Adobe Connect Blog

Hot on the heels of our post earlier this week about the latest version of our app for Android, we’re pleased to share that Adobe Connect Mobile 1.7 is now available for BlackBerry PlayBook! You might recall we launched the initial version of this web conferencing app earlier this year and discussed it here.

Similar to our Android app, Adobe Connect Mobile for BlackBerry PlayBook now includes for the first time rich hosting capabilities, as well as enhanced video quality, an update to the user interface and improved navigation for added flexibility and ease of use.

Adobe Connect Mobile 1.7 provides users more complete confidence to host and participate in mobile conferencing anytime, anywhere:

Control meeting access from your mobile device

• The host can:
• Start and end meetings
• Accept or deny guests from entering meetings
• Enable or disable participant’s ability to broadcast their cameras and audio (VoIP)
• Promote or demote user roles to and from Host, Presenter, and Participant
• Remove users from meetings
• Control all active pods
• Start and stop content and screen sharing
• Create and edit content in the Notes pod
• Advance slides and animations (capability available to both Presenters and Hosts)

Enhanced user interface for ease of use, control

• New layout and controls allow meeting attendees to more easily:
• View all activity happening in the meeting at once
• Focus on an activity to enter input in Public Chat, Private Chat, and Polls

Adobe Connect Mobile 1.7 is available here in BlackBerry App World. Adobe AIR 2.7 or later is required.

Remember, we also have an Adobe Connect Mobile application for Apple iOS devices. You can find version 1.5 on iTunes Preview here. It will be updated soon to version 1.7, so stay tuned to our blog and @AdobeConnect.

For more information, visit our Adobe Connect Mobile User Forum on connectusers.com.

Please stay in touch with us in comments and on Twitter, and enjoy the app!

-Randah McKinnie, Principal Product Manager

I’m excited to announce the availability of our Adobe Connect Mobile 1.7 web conferencing app for Android tablets and smartphones! This new version extends the capabilities of our previous release (see this post) in a number of ways.  We’ve added rich hosting capabilities, improved video quality, updated the user interface and enhanced navigation for greater functionality, flexibility and ease of use. We encourage you to download the free Adobe Connect Mobile app from the Android Market today (more on that later).

Adobe Connect Mobile 1.7 gives the user complete confidence to host and participate in mobile conferencing anytime, anywhere. This release provides new features and an updated interface for tablets and smartphones, including the following capabilities and views:

Control meeting access, permissions and activities from your mobile device

• The host can:
  • Start and end meetings
  • Accept or deny guests from entering meetings
  • Enable or disable participant’s ability to broadcast their cameras and audio (VoIP)
  • Promote or demote user roles to and from Host, Presenter, and Participant
  • Remove users from meetings
  • Control all active pods
  • Start and stop content and screen sharing
  • Create and edit content in the Notes pod
  • Advance slides and animations (capability available to both Presenters and Hosts)

Enhanced user interface for even greater ease of use and control

• New layout and controls allow meeting attendees to more easily:
  • View all activity happening in the meeting at once
  • Focus on an activity to enter input in Public Chat, Private Chat, and Polls

Check out this demo to see some of the new features, including those I’ve described above:

Adobe Connect Mobile 1.7 is available here in the Android Market for users whose devices meet the minimum system prerequisites. Adobe AIR 2.7 for Android (or later) is required, as is Android 2.2/FroYo (or later). A list of mobile devices that meet the AIR system requirements can be found here.

Remember, we also have Adobe Connect Mobile applications for Apple iOS devices and BlackBerry PlayBook. You can find version 1.5 for iOS on iTunes Preview here and for BlackBerry PlayBook on BlackBerry App World here. The apps will be updated to version 1.7 soon, so please stay tuned to us on this blog and Twitter.

For more information on the Adobe Connect Mobile client, as well as user commentary, visit our Adobe Connect Mobile User Forum on connectusers.com.

As always, we’re interested in hearing from you—in comments, on our mobile user forum, and on Twitter @AdobeConnect.

Cheers,
Randah McKinnie, Principal Product Manager

Update 10/4/11: We discussed in comments below that Adobe Connect Mobile 1.7 for Android would support both the front- and back-facing cameras of devices after the next update to Adobe AIR, on which the app is built. AIR 3 is now available, it can be downloaded here. Now, Adobe Connect Mobile 1.7 for Android users can leverage both cameras on devices running Android 2.3 (or later). After you download AIR 3 on the device, you will notice the camera control dialog in Adobe Connect Mobile 1.7 will have a new button. Tapping the button with the camera and arrow will allow you to switch between cameras.

Thanks to everyone who joined in or watched our recent AdobeConnect Twitterview! Our own Alistair Lee was on hand to answer your questions live via Twitter. If you didn’t get a chance to tune in, or are looking for more Adobe Connect information, take a look at the recap below. Let us know if you have any more questions for Alistair, or ask him directly on his Twitter account @AlistairLee!

Be sure to follow the @AdobeConnect Twitter account for more updates on our next Twitter event!

We’re thrilled to share a glimpse behind the Adobe Connect curtain with everyone by giving you an opportunity to chat directly with our team via Twitter!  Our previous Twitter-based interview with Peter Ryce was such a fun experience that we couldn’t resist letting more team members in on the act.  Please welcome Senior Product Enablement Manager Alistair Lee!  He’ll be joining us on August 18^th at 10AM Pacific time.

If you’ve never heard of a Twitterview, or just haven’t joined us before, it is an opportunity for you to get to know the people behind Adobe Connect as well as get your most burning questions answered.  On 8/18, hop on your Twitter account and either @reply our AdobeConnect account or include the hashtag #AdobeConnect: from there, Alistair will be happy to answer your questions!

Alistair is one of our foremost Adobe Connect experts.  If you’re not already familiar with his engaging YouTube videos or tweets, he will be happy to introduce himself as well as provide some answers on the latest Adobe Connect updates, mobile topics, and our increasingly popular extensions capabilities.

Again, join us on Twitter Thursday 8/18 from 10 – 10:30 a.m. PST and be sure to include the #AdobeConnect hashtag when you tweet @AdobeConnect to get our attention.  If you don’t have time, or a Twitter account, just leave your questions in the comment section below!  We’ll make sure they’re answered by Alistair as well.  Thanks again for joining us and spreading the word!

Alistair Lee

During a conversation with Martyn Lewis, founder and principal of 3g Selling, Martyn talked about the company’s focus on delivering high-impact sales training to corporations worldwide. By combining the reach and flexibility of online learning with powerful features in Adobe Connect for eLearning, 3g is revolutionizing traditional approaches to training global professionals. In less than 18 months, 3g held more than 600 virtual, instructor-led training programs and achieved outstanding results using Adobe Connect instead of using trainings in traditional classrooms.

Not only has the move to live, virtual trainings substantially reduced training costs, but it has also improved participant engagement in sessions and retention of information. For example, participants have more flexibility to attend shorter presentations over several weeks versus having to take in a huge volume of new information in just a couple days.  Also, the availability of persistent meeting rooms through Adobe Connect makes it easy for participants to reconnect to discuss at any time what they’ve learned or to get new updates.

3g’s model blends television production concepts with proven sales training techniques to create high-impact, live, virtual trainings accessible to people on mobile devices or laptop computers. Produced like television or radio broadcasts, the company’s sales training features live video and audio, presentations, scheduled breakout sessions, and interactive elements such as chat and whiteboards that take learner engagement and content retention to new heights. To learn more about how 3g Selling is using Adobe Connect, click here: http://adobe.ly/oiTsH7

We’re excited to report that Adobe has been named a “Leader” in the “The Forrester Wave™: Mobile Collaboration, Q3 2011” (July 2011) for Adobe Connect Mobile. The report evaluated products against 15 mobile criteria grouped into three high-level buckets: current offering, strategy and market presence.

Leaders were so designated “…because of commitment to tablets and smartphone platforms, as well as a strategy aligned with the needs of the mobile workforce: low latency, cloud reach, and platform support.” Of Adobe, the report states, “The vendor focuses on usability and user experience with a careful design of its product features for different screen sizes and form factors.”

More information about the report is available from the Forrester Research site here.

You can learn more about Adobe Connect Mobile from our recent posts discussing versions for Android, iOS and BlackBerry PlayBook.

-Michael Londgren, director of product marketing

By Guillaume Privat, Director Product Management, Adobe Connect

That’s it.  Adobe Connect 8 has been rolled out to all our customers.

We were waiting for that complete roll out before launching the third edition of our Adobe Connect Satisfaction Survey which is open until August 29.  Please take a moment to let us know your thoughts on how we are doing and whether Adobe Connect 8 has improved your experience with the product.  Your input is invaluable to help us prioritize product development investments.

You can access the survey at : http://bit.ly/adobeconnectsat

To thank you for taking the time to fill in the survey you will be enrolled in a draw to win a copy of Photoshop CS 5.5.

But before you invest the time to fill in this survey, you might wonder what we do with the results.  So let me summarize the results of our last survey and the action plans we implemented as a consequence.

Satisfaction:

The overall satisfaction remained at the same level as the previous survey with some areas with sharp increase (over 10%):  particularly technical support, communications for our hosted customers and in the product white-boarding.  Each item had received less than stellar reviews in the previous satisfaction survey and had been an area of focus for our teams.  It was good to see our efforts yielded positive impacts on your satisfaction.

Areas of improvement:

We received high marks on most product areas, but particularly for the continued ease of use of the product.  However, through your answers, you pointed to couple of areas of the product which could be improved:  the events module and training reporting.  This is all the more important as you also indicated, that internal and external training or webinars were your primary use cases for Adobe Connect.  As a result, these two areas are now being the focus for our future development effort.  Expect improvements to our events module in future releases.

Thank you for all of you who took the time to fill in the second survey.  The copy of Photoshop CS5 went to the winner of the draw at Onondaga Case Management Service.

Looking forward to read all your answers and comments to this third survey.