Abandoning Flash on the mobile? Not really, but we're done with browser plug-in on mobile browsers - Adobe.

First, we are making bold moves like stopping the development of the browser plug-in on mobile browsers in favor of investing further in Flash-based apps packaged with AIR. Playing existing content sounds like a great idea on paper, but we know it doesn't always work that way -- you need to author for mobile and think for mobile, but from talking to customers and looking at content today, we realize that very few people are targeting the plug-in on mobile browsers.

We are not stepping out of the mobile space with Flash, we are just focusing on what makes sense and where Flash looks great, standalone apps with AIR.

Why not just call a spade a spade? Flash is dead on the mobile, period!

Adobe finally abandons Flash on mobile devices in favour of HTML5

“HTML5 is now universally supported on major mobile devices, in some cases exclusively,” Adobe VP Danny Winokur said in a clear reference to Apple’s rejection of Flash support on its dominant iOS devices: the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch. “This makes HTML5 the best solution for creating and deploying content in the browser across mobile platforms. We are excited about this, and will continue our work with key players in the HTML community, including Google, Apple, Microsoft and RIM, to drive HTML5 innovation they can use to advance their mobile browsers.”

Our future work with Flash on mobile devices will be focused on enabling Flash developers to package native apps with Adobe AIR for all the major app stores. We will no longer adapt Flash Player for mobile devices to new browser, OS version or device configurations. Some of our source code licensees may opt to continue working on and releasing their own implementations. We will continue to support the current Android and PlayBook configurations with critical bug fixes and security updates.

Steve Jobs was right after all.

A Brief Rant on the Future of interaction Design

So, here's a Vision Of The Future that's popular right now.


You can read the beautiful post in it's entirety here.

Damn, 2 Million Polygons in Flash Player? Yes it can.

Flash is really stepping up its game in becoming a serious gaming platform. Muscle Jump pulls of 2 million polygons in Flash Player, right in your browser.

Nokia Kinetic Device Demo

Nokia Kinetic Device demo

Nokia's research team is working on flexible displays and UIs. You can bend the screen to select, zoom, move between UI elements, and change the volume of music. It's crazy, wild, and as awesome as it looks to play with. See the video here. 

Nokia Lumia 800 review

Nokia Lumia 800

The Verge gives a very comprehensive review of this much touted phone.

As usual with AMOLED, some users will find the colors rendered a little too rich, though there's sadly no option to tone down saturation as there is on Samsung's Galaxy S II.

And for the Ecosystem, they've got this to say

The gravitational pull of Microsoft and Nokia's collective determination can reasonably be expected to produce the critical mass of good apps for Windows Phone to truly compete with the best — it's just that at this particular moment in time, it continues to lag. While closing the gap on Android and iOS, Windows Phone doesn't improve on them in any dramatic way. Its multitasking overview is good, the live tiles offer information more quickly and easily, and its calendar is arguably the best of the bunch, but those are small advantages. iOS still wins when I want to browse the web or check out a new app and Android is still the best platform for users of Google services.

All in all, here's the breakdown

I must really commend the Verge for this highly comprehensive review. It's as if they left nothing out.

PhoneGap Day Videos now available

Brian Leroux talks about PhoneGap 2.0




Michael Brooks talks about how to architect for many screens




Dave Johnson talks about everything you need to know about PhoneGap Plugins




Kevin Griffin and Don Coleman from Chariot Solutions talk about the NFC PhoneGap Plugin




Pat Mueller from IBM talks about Debugging apps with Weinre




Laurent Hasson from RIM talks about how Blackberry is embracing Web Tech with WebWorks




Miku Jha from Worklight talks about how Worklight uses PhoneGap to create apps for the Enterprise




Lyle Garza demos DateVenture




Kris Zyp from SitePen talks about Dojo Mobile




Tim Caswall from HP talks about NodeJS on webOS




Jason Grigsby & Lyza Gardner from CloudFour talk about Starting with the Mobile Web




Bryce Curtis from IBM talks about IBM, PhoneGap and the Enterprise




Brian Fling from PinchZoom, David Kaneda from Sencha, and Joni Rustulka cover the process of discovery and design in the mobile space



You can checkout the PhoneGap Youtube Channel here

How to bring back the Plus in search recently killed by Google

DuckDuckGo, a one-man project by Gabriel Weinberg is an alternative and is quickly becoming the go-to search engine for discriminating nerds. It was created 4 years ago by Gabriel and has been solely maintained by him until recently when he accepted funding from Union Square Ventures and hired his first full-time employee. It has a vast collection of powerful search modifiers and maintains a good stance against tracking and personalization which google is well known for.

Leaving behind Google search for others is a great challenge to many including me, who would first think Google before Bing or any other search engine, and for people like this, there are other solutions. FindErr is a simple proxy made by a pseudonymous hacker that adds the necessary quotes to every search before shuttling the user off to Google.

The other solutions which seem not to be in your normal way of doing things is to use this userscript, created by electrotype for Hacker News. Chrome users can simply just click the link to install the script while Firefox users who already have the Greasemonkey plugin installed can also just click to install it; but for users who don't have Greasemonkey installed or don't know what it is, 

Greasemonkey is a Mozilla Firefox extension that allows users to install scripts that make on-the-fly changes to HTML web page content on the DOMContentLoaded event, which happens immediately after it is loaded in the browser (also known as augmented browsing). As Greasemonkey scripts are persistent, the changes made to the web pages are executed every time the page is opened, making them effectively permanent for the user running the script. Greasemonkey can be used for adding new functions to web pages (for example, embedding price comparisons within shopping sites), fixing rendering bugs, combining data from multiple webpages, and numerous other purposes. [Wikipedia]

You can install Greasemonkey here before installing the script.

Huawei U8180 Android phone goes for only N19,000 on Etisalat network.

You've heard so much hype about iPhone or Android but have never really gotten to use any of these devices, Etisalat Nigeria gives you a good offer to get a pretty decent Android phone for just N18,999 and it's exclusive to their network only. That is not all, you also enjoy special offers including:

• Free monthly 50MB for 4 months (Free 200MB in total)
• Cheapest call rates of 20kobo/sec with no access fee for first 4 months and for subsequent months on purchase of consistent data plans.

Here are some of it's features:

• Android 2.2 Smartphone
• 2.8 inch full capacity touch screen
• Accelerometer function
• HSDPA of up to 7.2 Mbps
• Etisalat customized device(Hardware & Software)
• Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Wi-Fi hotspot
• Bluetooth function, FM radio and GPS functionality
• 3.2 MP camera.
• Document viewer; word, excel, PDF, Adobe Flash.

Shelling out less than N20,000 for a decent Android phone as this, isn't a bad deal when you think of how much it costs to get the amazing ones like Samsung Galaxy S II which was offered to me for N105,000 at Slot recently, though MTN seems to offer the same S II for N90,000 I think.

But one thing of note is that the Etisalat Gaga Android phone is locked to their network :), which is pretty sad, but they all do this, so I wouldn't really say much about that.

Free browsing on Glo Network all day long

Recently acquired my 7th or 8th line, which is an MTN line by way and was quite undecided as to which of their packages to sign up for. I had to get a third MTN line as the second had an issue I couldn't contend with. Friends and family suggested I sign up for the MTN Friends and Family package but in the process of my deciding on the package to put on the new SIM, I discovered MTN had a package called Funlink reloaded that had free 4MB of data for use everyday between the hours of 12:30am - 4:30am and I was disappointed in MTN usual, because they've been known to rarely give out things for FREE as such. Anytime they say they're giving out something for free, you had better be watchful and read between the lines. Why would any reasonable person stay up late at night all because of 4MB free browsing? MTN should for once surprise us with their offerings. I'm not really an MTN basher, but I believe they should occasionally try to do things right for their customers. I do use their modem to browse as it's the best I've used so far in this country and I've been on the network for almost a year now and renew almost thrice a month, so I'm not really an hater as such.

Anyway, to go straight to the point of my post, some months ago, I got a notification from Glo when I did a 1000 naira recharge that I was given 200MB free internet to use at any time of the day and I was like wow, that's a good one coming from Glo, but what struck me was that I've been browsing for free since then up till now and I wondered if it was still on the 200MB data plan. I wasn't so sure because I browse more on my Macbook with my MTN modem than I do on my phones, so I thought I was still within the limit of 200MB, only to read a post on Mobility blog a few days ago and discovered that Glo actually doled out GBs of data for people to use on their phones. MTN can you beat that?

I occasionally get charged if I use the wrong access point to browse on my E51, but I know better now which access point to use when I'd rather not be charged for my browsing. The way it works is really simple, load N500 or N1000 recharge cards and you receive free bonus data to browse with either you are aware of it or not. The trick is to ensure that you use Glo’s Glodirect configuration settings while browsing. If you have all sorts of access points on your phone, delete them, remove your SIM and reinsert it to have new configuration sent to you. But if you'd rather not delete them and just add new access points, you can use this setting:


Configuration name: Glodirect
APN:                         glosecure
Username:                 gprs
Password:                  gprs

So you don't have to wait till 12:30am to use 4MB of free internet on MTN, go get a Glo line if you don't have one. And for you Glo, thanks for this wonderful offer. Anyway, so much for the free publicity for Glo, I hope you do more as regards the quality of calls on your network as it can be frustrating at-times and it's seriously pissing me off after 4+ years on being on your network and I'm already thinking of making MTN my primary line, if solely for quality calls.

In case you get stuck in the process of enjoying the free data Glo offers on their network right now, head off to this post and read the comments to see how others overcame their own issue. All the best in your quest.

Google Reader Redesign: A Disaster

A few days ago when I logged into my reader account and saw the new visual changes, I hated Google immediately for it. I spend more time within reader than I do on Facebook these days, and even of Twitter sometimes, but the new redesign of reader repels me more than the engagement it brings. I stand to believe that just as it was discovered than some Google execs don't use G+, the same also applies to whoever did the redesign because reading in reader these days is not soothing at all. It tires the person reading easily and makes me just scan through and close the window immediately. I'm not alone on this anyway; Brian Shih,  a former Project Manager on Google Reader also shares the same thought with me

In the name of visual consistency, Google has updated the visual style to match Gmail, Calendar and Docs. I have nothing against visual consistency (and in fact, this something that Google should be doing), but it's as if whoever made the update did so without ever actually using the product to, you know, read something.

Kevin Fox, a former lead designer for Google Reader also disagrees with the new redesign and is offering his services to Google to help enhance and restore the utility of Google Reader, while keeping it in line with Google’s new visual standards requirements. He's even willing to go an extra mile and put his current projects on hold to ensure that Google Reader keeps its place as the premier news reader.

And so I put my resources where my mouth is. As the former lead designer for Google Reader, I offer my services to Google, rejoining for a three month contract in order to restore and enhance the utility of Google Reader, while keeping it in line with Google’s new visual standards requirements. I will put my current projects on hold to ensure that Google Reader keeps its place as the premier news reader, and raises the bar of what a social newsreader can be.

 I know it's all about Google+ that these is happening; just as Google killed it's other plus, which was immensely useful for search, all because of Google+. I know the baseline matters, but keeping your users or customers happy also does.

Google+ is the fastest-growing social network in history, with 40 million users since its June launch. To help them focus, Google's quietly shuttered a number of products, removing iGoogle and Google Reader's social features and closing Google Labs, Buzz, Jaiku and Code Search in the last two weeks alone.

But in doing so, they also killed off one of its oldest and most useful tools, from its most popular product.

On Wednesday, Google retired a longer-standing "plus": the + operator, a standard bit of syntax used to force words and phrases to appear in search results. The operator was part of Google since its launch in 1997 and built into every search engine since.

I hope Google doesn't kill off everything besides Google+ with this act of killing everything in its path they've embarked upon.

So Google, some of us seriously dig the old reader, even though it could do with some improvements, but I believe you don't have to force G+ down our throats like you're doing with almost everything. There are better ways to engage us than the way you're doing it.

The Making of Nokia N9

One word, AMAZING!