New Adobe User Group in Manhattan

The only thing Manhattan was lacking it now has--its very own (active) Adobe User Group! The first meeting is on July 5 and everything you learn there can definitely be applied to mobile Flash development. Stop by if you want to learn something new, make friends or find a date.

Mark your calendars!

For those of you who attended FlashBelt and can't get enough, or for those of you who missed it and would be regretting it for the rest of your life were it not for this make-up opportunity to see me again--I'll be speaking at FlashForward in September on Flash and mobile game development using Flash Lite 2.0. Early bird discounts end this Friday so sign up now!

Flash 8 mobile device profiles update

Adobe has just released a Flash 8 update for mobile device profiles (the profiles are used by the Flash Lite emulator to simulate the execution of your application on a target mobile device). The update can be found at http://www.adobe.com/products/flash/download/device_profiles/

Tip: Package your application in less time than it takes to yawn

BlueskyNorth's SIS packaging tool, SWF2SIS, is a great time-saver and incredibly easy to use. The most time-consuming part is just configuring your environment to run the tool (it took me an hour to figure out what I needed to download and install from three different sites). Once you've accomplished that, the rest is like taking candy from a baby.

This tool allows you to package your SWF, any dependent files, your UID (if you have one) and your application mobile desktop icon into a deployable SIS targeted for phones using the Symbian Series 60 2nd Edition Operating system. Here's a full list of phones supported.

How does Adobe make money with Flash on mobile devices?

The Motley Fool explains...
1) Adobe gets paid every time a phone is shipped with Flash Lite installed on it and it is reported that 65 million have been shipped so far.
2) Adobe also gets paid when Flash is shipped with other mobile devices, like the PSP (note that the PSP does not use Flash Lite and instead uses the standard Flash player).
3) Adobe also gets a nice chunk of cash from some Flash-driven subscription services and FlashCast users.

Guess this means I can cancel that Save-Adobe Telethon...