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

[chris.campbell]

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

[sfxworksTrue]

They shouldn't get rid of flash player. Bunch of interpreted code in the browser isn't going to do anything more than drag everyone down.

[zasflower2014]

Can AIR IOS support ios Music Center control and lockscreen control?
and now air ios SampleEvent audio has some lag when user press home button.

Thanks.

i has use AIR develop this APP on AppStore:

K Music Player HiEnd Ultimate on the App Store

[FernandoSephius]

Hey Chris. Adobe Air could be awesome to create "console type" games like this we are working on ​. As the console market strategy on the latter years supporting indie developers, why don´t support the main consoles (PS4, Xbox, Switch)? It´s very relevant, for games, more than support for MAC OS and Linux.

We are very very very glad for the future support for :

• Increase the GPU memory texture limit
• Support for 64-bit AIR

[therobby3]

I'd definitely agree that being able to export to consoles (PS4, XBox, and Nintendo Switch) are and have been for a while at the top of my wish list for Adobe AIR.  I think that would set it at the top of the list for platforms to develop on for indie game developers if that were possible.

[ASWC]

As I stated before, AIR will never by extended to any new platform and will keep being updated for the supported platforms until it becomes irrelevant, that's really the only true roadmap everyone needs to understand, anything else is wishful thinking and doesn't fit the reality of Adobe lack of commitment to Flash technology in general and AIR in particular.

[zwetan_uk]

ASWC  wrote

As I stated before, AIR will never by extended to any new platform and will keep being updated for the supported platforms until it becomes irrelevant, that's really the only true roadmap everyone needs to understand, anything else is wishful thinking and doesn't fit the reality of Adobe lack of commitment to Flash technology in general and AIR in particular.

And where did you get that prediction? from a crystal ball?

To me what you're saying sound like FUD, the currently supported platform for Adobe AIR,
that said Windows, macOS, Android and iOS are the most popular platforms with the
biggest market share, and that's why they are relevant and supported.

Even if Adobe decided to support such platforms as PS4, XBOX, Swift, etc.

it would first dilute the effort on the other platforms, second probably end up

with a mix of cross-compiling and C++ templates
and third the very dev who ask for those platforms who then say "shit now I need to learn C++"
and will end up still complaining.

We already saw an example with Windows 10 mobile,

some dev complained "Why adobe do not support Windows 10 ..."
and yet few years later this platform is dead in the water

see Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile

So if you want to talk about reality, look at where the users are.

[chaky]

Adobe AIR is really great tool. And I really love AS3 and of course AGAL is awesome. Now when mobile devices have really powerful processors Adobe AIR is really great platform to create games and apps. But Adobe should really put a little more effort on resolving bugs in Adobe AIR.

We have GPU supported rendering. We have all the great features now. We can use async textures, we can use custom embedded fonts in text fields, using gamepad controllers, we can select sound input. We have it all now. But there are some issues that still needs to be resolved.

I have this issue that no one is responding to: Tracker

Then there is still this issue that affects new premium devices: Tracker

Other users have complaining that there are some issues with using game controller with Adobe AIR version greater thatn 19 so they are stuck with AIR 19 and can not update to newer AIR version.

Also, I have encountered a bug when sometimes message channel for communication with worker is closed upon creation. That is a show stopping bug. Please Adobe fix it, workers are really needed.

ADOBE PLEASE. Stop for a second with new features and polish the current ones and resolve bugs so that we can create awesome content. We now have all the features for making desktop and mobiles games, we just need some bugs fixed and some features polished.

Regards,

Caslav

[ASWC]

Here's my crystal ball: Flash Next: dropped, FB 4.x: Dropped, Linux: Dropped, FP (2020): Dropped.

[Chris_Velevitch]

I think you overlooked something significant, FP for Linux has been back for a while now and the latest version is 27 Beta which is kept in sync with the other platforms.

This significant because I believe it is the first step in bringing AIR back to Linux. As I understand it, AIR is a platform dependent wrapper around the Flash Player.

[zwetan_uk]

You might be on something here

For sure, if Adobe planed to update AIR Linux, updating the NPAPI Flash Player would be the first step

this has already lead to a standalone FP for Linux which is quite nice.

If Linux desktop market share can finally break the 5% mark it could influence Adobe

to maybe reconsider Linux support for Adobe AIR.

Now about AIR, it is not a wrapper around the Flash Player, it is a full blown runtime

at the same title than Flash Player but with more extended capabilities and different rules.

[IGZN]

If it's making a comeback maybe it's for Steam OS, so games can finally be ported to that platform as well.

[alevys]

Hello! For me it is very important to understand the situation with the future AIR a few months ago you promised to update the road map, but still these updates yet. Please update the road map, it is very important not only for me.

[KramSurfer2]

Yes Please, it's been three months since you stated you would update the road map.
Thanks

[IGZN]

The official beta channel for AIR (labs.adobe.com) is no longer being updated? I remember having a new beta each week, but no updates since August As  AIR is v27 in production version, we should be rocking v28 beta nowadays

[el111]

A major version of AIR is released every 3 months (Mar, Jun, Sep, Dec)

Historically the first revision of a beta is usually released 4-6 weeks prior. In those 4-6 weeks before being released, there are a few rounds of updates/fixes to the beta. Going on those timelines - beta 28 should be available in the next week or 2.

I don't know why you are imagining a time when there was a "new beta every week".

[IGZN]

Just checked the RSS of Adobe Labs, and it's an average 2 weeks beta release, most definitely not 3 months. But yeah, I'm imagining things. Thanks for keeping me awake form my delusions

[el111]

All this is derived from the official release notes

Beta Rev. 1
AIR 27 Aug 02
AIR 26 Apr 27
AIR 25 Feb 03
AIR 24 Oct 28

Releases (2nd tuesday of quarter month)
AIR 28 (so due December 12)
AIR 27 Sep 12
AIR 26 June 13
AIR 25 Mar 14
AIR 24 Dec 13

Any minor revisions after release are critical bug/security fixes.
You get around a 6 week gap after a release until the next major version beta is released.
And then around 6 weeks of beta period.

[Colin Holgate]

I quite like your delusions. And they match my ones too. Labs updates slowed down because of getting ready for the 2018 release cycle. Also, a couple of updates went straight to a release version, and so although labs is still on build 116, the release page is at 132 and 128:

Download Adobe AIR SDK

It would be nice if a release version also got posted to labs, even if it's not a beta. That way you don't accidentally download an out of date version.

[Guest]

How about the next update includes making AIR "Open Source" and then Adobe can stick to making IDEs. And figure out some way that we can have an up to date web browser inside the application.

[Colin Holgate]

I'm skeptical about open source. My thinking is that if it takes some time for Adobe to add features to code they know well, the open source community would take longer, or only do features that the individual contributor is interested in. There can be exceptions, such as Ionic (which is a framework that uses AngularJS on top of Cordova). But, instead of having Adobe keep improving PhoneGap as part of your $50 per month, you would need to pay $170 per user per month to Ionic, just to build apps (as a business user). I'll stick with hoping that Adobe find the time to add features.

Speaking of which, a recent AIR update did add WKWebView, which is a lot more modern than UIWebKit, and solves some difficult issues in iOS.

[User_Unknow]

In a case of Open Source - take a look on Unreal Engine 4. For example dev team that doing Fortnite game - they use UE4 and time to time they contribute to master branch of UE4

[ASWC]

Open Source would have had better chances with ASNext, AS3 is just not that attractive anymore as a language compared to the tons of modern languages that exist today. But in principle the platform is sound and there's not a ton of cross platform solutions out there so AIR as Open Source could be more attractive than we can think.

Personally I wish to be wrong about the whole thing but I'm trying to stick to clues and reality, with Adobe pulling the plug on ASNext years ago I thought it was only a matter of time for FP and AIR to follow, so far I was right on FP and time will tell for the rest.

[dews]

It was time for FP - it makes absolutely no sense for Adobe to abandon AIR because like you said, there aren't a lot of true cross platform solutions and AIR as a mature platform is poised to pick up stream in terms of a developer base.

ASNext would have been a huge mistake in my opinion - what was needed is what Adobe have done over the past couple of years - focussed on improvements and feature enhancements first.  Then, a new name for AIR Mobile, a new marketing campaign, build up the developer base and then, If necessary, ASNext can come later..

[TeotiGraphix]

They pretty mach had already written the multi-threaded compiler for ASNext and that was Falcon.

I have intimate knowledge of that compiler and they used Antlr and BURM which means they could have added any language features they wanted. Still could.

I am sure it had purely economic motivations(ditching an evolved AS), they already spent massive money developing that parser/compiler, what for Adobe Animate?

[ASWC]

If I learned anything about technology is that the best tech doesn't win, ever. What wins is what people want/like and concerning AIR, you can add the best features ever there are still tons of people that will dismiss it simply because working with AS3 is considered lesser than working with bunch of other languages/techs. Java is starting to feel the same way for many btw (and correctly Google/Android is starting to address that with a new language). There was a time when there were 20+ very active actionscript forums out there now there's a couple with slow activity, stackoverflow gets 5 to 10 questions/day, sure maybe ASNext would have not change that but for sure the new AIR features didn't either and won't. Reality is it.