MaDFlash - Flash on Mobile and Devices

Which US carrier will embrace Flash Lite next?

Posted on October 15th, 2007 by admin.
Categories: Flash Lite, Verizon.

Hey there folks, I’m back after a long hiatus.

As many of you no doubt know, Amp’d Mobile is dead. Gone. Extinct. It’s quite sad really because we were just starting to get over the growing pains and plan some really exciting, cutting edge development. In particular, Amp’d was dedicated to using Flash Lite for all the upcoming version of the Amp’d Live UI application. The interface for the Amp’d Q, short-lived though it was, was just the first of what was planned to be a string a Flash-based media applications. The Q UI was a remarkable and unique app that used Flash Lite 2.1 for the front end. Adobe was thrilled to see Flash Lite used in that manner, and let me tell you, it shook up a lot of people in the mobile UI business.

But now, with an edgy risk-taking company like Amp’d out of the picture, who’s going to push Flash Lite to its limits in the US? Verizon is doing an admirable job with getting FL on a lot of phones, but they’re not exactly what I would call…innovative. Which carrier in the USA is really going to encourage and support the kind of wildly impressive and useful apps that we see coming out of the web and AIR communities? T-Mobile? AT&T? Will it be one of the MVNOs? Boost perhaps?

Personally, I think it’s going to be a while yet before we see anybody step and lead the charge. Flash Lite 3 and its support of FLV is a huge step in the right direction, but I think it’s going to take something like Adobe’s upcoming Flash Home to really get carriers to understand the full potential of what the Flash Lite platform can do for them. Until then, they’re going to stick with what’s known to be safe and bankable.

Also, in the near future I’ll be posting a full-feature video of the Amp’d Q interface. Mainly for posterity, partly to brag, and a little bit for nostalgia.

[tags]Adobe, Amp’d, Flash Lite, Verizon[/tags]

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