Flash for phones goes video

By Stephen Withers
Tuesday, 02 October 2007 05:54

Technology

Flash Lite 3, the latest version of Adobe's player software for mobile devices, supports video playback and other dynamic content.

"With Flash Lite 3 and its support for video, we’ve passed a major milestone in bringing a desktop experience to mobile and transforming the wireless industry," said Al Ramadan, senior vice president for Mobile and Devices at Adobe.

In addition to FLV video playback, Flash Lite 3 also supports Flash 8 or earlier (compared with 7 and earlier in Flash Lite 2.1), metadata, and an external API for browser scripting.

ActionScript performance is said to be improved between 15 and 20 percent over version 2.1, with rendering performance boosted by 20 to 30 percent. At the same time, the core player has been slimmed from 450K to 380K.

Initial support for Flash Lite 3 is coming from Nokia and NTT DoCoMo.

Nokia vice president Lee Epting said "Flash Lite 3 will enable us to deliver richer content to our customers, such as videos and animated ringtones. This reinforces Nokia’s commitment to mobile innovation and provides an exciting new channel for content delivery and consumption."

Flash Lite runs on S60/Symbian OS, BREW 2.x/3.x, Windows Mobile 5, and various embedded operating systems, but there is no mention yet of support for Apple's iPhone. Adobe predicts more than one billion Flash enabled devices will ship by 2010.