Flash Lite on Sony Ericsson: The Struggle

When I start browsing around the internet to look for interesting flash lite applications for Sony Ericsson phones, the majority of results land on flash lite menus. Let's face it, they're slick, animated and aesthetically pleasing: who wouldn't want one? Everyone wants a cool flash lite menu to show off to their peers. I would've expected this potential area of interest to be booming at a phenomenal rate, but the fact of the matter is that SE makes it very hard for us to create and implement these menus.

First, let's consider how one needs to implement these flash lite menus. It's not something an ordinary cell phone user can achieve without learning and download tutorials on the special programs, drivers, files needed to get the flash files into the right directory. Moreover, you risk screwing up your phone if the process of moving that file somehow goes wrong. Let's not forget that the programs do not currently support CID 51/52. Because the directory in which swf files exist are within the file system of the phone, one can not just plop the file into their internal or external memory to expect it to work. This is by far the biggest problem that's limiting this sector from expanding.

Many of you have contacted me with potential ideas on how to get around this idea, but after several weeks of fidgeting with directories and themes.xml, I'm afriad I can't find a solution to this problem. It really seems as though SE wants to keep this flash lite creation business in control. With no leads as to what the solution is, my attempts are comparable to finding a needle in a haystack.

Second, there are very little resources out there that teach people how to create these menus. Albeit, there are intelligent, and generous users out on forums who dedicate their time on understanding how the code works with flash decompilers and hex code editing, but it's very tedious and time consuming. That's one reason why this site exists. So for those users out there who think it's super easy to convert FL2 to FL1.1, or changing resolutions, take some time and think about the amount of work needed just to change something. In fact, I have yet to see that many flash menus created from scratch; most of them are just slight variations on flash menus created by SE.

Lastly, SE's flash lite only works in browsers and may the prime reason why animations run so poorly on several select phones. On the bright side, we are seeing more phones compatible with flash wallpapers that do not require a specific directory to operate. While the current outlook on flash lite expansion seems like a struggle, I am truly optimistic that SE can turn things around by realizing how many potential flash lite developers are interested in creating applications for their cellphones.