General questions about mobile development

[Guest]

Hello all,

We need to choose a multi-targeting development platform for mobile devices and need some expert views before deciding. Our options are going ahead with HTML 5 and CSS (which limits us in some ways, especially file uploading and downloading limitations with mobile Safari) and of course Adobe Air.

I have some questions and appreciate if you answer them.

What do you think? Is mobile development with Adobe Air is mature enough?

Is there a need to install Adobe Air runtime before running mobile applications or the runtime is embedded to the application in some way?

Is it possible to access file system of mobile devices?

Is it possible to use SQLite on iOS or is there an alternative?

In a comment to a blog post, someone said that Apple doesn't allow Flash to communicate with web, is that true? (I don't think it's true but needed to confirm)

This is it for now, thanks in advance.

[Colin Holgate]

Lots of questions! Here are answers in the order you said things:

Amongst HTML5 limitations is the ability to play sound. If you look at Google's version of Angry Birds, it uses Flash to play the sound. That wouldn't be possible in iOS.

Adobe AIR is very nearly mature enough. Lots of people already have apps in the stores with the current version, but one of these days it will get better still.

The runtime is part of the app package on iOS. With Android the device may come with AIR installed, but if not, only the first AIR based app the user installs will trigger an automatic install of AIR, or an update of that if need be.

You can't roam around the file system of mobile devices, but you can save and load data.

I don't know if you can have SQLite in AIR based apps. If that becomes the most important feature, and if AIR doesn't do it, you could look at LiveCode, it supports SQL. http://www.runrev.com/

Flash cannot load in anything from the web that includes executable code. That isn't a Flash limitation, it's an iOS restriction. It can use images, sounds, video, and Flash animations from the web. And it can read from or write to web services.

[Guest]

Hi Colin,

Thanks for the answers. In fact I mean calling web services or loading rest based data by saying loading anything from the web. AFAIK it's possible with Air on IOS, right?

And about the file system, it still isn't possible to find a way for user to upload any file he wants from his iPhone, is that true?

Thanks.

[Guest]

Currently with IOS you can upload pictures from your camera roll and any file that exists within the application directory (i.e. what you have put there yourself)

[elmonty2]

We are doing the same evaluation and finding that AIR 2.6 is not mature enough for production applications, especially if you want to play video.