Aral Balkan

As a Flash developer, I'm happy whenever anyone licenses anything Flash for any purpose whatsoever. It strengthens a platform that I love developing for. However, the news that Microsoft has licensed Flash Lite for its Windows Mobile phones doesn't excite me too greatly.

Flash Lite definitely has its place on mobile phones but that place is not to play back web-based Flash content. Flash Lite plays back Flash Lite content specifically created for phones and other devices like the Chumby. The best uses of it that I've seen are to build interface elements and other apps that integrate into the phone's operating system. Flash Lite cuts down development and testing time (and thus costs and time-to-market) considerably for such use cases.

What would excite me far more would have been an announcement that a mobile phone supported the full version of the Flash Player. There are, of course, optimization issues to consider. Steve Jobs mentioned that the iPhone cannot run the full version of the latest Flash Player. He also spoke about how Flash Lite is too light. As I mentioned previously, he's spot on.

What we need is a Flash Player for mobile phones that can play back existing Flash content on the web.

Phone and mobile device processors are increasing in speed to the point where I can run Flex sites on my Nokia N800 which supports the full Flash 9 Player.

Next step: Flash 9 (10?) on a phone?

I don't see Flash Lite going away as it has important uses in creating UIs for phone OSes and native apps but don't confuse the presence of Flash Lite on a phone with Flash support. I understand Flash support as the ability to play back existing Flash content on the web. As far as I know, no phone currently does this.

The iPhone created the expectation that mobile devices should be able to faithfully display the web. That's an expectation that Apple can only half meet at the moment (and they're the closest ones to meeting it at all.) As such, a mobile Flash Player that rendered existing content would be a game changer. I can only wonder if Apple is working on such a third option.

I also wonder if this is the goal that Microsoft is aiming for with mobile Silverlight? If mobile Silverlight can render existing web Silverlight content then it will have a technical leg up on Flash in the mobile arena. On the flip side, there isn't really that much Silverlight content on the web today to start with (this is a situation that I know Microsoft is pushing very hard to change).

To conclude, I applaud Microsoft's adoption of Flash Lite in its Windows Mobile phones and look forward to seeing how they implement and use it. I'm not as excited about this development, however, as I would have been by the announcement of web Flash content support by a mobile device. That would truly be an exciting turning point for mobile Flash.

Comments

• @Tangent = your sources have somewhat misled you. There is currently no version of Silverlight for Windows mobile. Version 1 is scheduled to appear in the next three months. Version 2 used to be schedlued for release at the same time as the version for Windows & Mac, but probably will be later. Silverlight 2 is Silverlight 1.1 with a different name. Silverlight 2 is still only an early developer beta and so it's no surprise that it doesn't work with some v1 stuff. Oh and Flash most certainly hasn't maintained perfect backward compatibility. It's close, but a number of "fudge factors" in my code to handle subtle rendering differences between flash 7 & 8 for example are evidence that "perfect" is too strong a claim.

  by David Arno on 2008-03-17 21:46:09

• "Next step: Flash 9 (10?) on a phone?" I'm not so sure about this. Adobe has deprecated their Flash Player SDK (v7) in favour of Flash Lite. Adobe aren't leaving phone manufacturers with many options for getting FP 9/10 onto their devices. That being said, does anyone know the details of how Nokia are able to provide Flash Player 9 support on their N800 device (ARM11)?

  by Nathan de Vries on 2008-03-18 00:37:54

• Currently, Apple's iPhone is even too slow to get their own animated user interface work properly without stuttering. I can understand why they don't want Flash yet on their device. Of course, a full blown Flash Player would be nice to have on mobile phones.

  by Weyert on 2008-03-17 15:24:52

• Microsoft plan on having the full version of Silverlight on mobile phones, and not just windows mobile phones. Silverlight is coming to Symbian OS phones too.

  by David Arno on 2008-03-17 17:11:07

• Well, from my sources, Silverlight for mobile is running Silverlight 1.0 (not 1.1 or 2.0), and sadly, SL 2.0 is not backward compatible with SL 1.0/1.1 -- at least not yet. If you are attempting to run Mix08 website with SL 2.0, you might not get any luck. Flash Player, however, has maintained perfect backward compatibilities.

  by Tangent on 2008-03-17 20:53:20

• Nathan, the N800 device is a Linux based one and Flash 9 is available for Linux. Thus it would have been a relatively painless process getting Flash 9 onto it. Most phones these days are, I think, either Symbian or Windows CE based. Flash 9 for either of those platforms is nowhere to be seen, and the existence of Flash Lite suggests we may never see it either.

  by David Arno on 2008-03-18 09:18:52

• The N800 runs linux....... This begs the question surely, why hasnt anyone made a linux based mobile?? ;-)

  by kevin meilak on 2008-10-25 08:55:25

• Hey! already read it: Nokia N97 is available for Pre-Order in Spain for 450€ without contract...!

  by N97 ohne Vertrag on 2009-05-04 14:03:50

• Flash would be a Yay for me. Its a frustrating to be compromised as with the mobile browser improvements suggest a complete experience. I had thought the launch of the iPhone 3GSand OS3 would bring us closer to mobile Flash. But I do wonder if Apple consider Flash to be a competing source of mobile applications. I think Apple will be the last to offer this as it could marginalise their not insignificant Apps revenue.

  by Serena on 2009-06-17 10:18:09