Tag Archives: adobe air

.net, adobe, apple, flash, google, mono, professional, software development

Adobe AIR 2.6, MonoMac 1.0, cross-platform is not dead yet

It is a busy time for cross-platform toolkits. Adobe has released AIR 2.6, and reading the list of what’s new you would think it was mainly for mobile, since the notes focus on new features for Apple iOS, though AIR is also a runtime for Windows, Linux and desktop Mac. New features for iOS include GPU rendering – a form of hardware accelerated graphics – access to the camera, microphone, and camera roll, and embedded Webkit for apps that use web content. On Google Android, you can now debug on devices connected via USB.

There is also a new feature called “owned native windows” which lets you have a group of windows that remain together in the Z order – this lets you have things like floating toolbars without odd results where toolbars get hidden underneath other applications.

Asynchronous decoding of bitmaps is another new feature, allowing images to be processed in the background. This seems like a stopgap solution to overcome the lack of mullti-threading in AIR, but useful nonetheless.

Since the Flash runtime does not run on iOS, Adobe has a packager that compiles an AIR application into a native app. This is now called the AIR Developer Tool or ADT. You can use the ADT to target Windows, Linux or Android as well; however platforms other than iOS still need the AIR runtime installed.

Adobe is dropping support for the original iPhone and the iPhone 3G. iPhone 3GS or higher is needed.

If you want to build a cross-platform app but prefer .NET to Adobe’s Flash and ActionScript, the Mono folk have what you need. I’d guess that the Mono team has a small fraction of the resources of Adobe; but nevertheless it has delivered MonoTouch for iOS and is working on MonoDroid for Android. Just completed in its 1.0 version is MonoMac, for building Cocoa applications on Apple OSX. Mono is not fully cross-platform, since the GUI framework is different on the various platforms, but you do get to use C# throughout.

I am happy to agree that true native code is usually a better solution for any one platform; but at a time when the number of viable platforms is increasing the attraction of cross-platform has never been greater.

.net, adobe, c++, java, professional, silverlight, software development

Adobe AIR is user-hostile compared to native apps says BankSimple CTO

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Alex Payne, CTO at BankSimple, has written an analysis of Adobe AIR from the user’s perspective. The scenario: his team was looking for a an alternative to Campfire for group chat, and selected HipChat. They liked the features of HipChat, but not the desktop app, which is built using Adobe AIR:

My team experienced a number of the usual problems one has with AIR applications: lousy performance, odd interface bugs, key combinations and UI elements that didn’t conform to our operating system. AIR apps exist in an uncanny valley between a web application and a desktop application, and the result is unsettling and annoying. Pretty soon, we were itching to go back to Campfire (via the native Mac client Propane), even though HipChat has better features and the promise of improved reliability.

Payne investigated further and came to the conclusion that users prefer native apps; and that cross-platform toolkits are for the benefit of software companies not users. Echoes of Steve Jobs’ Thoughts on Flash:

Flash is a cross platform development tool. It is not Adobe’s goal to help developers write the best iPhone, iPod and iPad apps. It is their goal to help developers write cross platform apps.

And lest you think this is bad for AIR but good for Java, note that Payne adds:

For anyone who used a computer in the 1990s, AIR probably brings back scarring memories of Java apps: slow, ugly, inconsistent, awkward.

I was also reminded of Evernote’s experience with .NET versus native code, which I blogged here.

Payne is not all wrong, neither is Jobs. That said, the distinction between what is good for users and what is good for developers is not absolute. Maintaining a single cross-platform code-base, for example, is good for both users and developers, because it reduces bugs and assists feature-compatibility across platforms. It is also good for users of minority platforms who might otherwise have nothing.

Another question: how many of the issues Payne identifies are inherent to using AIR (or another cross-platform runtime), and how many are implementation issues? It is impossible to know without drilling into the details; but I don’t believe that all AIR (or Java, or .NET) apps have “lousy performance”.

It is true that ActionScript code is slower than Java or .NET code, and much slower than compiled C/C++, but speed of script execution is not always the performance bottleneck that users will notice most.

This is seemingly one of those never-ending computing debates; but a post like Payne’s is a reminder that neither Adobe AIR, nor any cross-platform runtime, is a perfect solution to the challenge of multiple client platforms.

adobe, mobile, professional, software development, web authoring

Adobe aims to fill mobile vacuum with AIR

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Today is day one of the Adobe MAX conference in Los Angeles. In this morning’s keynote CTO Kevin Lynch focused firmly on devices – both mobile devices and living room devices including Google TV. There was a nod to HTML 5 in the opening demo, a prototype of a new product called Edge which is a motion designer that extends JQuery, but the Flash player remains the heart of Adobe’s platform. The proliferation of incompatible devices is an opportunity for cross-platform runtimes, and Adobe intends to take advantage with Flash and AIR – the Adobe Integrated Runtime, for local applications that fun on Flash.

Released today in public preview, the Flex “Hero” SDK includes support for mobile development, among other things, and is backed by an updated Flash Builder code-named Burrito.

Right now the only mobile platform which is supported is Google Android, but others are promised. In particular, we heard a lot in the keynote about the Blackberry Playbook,  the forthcoming tablet from RIM, including an appearance from RIM boss Mike Lazaridis.

An interesting aspect of the Playbook is that the user interface of the device itself is built in part with AIR. As a RIM exec observed in a later Q&A, it makes sense for the OS to use the same framework as that used by third party apps, so that any issues are sorted early.

AIR popped up again in a a different context, as Lynch described Adobe’s Digital Publishing Suite. This suite targets magazine publishers creating publications for the Apple iPad, such as publisher Condé Nast, also represented at the keynote, which is adopting the platform for many of its publications from Wired to the New Yorker.

The Digital Publishing Suite exports publications from Adobe InDesign to a dedicated format with a .issue extension, played on the iPad by Adobe Content Viewer. Adobe will now implement the content viewer on AIR, so that digital publications will render on the new wave of Android tablets, Blackberry tablets, and others in future.

Also worth noting is that Adobe plans to insert itself into the distribution process beyond just providing the authoring tools and the runtime. The Digital Publishing Suite includes Adobe hosting for the content. More broadly, the Melrose project, now called Adobe InMarket, is a service where you host your application on Adobe’s servers and Adobe handles deployment to the various App Stores out there as well as credit card processing.

Of course Apple is working, it seems, to undermine Flash. The runtime is not allowed on iOS, Apple’s mobile platform. Apple is not including Flash by default in the latest Macs, and the forthcoming Mac App Store will not allow AIR (or for that matter Java) applications. You will still be able to install Flash and AIR on a Mac, but Apple will no doubt be encouraging users to go the App Store route.

It is a fascinating tension, particularly since Apple’s devices fit so well with other aspects of Adobe’s strategy.

Despite Steve Jobs, Lynch announced today that the number of Flash platform developers has grown by 50% over the last year, which is huge. I also wonder whether the Java turmoil, especially on the Mac, could work in Adobe’s favour as it builds support for its Flash runtime.