Will Adobe AIR be supported on the new Google Android TV?

[Born2code]

Is Adobe planning on supporting the new Google Android TV that's coming later this year?

please say YES!!!!

Sean.

[Born2code]

Can anyone from Adobe answer? Chris?

[chris.campbell · Accepted solution]

This definitely looks like an interesting platform.  I'm not sure if we have one of the ADT-1 dev kits in house but I'm investigating.

[Born2code]

Thank you, hack I will buy you an Android TV to test on, if you guys can add this feature...

Should open up a lot of opportunity for Adobe gaming through Android TV...

It should be easy for Adobe to support this platform because it is essentially Android with a few minor changes.

[Born2code]

Here is some marketing info:

http://www.google.com/tv/

[Born2code]

Hi Chris,

Can you please update on Adobe's support for the new Android TV as it is becoming extremely popular...

regards,

Sean.

[chris.campbell]

Hi Sean,

I just checked out the ADT-1 and was able to install Machinarium on it.  Are there particular issues that people are running into?

Thanks,

Chris

[Born2code]

Hi,

yes I would like to be able to add our APK (  http://galaxy.signage.me/Code/Install/apk/CloudSignagePlayer.apk ) to the new Google Android TV Store.

So when customers search for "Digital Signage" they will find our App as right now they cannot.

Right now if we login to the Android developer console we see Android TV, but we can't opt-in to include it.

I believe it's because we need a different manifest file which we need Adobe's help with.

Android TV is going to be huge for Adobe as it's the perfect platform for gaming..

here are some resources:

https://plus.google.com/communities/112881895888889393129

https://developer.android.com/tv/adt-1/index.html

most important is:

https://developer.android.com/distribute/googleplay/tv.html

you can see the opt-in option.

but I guess we need some manifest support and compile with LeanBack library.

Of course we can't use the LeanBack library from google since we compile to AIR.

So maybe Adobe needs to add / compile that lib into final APK? not sure....

Let me just say thank you for your support and continues efforts from Adobe.

Also, you are correct, our APK DOES in fact run on Sony Android TV so we are very happy... just want to be able to add it to the TV store.

on a side note, any news on when will Adobe update AIR / Flash to include  the latest HTML run-time as current HTML module is old and WebGL is not supported.

THANK YOU

Regards,

Sean - http://DigitalSignage.com

____________________________________________

MediaSignage.com, FREE Digital Signage for everyone!

5776-D Lindero Cyn Rd #182

Westlake Village, CA 91362

Phone: 1.877.DIG.SIGN (1-877-344-7446)

Fax: 1.818.337.0442

Live support: http://chat.digitalsignage.com

[Born2code]

Hi Chris,

let me know of any news...

regards and thanks...

[chris.campbell]

Hi Sean,

Nothing new to report but I have put this on the backlog.  I'm still curious though, I see AIR apps listed on my Google TV device, did they hand code the manifest?

Chris

[Colin Holgate]

I have put AIR apps onto Ouya, which Android TV ought to be a bit like, and that worked just by connecting it via USB.

[Born2code]

Hi Colin,

yes installing via USB is possible... but we are trying to add to the new Google Android TV market place so when you search via your TV, you can find our App... I think it may be a combination of a new manifest that's needed and possible SDK API support, I am not sure...

[chris.campbell]

This is an AIR app and was able to be purchased and run through a Google ADT-1 Android TV device via the play store:

Machinarium - Android Apps on Google Play

That said, I've asked our team to try and verify that they can create an app and deploy to this platform.

[Born2code]

Hi Chris,

I have Google Sony Android TV (latestmodel)

and Machinarium is not listed when searching or browsing.

I think you may be using a Google TV device which is different... Android TV is a totally different animal and so the upload procedure to Android TV market currently has no AIR apps.

Thanks for researching the matter as I am sure MANY AIR developers could take advantage of this new and hot market segment.

here is more info: https://developer.android.com/training/tv/games/index.html

as well as: About Android TV | Android Developers

I hope that helps clear things and as always thanks for the support,

Sean.

[chris.campbell]

I tested with this device: ADT-1 Developer Kit | Android Developers

Machinarium was listed as a featured game when I tried this a couple weeks back.

[Born2code]

I see, it didn't on my Sony so I am assuming the search criteria is possibly different on the emulator....

Thanks for the quick reply and looking forward for any feedback from your team,

regards,

Sean,

[Born2code]

I have no idea how they got AIR Apps into the new Google Android TV market place... are you sure these are AIR apps?

Any info on that would be greatly appreciated...!

regards.

[The Noble Robot]

I've been testing my app on my Nexus Player, and I've discovered two ways to deploy it while meeting all of Google's requirements. I've outlined them in a feature request here: Feature#3960940 - Support Android TV "banner.png" in AIR manifest

At first, I unzipped my release APK to stick in the banner file, and decompiled my Android manifest to make the necessary changes to support Leanback and the locate the banner drawable, but oh man, doing that is a super big hassle requiring a few little 3rd-party utilities, that are not fun to use, in order to put everything back together.

Then.. I found that you can use Android TV manifest features in your AIR manefest *if* you replace a specific *.jar file in your AIR SDK with a newer one from the Android SDK. That doesn't get you "banner.png" support, though, because you still can't arbitrarily put things in the Android "res" folder, nor define non-Adobe-approved icon tags in your AIR manifest for some reason, so you still can't compile your AIR app with banner support and still need to unpack and resign/align your APK.

But, I got around that too by writing a ANE which simply puts my banner file into the app's res/drawables-xhdpi folder. My banner image gets compiled into the *.ane file, so it's not a solution I can easily distribute, although I'd like to be able to.

I mean, I learned Java in order to figure this out! So maybe it was worth it... 😉

I appreciate that AIR will always lag behind native platforms, and that's fair, but it seems so odd that the OUYA icon got official support from Adobe in the AIR manifest so quickly, but official Android TV support is still MIA when it would be so easy to implement.

[Born2code]

First let me say THANK YOU for sharing.

Us AIR users have to stick together!!!

I agree that Android TV is a huge change in the market and opens up the perfect opportunity for Adobe to allow anyone to deploy across the new TV platform.

I just came back from Israel and Android TV is becoming extremely popular in the region.

I hope Chris can help us drive this into development.

regards,

Sean.

[The Noble Robot]

Thanks for the kind words.

If you want to help bring this to the AIR team's attention, you can vote for my feature request here: Feature#3960940 - Support Android TV "banner.png" in AIR manifest

[Born2code]

done.

tx!!!!!

[Born2code]

any news Chris?

regards...

[chris.campbell]

Nothing to announce.  We've applied for an ADT-1 but haven't received anything.  I'm not sure if any testing has been done on the emulator.  Have you given this a try?

The device looks very interesting, but I'm biased as an owner of multiple Roku's and an Amazon Fire TV (I've got an WD Live TV that was sadly boxed up.)  I'm definitely not the norm though, and I think it remains to be seen how successful these addon boxes will be. 

Are there any statistics out there that show app sales/penetration on the current set of boxes?  I bought a controller with my Fire TV, but to be honest I wasn't overwhelmed with the initial set of games.  I liked some (life long You Don't Know Jack fan) but others (Sev Zero) left me underwhelmed.  I never got into any games on the Roku, other than a game or two of Angry Birds.  Is this atypical usage?

[Born2code]

No doubt in mind that Android TV will be big, for games and Video Apps (which is what Adobe is all about when it comes to AIR) so I think Adobe really should support Android TV. What's nice is that it will be built onto many new TV sets (not just boxes).

Unfortunately it is not available for sale yet, so I can really test anything...

I would imagine the technical effort on Adobe's part would be minimal (seems like same Android SDK with some new manifest xml entries).

I can't find any projected sales, but keep in mind that you have some major partners here which have committed to Android TV eco system including LG, Sony and others, so it will get wide adoption no doubt, which means a great opportunity to push Adobe AIR platform so more people can adopt AIR as a true cross OS development environment.

Is Adobe aware of this?

Are they having meeting and talking about supporting Android TV?