Alessandro did it again and created a great article together with sample code and application FliKun. With FliKun, you can upload any picture from your Nokia S60 phone to Flickr with GeoTagging, with Flash Lite and KuneriLite!
Today, we’ll see how it’s possible to build a Flickr uploader in FlashLite using KuneriLite, geotagging them with the current GPS location.
Michael Halbherr, from Nokia, says Nokia is planning to include positioning support to all their phone models and satellite positioning (GPS) to every second phone.
Nokia estimates it will happen before 2010-2012. Now Nokia has five GPS supported phones and four more are already published. Estimation of sold GPS-units this year are 35 million. Amazing numbers.
Nokia will also improve their map services Ovi, to toughen the competition against Google. Service will work seamlessly between mobile and desktop browser. Desktop will function as routing planner on top of the map and user can follow created route with mobile application.
(original (c) Reuters).
This is for developers: GPS (Location) capability will not require certificate signing in S60 devices v. 3.2 and above. It will be user granted option, which is good for development sake.
Usually, when new version of a software is released, we cheer, considering things will get better and easier. As we were expecting things would be easier for developers, we cheered up for Flash Lite 3.0’s features, however that couldn’t be more than wrong and it turned out to be a big pain for us. Moreover, there doesn’t seem to be any short term solution, and no one guarantees there will be one in mid or long term. I would like to write my reasons why I think so, and warn Adobe, Nokia and developers for a potential threat, which will not be long to come.
Flash Lite 3.0 came with Flash 8 engine, and together with Security Sandbox ‘feature’. This might make sense for browser plugin, but doesn’t make any sense for standalone player. Nick has a really nice post about this issue, which is almost 1 year old, can give an idea about the past and future of the problem.
Ok, what’s wrong with ‘Security Sandbox’? Isn’t security something good? Well, security is good when it’s used in convenience. If you use security for a case where doesn’t make any sense or bring an added value, you end up making life difficult for developers and users. Problem about this new Security Sandbox is; you either can have a local connection (i.e loading local files), or can a network connection (i.e connect to internet). This ‘feature’ not only brought an unnecessary pain to us (developers), but also broke backwards compatibility. How? Simple: If you have a Flash Lite 1.x or 2.x movie using local and network connections at the same time, it simply won’t work on Flash Lite 3.0 (which means new phones like N95). Wasn’t the biggest problem on mobile world fragmentation?
Problems not only end with those on ‘Security Sandbox’ feature. It’s not possible to do localhost calls, which disables any connection from Flash Lite to outer world. Why is this something bad? Well, there are many 3rd party projects extending Flash Lite via localhost (the only way left to us, because 3rd party application launch is limited by Nokia), such as KuneriLite, Flyer and Janus. These projects help Flash Lite to expand beyond its capabilities and enable people to create richer applications, which can compete with native S60 applications in look and performance.
Luckily, there is a ‘best of worst’ trick that solves those problems. There is a magic folder in ‘C:\data\others\trusted’ (that’s another pain, I will come to that shortly), which disables ‘Security Sandbox’ and enables applications to communicate both with local and network, as well as localhost. Why is this a ‘best of worst’? Simply because whatever you put into this directory is visible under ‘Gallery’ which brings a very bad user experience and many security concenrs within.
This issue will be even more cronic, if Adobe or Nokia doesn’t make any move; because ‘trusted’ folder will not be available anymore for S60 3.2 devices. Which will kill all developer efforts and backwards compatibility forever. We are not sure if Adobe or Nokia will solve this problem, but crossing our fingers hoping someone sees our S.O.S fire.
I mentioned Security Sandbox problem and a ‘best of worst’ solution to that above. Now see another pain closely related to this subject.
S60 devices have ‘Phone Memory’ (PM) and ‘Memory Card’ (MC). Users are given the option to install their applications to PM or MC. As you know, to solve Securiy Sandbox problem, we need to install Flash Lite applications to those ‘Trusted’ folders that exist both on PM and MC. So what is the problem? With a clever(!) move, ‘Trusted’ folder is located at different paths on PM and MC. It’s at C:\Data\Others\Trusted\ on PM and E:\Others\Trusted\ on MC. Yeah, but what is the problem? Well simply, it’s not possible to install applications (SIS packages) to different folders on PM and MC, and this breaks Symbian Signed criterias. So, Flash Lite 3.0 applications either will work on PM, or MC. And in that way, you can not get your appliction Symbian Signed.
There is no solution we could find for that yet. If we can not; it will not be possible for anyone to Symbian Sign their Flash Lite applications on Flash Lite 3.0 phones (from my current understanding).
Well, Security Sandbox is not the only problem. There is a serious bug on Flash Lite 3.0 with XML sockets. Simply put, it’s not possible to receive data via XML socket shorter than 1+ seconds, which kills if you need to stream data.
Most clear example for that is using KuneriLite Accelerometer plugin with Flash Lite. Naturally, to use axis values, you need to get those values at least 4-5 times per second; so that you can reflect it to your application. But because of this bug, you can get data only 1 time or less per second, which makes it impossible to use.
See the this Forum Nokia thread for more information on that subject. And as far as we see, there is no solution offered yet.
I tried to state my reasons, why Flash Lite 3.0 is a potential show-stopper for developers, users, enablers and many more on S60 devices. Nokia keeps on spreading this problem via Firmware updates and pushing Flash Lite 3.0 player to earlier phones (i.e Nokia N95 Classic), supporting and triggering fragmentation. With the introduction of S60 3rd edition Feature Pack 2 devices, these problems will be impossible to solve and Flash Lite player will get fragmented at least for couple of years, which will delay market entrance that is already delayed for long time and still immature. What I would like to see is some action from Adobe and Nokia, leaning on this subject and listening to us to avoid a big potential problem awaiting all Flash Lite users and developers in short term.
Please leave me your comments if you have any.
cheers,
Ugur.-
Bill posted a really great resource: Flash Lite market percentage (as of January 2008). Those numbers are from U.S and Western Europe and give quite good impression of the target market in those selected regions. Listed numbers include Nokia S60, Nokia Series 40, Sony Ericsson and BREW. It’s especially great to see the numbers of devices separately for each platform as well. I always thought UK had the most S60 devices in Europe, however it’s clear that Italy is the leader.
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Here is our first KuneriLite advert. Hand drawn N95 8GB using Microsoft Paint and a mouse. I believe video is quite self explanatory. Enjoy ;)
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We are once again proud to be mentioned as a “Success Story” by Forum Nokia and featured on Nokia Enablers and Infrastructure web page!
How cool would it be if developers and designers could create great-looking S60 applications without any special technical knowledge? Creating mobile applications for S60 devices generally requires knowledge of Symbian OS, the platform’s underlying operating system, and the C++ programming language. However, simplicity is the promise of Kuneri Ltd.’s KuneriLite, a rapid application development toolkit that lets users create S60 applications on a PC using only Flash Lite from Adobe. “There is no need to know anything about Symbian OS, since the developer never touches any Symbian code,” says Ugur Kaner, CEO and co-founder of Kuneri Ltd.
You can also get the PDF of the interview or access from Nokia page.
Adobe just launched a Flash Mobile Gallery containing Flash Lite screensavers, wallpapers, games and applications. You can see elite examples of Flash Lite content with a demonstration, description and reference to their developers.
It’s a proud moment for us to be on Forum Nokia as a featured developer with our product KuneriLite. Check it out to get to know us and our vision better.
In this interview we speak with Ugur Kaner, CEO of Kuneri about the company, the products and what he sees on the horizon for mobile development.
In April and May, I will be attending and giving presentations, tutoring for workshops in various events about Flash Lite and KuneriLite. If you happen to attend any of those, just drop by and say hi!
2nd April 2008 - Forum Nokia Code Camp: S60 Sensor APIs - Helsinki
I will be presenting how KuneriLite can utilize sensors and will be demonstrating how to build a simple Flash Lite sensor game in 15 minutes. I will also be attending to workshops to guide developers, answer their questions and help them to put hands on active development for Flash Lite and KuneriLite.
You can learn details here and can find agenda here.
4th - 5th April 2008 - Over the Air event - London
I will be presenting KuneriLite and talk about how it drives the innovation to create great-looking S60 applications faster, easier and cheaper with Flash Lite. Surely will be present in workshops.
28th - 29th May 2008 - S60 Summit 2008 - Barcelona
I will be presenting and demonstrating KuneriLite, showing how it can be used to create rich mobile applications without huge requirements and answering questions.
More information can be found here.
Ugur.-
Eventhough we love Flash Lite, mobile web is still the only solution to reach most people out there. Whatever application or service you create, there has to be a ‘Web side’ to make it a complete service. I just spotted a nice article on SitePoint giving cool tips on how to create mobile web sites. Check it out, you will need it some day.
BTW, stay tuned, Kuneri is coming with a cool solution for anyone to create mobile web sites the easiest way (as usual in Kuneri style ;) ).
