Mobile and Devices Developer Center

iShop: Flash Lite–Enabled Comparison Shopping to Go

Mobile Application Design

Designing a connected mobile application is a challenging task. Because mobile devices have limited resources compared to the desktop personal computers, it becomes imperative for the developer to master the intricacies of the target platform, its APIs, and air interfaces with the wireless carrier. In addition the user interface is a key ingredient of a successful mobile application because on-the-go users don't have much patience for learning complicated commands and expect to perform only limited input given the restrictions of their phones' keypads.

With its rich set of mobile-ready ActionScript commands, Flash Lite is a terrific tool for quickly developing connected mobile applications that can be deployed to the most popular and powerful phones available in the marketplace. Because Flash Lite is built on the proven and easy-to-learn ActionScript, any developer can be productive within a very short time, letting mobile users send SMS and MMS from their Flash Lite applications through a few lines of code, without ever having to know the kinks of the user's wireless carrier data gateways. In fact, whenever a Flash application wants to send a message, Flash Lite automatically brings up the phone's native SMS or MMS client, thus presenting the user with a familiar and well-understood application, while minimizing memory requirements.

To further maximize ease of use, I implemented iShop following the user interface (UI) conventions and standards for Series 60 phones—users can open the menus with the Options soft key and navigate with the arrow keys. The aim has been to use Flash Lite to make iShop a full-fledged Series 60 application that would be transparent for the large base of users already familiar with the Series 60 user experience.

Developing iShop has been fun as I have been able to focus my attention where it should be: the user experience.

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