Inspiring

Question

The Future of AIR for Mobile.... ? Uncertain?

Forum|Forum|13 years ago
March 21, 2013
6 replies
8777 views

Just wondering what everyone elses thoughts are on this. There's a lot of chatter going on about this.

Looking at Adobe's roadmap for Flash ( http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flashplatform/whitepapers/roadmap.html )

ActionScript "Next" development has been cancelled

Flash Player "Next" development has been cancelled

AIR for Windows 8 "Modern UI" has been cancelled

Kevin Lynch (Adobe CTO) has left Adobe to go to Apple ( didnt see that one coming )

The thing I don't get about Adobe is how they are pimping out that AIR be used only for gaming. You don't ever hear them say that AIR is a great platform for developing Multiplatform Mobile Apps.... which it is! I would argue its the best simply because of how easy it is to develop multi-platform apps with ease.

I work in corporate marketing in a billion dollar+ company and I'm using AIR for mobile apps and it's awesome!

Now looking at my own personal roadmap moving forward... do I want to keep AIR on the radar ?

I've also built apps using PhoneGap, etc.. and its a nightmare. It's tedius, performance is mediocre. I really felt that AIR was moving in the right direction.

I'm going to Adobe MAX in May.. I'm hoping that they announce something enlightening.

What are your thoughts ?

Development

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A

Anonymous

The way adobe is currently providing multiple versions of adobe air and providing support for additional it seems the future of AIR is bright. Also performance of application is now atleast 4 times better than AIR 2.7.

The only thing is that there is not too much hype about AIR but serious developers are working for serious applications.

For the large enterprise applications AIR is definetly going to be a better choice.

Lars Laborious

Legend

I think Adobe see what enormous potential AIR is. Most web games are flash based, and lots of developers are now converting their games with little effort into apps with the magic of AIR. I'm not quite sure though, if Adobe see just how unique Flash Professional is. While more and more HTML5 software joins in, I still haven't seen anything even remotly simular to Flash where you on one hand can code an entire game, and on the other hand are able to draw advanced graphics - non-programmatically (I actually prefer Flash over Illustrator), position objects onto a stage (still non-programmatically), create timeline animations and combine all of this with code where you find it appropriate.

A

Applauz78Author

Inspiring

I think opposite. I think Adobe is failing to see what a potential it is. I agree with all of your points about how great Flash Pro is to work in. I just created a game for an arcade cabinet, iPhone, iPad, Android & BB10 all in a single build. That's pretty amazing.

However I think the writing is on the wall at this point.

ActionScript4 "Next" development has been cancelled

Flash Player "Next" development has been cancelled

AIR for Windows 8 "Modern UI" has been cancelled

These 3 are huge.

Also Adobe's CTO and biggest advocate for Flash leaves Adobe to go to Apple.

Adobe is betting on HTML5. I hope that in the future Adobe releases a tool like Flash Pro that does everything the same except uses JavaScript. This would be nice.

It's really confusing to me though .. Adobe says "To build mobile apps use PhoneGap" .. but to build mobile games use AIR.

Why not promote how powerful AIR is at building Mobile Apps?

Adobe MAX this year is going to be very interesting that's for sure.

Lars Laborious

Legend

I too use AIR to build non-game type of mobile apps. In fact I used to build them with Phonegap and jQuery mobile, but none come close to AIR when it comes to ease and smooth transitions.

I'm curious about the next Flash: http://blogs.adobe.com/flashpro/2013/03/28/video-first-look-at-the-next-generation-flash-professional/

A

Anonymous

Performance of AIR on the ios and android is superb,and is going well day by day! And related to windows phone surely they will be waiting for its market to increase.Also yes the MAX 2013 is going to be very important for all of the development communities.And one point to mention that other than the Gaming also AIR is being in multiple Enterprise applications,so only focusing on Gaming is not a good idea from any point.

A

Anonymous

Currently, I'm not overly concerned with the future of AIR yet it's something that I monitor closely. The performance of AIR across devices is always improving. And I think it's important to note that what drives this most is the ever increasing power of mobile devices. Obviously this is only going to increase and thus help performance. Despite this, recent activity from Adobe on AIR has been a little quiet despite the constant development updates to AIR.

I imagine in business terms, focusing attention on HTML5 and related technologies makes more sense than pushing AS/FP performance where the majority of apps developed wouldn't benefit.

G

Ged_mc

Inspiring

If Adobe maintain their current support for Flash and Air then I will be satisfied.

As a company they have always been chasing the Enterprise Dollars and neglecting huge sectors such as e-learning ( which we're in )

Flash / Air / Flash Builder is still the backbone of e-learning and it would be incredibly stupid if Adobe turned their backs on this. ( as they did with Director )

So far it hasn't happened and I praise the Adobe Flash Builder / Air team for their mobile ( ios / android ) support and frequent releases.

It is a productive, stable and extensible platform for mobile tablet development as well as pc/mac.

C

Chris Velevitch

Inspiring

I thought they recently released Director 12? Did they break Director 12?

Colin Holgate

Inspiring

That's debatable. There's some discontent about some of the features that are lacking in iOS, and that there is no publish to Android, but at least it's in continued development. But, it is fair to say that Adobe turned their back on Director for quite a while!

E

Eljo_B

Participating Frequently

I've worked with AIR for a long time now, but am also trying to get a grasp on future development as it's starting to look kind of bleak. As it stands right now, I'm keeping an eye on Marmalade (http://www.madewithmarmalade.com/) and Cocos2D (http://www.cocos2d-x.org/) and use those together.

It allows one to code the application in C++ and compile to a nice variety of devices (including Windows Phone). It gives high (native?) performance and supports more lower-end systems (processor wise = ARMv5@200MHz vs ARMv7 with vector-FPU@550MHz for AIR).

Mark.fromOP

Inspiring

Looks good to me. AIR is updated several times a month, if they had no plans to support it, they would wind it down and not keep updating it so furiously. We get great support and great products and new features added constantly. No platform will ever be perfect because the mobile scene is changing so rapidly everyone except the native stuff is playing catch up and I would rather get some of the new features a couple months late but be able to implement the same exact code on so many devices.

Looking forward to CS6.5 hopefully it will bring some new innovations. Adobe knows how important mobile is and I doubt they would want to drop out of that game.

P.S. if AIR survived the phase where Apple would not allow AIR built apps on its app store, the future looks bright.

Frédéric C.

Inspiring

I tend to have an optimistic approach too. AIR for mobile is really wonderful, and the support and community are great! And I'm often surprised by performance on mobile, even on low-end devices. Actually, I still have to find a real competitor that offers such a versatile solution for any kind of app. Until then, I'll stick happily with AIR.

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