to take advantage of the ever-expanding audience of mobile application users. Inside, authors Richard Leggett, Scott Janousek, and Weyert de Boer cover every facet of mobile Flash—from the essentials of the Flash Lite 1.1 and 2.x platforms and writing applications to testing your work and deploying to mobile users.

Applications presented include screen savers, wallpapers, data-consuming informational programs (for movies, news, and stock tickers), quiz games, action games, and more. You are given tips on mobile Flash development best practices. All of the essential topics are covered, too, including creating and using sound, vector graphics, and bitmaps; optimizing assets for the small screen; coding realistic physics for games; and consuming web services using PHP, Java, ColdFusion, and .NET.

A new article from Nokia; Mobile Game Graphics - Overcoming the small screen challenge.

This article presents some best practices and visual examples of graphic design for mobile games. It also focuses on overcoming some of the main usability and user experience limitations: the small screen size (with portrait and landscape modes) and the mobile context.