AIR33 Where is it?

[Leo Kanel]

Is it me or AIR33 Beta is delayed? We are a few days before April and there is no beta version yet. It looks like the 1st quarter release is missed.

[Frédéric C.]

I see William, sorry for the misunderstanding. Well, it seems HARMAN won't really focus on the desktop platforms, at least at the beginning, and Adobe will still be in charge for them. Which also means there are no high hopes for a webkit upgrade, I'm afraid.

[chaky]

Hey Andrew,

I wonder what will happen to AIR 34 though. It seams AIR 33 is reserved only for Android 64bit which is fine I guess.

There are still some features missing like:

1) Allowing more memory for textures in GPU. Current limit is 512mb which is way low nowdays.

2) Improvements in multi threading. Removing FPS limit on workers in mobile devices which is now hard coded to 4 FPS.

4) Improvements in audio( I expect harman to shine in this area after all they are a audio company)

5) Improving context3d so that context is not lost so easily on android devices.

Will you work on any of these improvements?

Also few more questions though.

1) You said that Adobe will continue to update AIR 32 for desktop platforms. Does that mean that we will use 2 versions of Adobe AIR, one HARMAN version to compile for Android and another Adobe version to compile for desktop?

2) Also how will AIR 33 for 64 bit integrate with Flash Builder 4.7. How will I compile my app for Android 64bit with Flash Builder 4.7?

Thanks,

Caslav

[PippoApps]

I think pretty much we have all the urgent answers we need:

- iOS, Windows and OSX, will be supported, but of course priority is for Android 64bit

- IDEs will continue to work

- Fixes and updates to high-level AS3 can be done

Looking forward to a proper HARMAN forum. Priority now though is having AIR33 for Andoird 64 rock'n'roll, and I couldn't agree more.

Regarding AS3 syntax. All those changes in JavaScript are welcome due to JS intrinsic fragility. AS3 is at a level that JS will never reach. I don't think we have to worry about arrow functions ot the newest String.replace when we have such a powerful, structured, and really OOP language in our hands. Focusing on AIR capabilities and ubiquity should be priority imho.

[Lars Laborious]

Also, I've asked Preran on the Adobe Animate forum about how they see the future of Animate in regards to AIR, and he promised to check with the team. Hopefully we will still be able to use Animate to compile AIR apps.

[Flipline]

ajwfrost75  wrote

iOS, Mac and Windows: Adobe will continue to support AIR v32 on the desktop platforms so those aren't a priority for us yet, but we'll look at bringing in support for those in the next year. iOS yes we will be supporting but we're focussing heavily on the Android platform first because of these 1st August deadlines!

I'm a bit confused by this statement, I had assumed AIR 33 would automatically support compiling to all of the same platforms it had previously (with adding 64-bit support for Android into the mix), and we'd be using AIR 33 as our one-and-only SDK moving forward for all platforms.

When you say you'll look at "bringing in support" for desktop and "will be supporting" iOS, do you mean in the sense that they're already supported by the SDK, but Harman themselves haven't "supported" them by making any changes or bugfixes yet?

[ajwfrost75]

To clarify the other platforms: we're not changing those yet, we're starting gradually and prioritising Android. Setting up all the build environments for the other platforms will take a while so for now I'd suggest using Adobe's SDK v32 for those, and only using v33 for Android. To make things simpler, we will probably just include the v32 runtime binaries into the v33 SDK so you can use a single SDK for all platforms, but the redistributable packages created for Windows/Mac/iOS would actually be v32 (and would fall outside of the commercial distribution license that we're putting in place). I might have to clear that with Adobe though..!

A few more answers:

- Caslav - thanks for the suggestions. We're starting off with minimal changes in our first release but will look at some of these via the updates. Building for 64-bit via Flash Builder is possible, we've checked this and you can add an extra "-arch arm8" parameter into the packaging command within the export settings.

- Chaky - I had been looking for those sorts of suggestions recently, I remembered a thread somewhere about that. Those sorts of changes, to Matrix/geometry operations, are relatively straightforward and could probably be incorporated with very low risk; if you have a definitive list of such updates, we can look into adding those sooner..

thanks

Andrew

[hferreira80]

"for now I'd suggest using Adobe's SDK v32 for those"

Thank you very much to clarify that and I will do that (use the current version).

I understand your "roadmap" and look forward to see in a future version improvements on the desktop counterpart.

[federicor30206780]

Andrew, your actual level of communication in this 24h has been more than Adobe's one in last 4 years !!! Probably too much questions by us ( We have been waiting somebody who hear a lot of time ... ! ) but don't worry we're not that bad !

The actitude and approach is impressive, this is the way to go !

[Frédéric C.]

federicor30206780 

Andrew, your actual level of communication in this 24h has been more than Adobe's one in last 4 years !!! Probably too much questions by us ( We have been waiting somebody who hear a lot of time ... ! ) but don't worry we're not that bad !

The actitude and approach is impressive, this is the way to go !

Yeah, we're just in deep need of a therapy, lol!

[hferreira80]

I think we all, lol

[hferreira80]

This is the kind of support that is normal to see in any normal forum in the world (how said the opposite probably is in denial or lives in a rock).

We have all to many questions and in time we will see but for now I see a positive move.

[Flipline]

Thanks for the clarifications Andrew, much appreciated!

I'm not expecting anything else besides the 64-bit Android changes in the release of AIR 33, but I hope supporting iOS for future updates isn't too far off after that.  We just went through the issue with Apple requiring the 12.1 SDK two months ago which required an AIR update, and I wouldn't be surprised if the release of iOS 13 comes with new requirements that we'll have to quickly support, and it doesn't sound like Adobe has any plans to make any updates to v32 for anything other than desktop security fixes.

[OMA2k]

PippoApps  wrote

It is heart warming to finally talk with someone involved in AIR development

Filippo

I agree with you, but NOW you say that?? After saying this?:

PippoApps​  wrote

I do not see why Adobe should feel obliged to provide psychological assistance on this thread. They do monitor bug posts and usually reply. To find peace I suggest meditation, sports, or in worst cases benzodiazepine. Love.

After belitting and mocking other people's posts about Adobe's lack of response, now it's "heart warming to finally talk with someone involved in AIR development"? That's quite hypocritical if you ask me.

Also, what you said about "they monitor bug posts and usually reply" has not been true for the past months, up until now, when someone from Harman, NOT Adobe, has finally written on these forms and has shed some light on the situation.

Anyway, thanks a lot for your posts ajwfrost75​​​!  I hope AIR has a way better future in your hands than it had when it depended solely on Adobe. Just the way you replied to all the posts in this thread already gives me a lot more confidence in the future of this technology.

See, Adobe, it wasn't that hard to keep your community happy...

[hferreira80]

+ 1 Million

[chris.campbell]

I understand the disappointment in our/my lack of communication.  This partnership with Harman and the Runtime team was a long time in planning and execution, and unfortunately also required us to remain silent on the topic of the roadmap, Android 64, etc on the forums.  The great news is that the community now has a long term solution for AIR with Harman.  Andrew and his team care deeply about the runtime and I don't think we could have found anyone better to help steer it forward.

[marcanw]

Thanks for chiming in Chris.

Could you elaborate about the work distribution between your team and Harman?

Will you still work on Air?

Best

[chris.campbell]

marcanw  wrote

Thanks for chiming in Chris.

Could you elaborate about the work distribution between your team and Harman?

Will you still work on Air?

Best

The Flash Runtime team will be responsible for providing security updates for AIR on Windows and macOS until EOY 2020 via our v32 branch.  Harman will provide all other new features, compat fixes, bug fixes, etc. for both desktop and mobile (v33 & higher).  Our team will also be providing additional eng, documentation, etc. support during the transition as necessary.

Harman will dictate the roadmap for AIR, based on what makes sense for their business and the communities needs.  I've encouraged developers to provide feedback to the Animate team if they'd like to see continued integrated support with that tool.  Communication between Harman and Animate is separate from the Runtime team, and may have a different level/timeframe of involvement.

[federicor30206780]

Better late than never !

[ajwfrost75]

Thanks Chris - yes I was wondering about saying that I know you and the Adobe team had wanted to be more communicative but while the discussions were ongoing, that wasn't possible. Thank you for all the work that you have been putting in (and are continuing to put in) to help us with this transition!

[federicor30206780]

It's really nice to read you Chris, we understand that these things are not easy and in big companies you can't do what you want to most of times due to several circumstances/reasons.

So thank you very much for being there and keep pushing, we'll love to hear that you'll be involved in this new era. There are a lot of people that keep seeing AIR advantages and we think it has a long future ahead with work and dedication.

Best !!!

[TeotiGraphix]

Yeah Chris same, I was a bit spaz about this because I have 64bit NDK stuff to test before it goes live.

All that said though, it's great there was actually a plan to begin with.

Thanks for all your hard work and I still remember when Apollo was demoed at the Adobe Dev convention in San Fran back in 2006!

[Frédéric C.]

Chris,

I often thought of you during the recent mess we witnessed on those forums. I can't imagine how frustrating it must have been to see people bashing Adobe and the AIR team for so long, and not being able to communicate while you were working on this transition. Thank you so much for your dedication to AIR, and I hope now some pressure was relieved from your shoulders. Cheers!

[rewb0rn]

Great to see the transition was finally announced publicly! Looking forward to work with you guys at Harman. As others already said, we are happy to finally be able to give our share to finance further development of Air. Maybe it will eventually be successful enough to acquire all licenes from Adobe for good, who knows My personal preference would be to keep the current level of maintenance for Air and make sure that it will continue to run on all supported platforms and fix bugs, but put the additional money into marketing (and a standalone website) instead of new features. In my oppinion we already have a great technology with little to wish for, but marketing level is way behind.

Also thanks to Chris and the team for the years of great support!

[marcw86259022]

Hi Chris!

and unfortunately also required us to remain silent on the topic of the roadmap, Android 64, etc on the forums.

May I ask WHY that was necessary? I can imagine a lot but not why a simple "We work on it." could harm anything. That kind of behaviour scares me because it makes you and also Harman unreliable. Some users here are just happy that SDK 33 will come out but if the responsible persons behind a technology are so uninterested in the developer community to leave them for months in fear of the future just for a crazy idea that it could be a minimal advantage from the point of business development to quit any communication to the whole community then this is a frightening mismanagement. What kind of partners do you think to be now? Partners with too much risk for me at least. For the staying AIR developers I can only hope that the managers who made that decision will not have any influence for the AIR project in the future.

Sure, I may be wrong and there is really a senseful reason for your behaviour. I am open to be convinced.

Best regards

Marc

[chris.campbell]

Hi Marc,

I won't get into the details, but the best possible outcome was achieved.  Those developers that want a long term solution now have it.  Harman has shown themselves to be more than capable technically, and their team truly cares about the Runtime and this community.

I'm sorry it took so long for this to occur, our team was very aware of the impending Android situation and everyone involved wishes the process could have been quicker.

Thanks,

Chris