Big Flash experiences on a litl device
One of the litl team members, Kathryn Rotondo has shared some information about how Flash is utilized to drive the Flash side of the user experience on the first litl device, in a post called “how litl and actionscript became BFFs”.
Apparently, litl supports *both* Flash Lite, as well as Flash Player 10. However, it depends on the mode you place the litl in. Flash Lite is used for channel content when in “easel mode”. When a user is surfing around in webbook mode, the browser supports Flash Player 10 for Flash content consumption on the web.
In regards to Flash Lite capabilities, looks like Calsoft created a custom Flash Lite 3.x implementation for the device. It supports hardware video acceleration, and bitmap caching support. Other the end spectrum, I’m hearing reports from inside litl, that the Flash Player 10 supports microphone, camera, and plays video very well.
The device can do H.264, fullscreen on a 1280 px x 800 px screen with a 178 degree viewing angle. Pretty impressive. Plus, the display is LED backlit. I can tell you first hand that the gorgeous display is probably one of the top reasons why this device is priced so high … but once you see it in action, you’ll notice immediately the quality over lesser netbooks on market (or at least the ones I’ve seen shipping in US).
In regards to Flash Lite channel content development there are three views (card, full, and channel views). From what I recall cards are individual apps (like on the Palm Pre), “full” is where the app is fullscreen mode, and “channel view” is a user interface where all your channels appear and can be selected.
“we’ve written a straightforward protocol to connect the channel with the device over an XML socket.
the channel can make requests (to initialize its title bar or set properties) and receive events (such as notice that the user has flipped the device into easel mode, followed by go-button and scroll-wheel actions).
we’re wrapping up all this goodness into an SDK to open up the fun, innovative, and rewarding world of channel development to the actionscript community. third-party developers, stay tuned!”
Looking forward to developing for this Flash enabled device.
great post scott. hope i can clarify a few details.
the flash lite player is used by custom channels no matter which view (card/full/channel), whereas the litl’s web browser uses the flash 10 browser plugin.
and here’s the skinny on view vocab: when you’re in laptop mode, card view is the one where you see all your cards, and full is when you zoom into a particular app such that it takes up the whole screen. when you flip the device over into easel mode, you get channel view.
can’t wait to bring other developers into what we’re doing. it’s fun stuff!
Thanks Scott for this webpage – we’re very thrilled at litl to see this kind of community activity starting.
Kathryn is definitely the person to ping on Flash and channel questions. Some of our key channel plans are not entirely public yet but we’ll be rectifying that in due course.
You’re right to pick up on our screen – quite simply it is the best available in this size – ultra bright (you can use this in bright sunshine) and the viewing angle has to be seen to be believed.
Be sure you stay in touch.
Cheers,
Phil
PS one more thing you and your readers might be interested in:
Something that some articles and blogs out there are not picking up on is that we at litl have a grand plan: we’re building a new platform to access the web. One that is simpler, easier to use and that tames webapps and media content. Our webbook is just the beginning. Channels are a key part of our strategy here – channels will be our way of replacing multiple complex interfaces for various useful webapps and media content with (eventually) just one interface – ours.
Since we have a live update system that upgrades your software while you sleep, we will be continuing to push new channels and features onto your device. So the experience that you get now on your litl webbook is just the start – it will grow and grow. And grow. All without you having to install so much as one painful “service pack” or antivirus update.
K: Thanks for the clarification, until I have the device in hand I’m still not quite to make sure of all the modes and how use will be useful to me as a consumer.
P: I know a bit more than the average consumer, but nothing that one could not get from the website if it was read carefully, and thoughtfully.
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