Locked by Moderator, Not on subject anymore,AIR Roadmap Update

Report · Jul 25, 2017

Hello AIR developers,

With the news today regarding Flash Player, I'm sure many of you have questions regarding AIR and its future roadmap. Let me start by saying that today's announcement was not about AIR, and instead focuses entirely on Flash Player and the browser plugin environment. Adobe remains committed to AIR and we believe it continues to be a great desktop and mobile development platform.

Many of you have asked for a roadmap update. We hope to have our official Flash Runtime roadmap updated soon, but until then I wanted to share some of the features we'd like to accomplish in our upcoming releases. As always, this list may change as we receive feedback from the community.

Support for 64-bit AIR – Windows Captive Only
AIR SDK installer on Windows
Desktop async texture upload
DirectX11 support for AIR desktop
Increase the GPU memory texture limit
Improved monitor and resolution settings for AIR Desktop
GPU render mode for AIR Desktop
Support for the latest SDK on iOS 11 and Android O
ASTC Support for mobile
VR/AR support for AIR apps
ANE support for Swift on iOS
METAL bindings for Stage3D
Motion detection for Android devices

We've also been following a feature request thread on the Starling forums. We wanted to get your feedback on some of the items outlined by the community. If you'd like to provide additional input, please take a minute and take this three question survey so we can better understand what folks would like to see in future releases.

Community AIR Feature Requests Survey

Report · Oct 24, 2018

Look, I understand that AIR has its limitations for gaming but please understand that now with https://feathersui.com/ - the community that is in fact the one that will save AIR - offers incredible smooth UI functionality for really complex Apps - 10s of thousands of lines of code managed using GitHub - joshtynjala/robotlegs-framework-starling: Robotlegs 1.x ported to Starling MVC.

Show me any cross platform tool that can offer what we have at our disposal? Think threads, remoting, web sockets, local DB, encryption - enterprise grade sh** that for some reason is never considered in this thread.

Not only that, but we have ANEs! So, whatever the current state of AIR, we can compile Swift and Java applications right into our Apps, I mean, what more could you want?! Note the syntax of these languages - AS3 fits right in.

I just want to offer some love to this thread because this toxic energy isn't necessary. Let's just leave it at - AIR isn't so good for some people - but omg, it's absolutely amazing for others (and a HUGE potential number of others).

Report · Oct 25, 2018

because several people DENY that facts.
they want more , but they forget every single tech always has limitations. Whatever limitations, on whatever sides including current state of AIR for instance.

Take bold action towards your programming career , and accept the fact the decline of Flash since Steve Job's love letter also affects everything correlated with Flash including AIR.

Value the time you have, no compromise here. It is technology , you deal with 1 or 0, only boolean YES or NO.

That's why I always say LIVE it or LEAVE it.

Report · Oct 25, 2018

yeah people deny facts and other like yourself don't bother reading posts and prefer to go with the flow and go straight to insults. I've never said ONCE here that AIR itself was the problem so good job insulting me and making counter points for things I never even said.

Report · Oct 25, 2018

The only way I can explain why you would post this is that you simply don't read what I post and just go with the emotional flow. I've said it many times here, tons of times, but I guess I need to say it again and maybe this time you'll read it.

1- There's NOTHING wrong with AIR.

2- I think AIR is probably the best cross platform tech RIGHT NOW.

I can even say:

1- There's NOTHING wrong with Flash

2- I still think Flash is the best WEB tech RIGHT NOW

What I said many, many times, over and over again:

- The lack of Adobe commitment has killed Flash and is killing AIR.

Is there anything about this that is still not clear?

Report · Oct 25, 2018

Because you are total loser

I much more appreciate former Flash/AIR devs that now move to other platforms because they no longer have trust in Adobe rather than giving rubbish shits like you did.
I appreciate their bold action towards their programming career, rather than non-constructive bullshits you gave us.

Now please go to doctor if you haven't

Report · Oct 25, 2018

Thx for the insults, it's clear you guys are more interested in responding emotionally than in actually reading or understand what I say.

Great point btw, people not trusting Adobe are ok but people not trusting Adobe and being ME are not and deserve to be insulted ... What are you, 6 years old?

Report · Oct 25, 2018

Stop insulting me for no reason. I will ask admins t delete your posts if you keep insulting me. You have no arguments, no counter points, no rational thoughts, you just insult, this is the definition of useless posts.

Report · Oct 19, 2018

ASWC wrote
As someone said earlier in a prior post, all Flash/AIR evangelists have left the platform long ago, do you find that depressing too? or do you think that means the platform has never been better? lol

An evangelist is someone that is paid to promote a particular platform and/or technology.

There are plenty of people on these forums (and other) that do promote this technology

not because they are being paid but because they are happy to use it,
I think that speaks louder.

Report · Oct 22, 2018

Sorry guys I am with ASWC on this one and I started using Flash back in the nineties. I've been a promoter, huge fan as well as speaker on various conferences about Flash. Also a creator of an opensource GPU framework that is used in games with couple of millions of players. It is time to call it quits, unless Adobe starts to stand once again behind its own technology there is zero we as a community can do.

As an indie I can imagine myself still using AIR, it is good in what it does if you can live with higher levels of stress before each Android/iOS update wondering if the Adobe guys will add support for them. Not even talking about some new platforms, features etc. thats a lost cause nowadays.

Yes as an indie ok, but as a CTO of a company that employs hundreds of people I can't simply do things on faith alone, I need to see some commitment and there seems to be little of it shown by Adobe.

Report · Oct 22, 2018

What part of quarterly updates for years makes you "nervous"?! Even dead-flash has been getting regular updates and they announced it's death years ago! So, being nervous about knowing whether or not you can support your apps is quite frankly, ridiculous. Adobe would never just 'pull the plug' overnight, it would have catastrophic consequences.

Come on, stiffen up and help support AIR - make it a platform WORTH supporting. What part of "your part" do you not get about this?

The syntax of this language is keeping it relevant and will remain relevant into the foreseeable future. Adobe have smart people - AIR needs to rid itself of the flash-shroud-of-death before it would even be worth spending marketing dollars to promote its pedigree. In the meantime, the more apps we build, the quicker we can have additional resources spent on AIR.

The team in India are doing a fantastic job - so, take a chill pill, have some faith that AIR can in fact compete and keep building amazing apps with AIR.

Report · Oct 23, 2018

Those things arn't entirely logical. The fact that people like pshtif jump ship creates negative momentum. I don't blame Adobe actually, there is little they can do about this. Go an look if you can find any library for AS that is still in active development. Even very widespread tools like GSAP officially dropped the AS version of their animation lib.

My definition of a tech being alive rests on the actual use of the tech. And the only thing that still stands out is the starling/feathers community, and even there you see more and more people jumping ship.

BTW, it pains me as much as anyone in this thread. It has been my go to tech for 15 years. And I still somewhat hope for some kind of revival. I think it has to be some major change, like putting it out as open source and google or apache picking it up.

Report · Oct 23, 2018

davidrenelt Oct 23, 2018 1:24 AM (in response to dews) wrote:

'putting it out as open source and google or apache picking it up.'

I would definitely like to see more info on this practical step from Adobe sooner than later if it is inevitable. Or a definitive statement to the contrary. Agree on the problem of library demise, having to deal with touch events on IOS using a six year old library is pretty stressful.

Report · Oct 23, 2018

On one side you had: "That's it? That's the roadmap? You must be joking."

On the other side you had: "There's a roadmap? Oh goody! Now I can sleep fine knowing AIR will last forever!"

There is a third group:

AIR devs who want a concise list of posts by Adobe about the roadmap, no matter how seldom those appear, along with specific developer questions about the roadmap, so Adobe can answer those questions concisely.

No opinions. No pseudo questions intended to highlight dissatisfaction with the roadmap. Not trying to stifle discussion, just saying that those elements belong in another thread, as they are making this one useless for getting actual information on the roadmap. Hijacking this thread is not helpful.

Report · Oct 23, 2018

If there was any meaningful back and fourth with the AIR Dev team, you would have a point. But i would be perfectly fine with a mod stuffing all this discussion in another thread. I think it is this part of the thread that accounts for the high viewcount actually.

Report · Oct 23, 2018

Would you respond to this mess if you were Adobe? That's what I meant about concise and efficient. Not disagreeing with constructive discussion, and you make some good points.

Report · Oct 23, 2018

Back in the old days of Thibault and Tom you could bet your money they would respond to a thread like this. Guys seriously putting your head in the sand doesn't mean it is not happening. Adobe is not planning any kind of comeback with AIR, we would've known by now. Kudos to them though that they didn't kill it yet, companies like Google or Microsoft would've killed it off long time ago.

Believe or not Flash was actually a strong point for using AIR in the first place. You could target web as well as mobiles with single pipeline without a hitch it was a solution above anything else out there. I tried almost all the multiplatform engines and their clunky WebGL support was a laugh. Now AIR without Flash will actually be less of an attractive option than before not the other way around.

I mean there are really good options with large dedicated teams or even whole companies behind them, it is not like AIR is this standout when it comes to multiplatform development anymore. Not to mention that it is not really that multiplatform anymore either, even for those platforms it supports it is not full featured. You can't for example do a watch companion app for iOS unless they add support themselves, whats next that they will omit or not support?

Report · Oct 23, 2018

We made good experiences switching from AS3 to Haxe to be able to publish to devices + web. We can now use Air to publish to desktop and mobile as well as directly to HTML5 with OpenFL. Also, Haxe allows an exit strategy in case Air will be discontinued by building native apps.

Report · Oct 23, 2018

rewb0rn we use Haxe ourselves the engine I wrote is entirely written in Haxe and supports targets like AIR, WebGL, HTML5 and C++ all with custom low end context without OpenFL or any third party libs. So we are covered but it has no relevance to the future of AIR nowadays. And it is not feasible anymore to develop your own engine nowadays anyway since you can allocate those resources to product development instead.

Report · Oct 23, 2018

Well said, it's all true and all reality. What those guys don't want to realize is that the situation is not something we wish for or applaud, it's just something we had to realize and accept. Personally I still love Flash and AIR but I know none of our million customers want it and it wouldn't be fair from me to try to impose it to my company since I know that would go against my company best interests.

Report · Oct 23, 2018

I hope you are talking about the forums in general and not this thread in particular since Adobe team presence/communication here in this thread is symptomatic of its presence/communication on the forums in general. Nice try rationalizing why they don't post here much, must be the haters! Sure, and in any other thread they don't answer cos .... [insert another excuse here or just say HATERS]! lol you guys are mind blowing seriously.

Report · Oct 18, 2018

PHP? PHP is dead didn't you hear? Is PHP dying in 2018? - Quora

Look, We had YEARS of heads up for Flash - 2020 is still over a year away. ByteArray.org - Thibault works for Adobe on the Creative Cloud team and he was a FLASH guy, so yea FLASH and bytearray.org is no more.

AIR is very much alive, and hands down one of the best cross platform development tools out there and it is supported by Adobe.

Report · Oct 19, 2018

Odd way of arguing... yadda..not resonding to any points ... yadda .. Air is alive because i say so.

Well .. good luck I hope this doesn't turn into necrophilia for ya.

Report · Oct 19, 2018

You said it, diversifying is the key, technology and trends change and as coders we need to adapt to it not resist it. Also when you need to ensure the future of your company and its products you need to think clearly and deeply about choices and if you do that honestly and rationally then AIR is clearly not a safe bet anymore but a risky one.

Report · Oct 17, 2018

WISH LIST FOR ADOBE FORUMS:

Filtering by individual. Dropping just one individual from this nine page thread would reduce it by half, and thereby quadruple its value.

Signed,

Enjoying working with AIR every day.

Report · Oct 17, 2018

> You Sir, @ASWC need to be quiet

> For me, it's a form of sabotage, plain and simple

Personally, I favor free expression.

ASWC may be completely wrong. I don't share his pessimism. But readers can draw their own conclusions after hearing various viewpoints.

I understand people's concern that negativity may decrease the chances of AIR's survival. I've invested heavily in AIR and it will be a blow to me if AIR dies. But there are people reading this forum who need to make an informed decision on whether to start a project with AIR, and they have a right to hear a range of opinions.

Put another way, it's in the interests of all regular users of this forum if ASWC stops expressing himself, but I'm not sure that it's in the interests of others.

If we could silence ASWC, and did so, and then AIR died, what would we say to all the developers who adapted AIR based on our optimism?

My $.02,

Douglas