Air is Dead

[72Pantera]

Let's face it guys. Air is Dead.  Look at the feature list for 4.0.  The pace of development and bug fixes have slowed to a crawl.

It's presented to us as a mobile development platform but you can't pick a video from the Gallery, read the Contacts database or Play a movie.  The forums are full of bugs and when Adobe rarely chimes in it's to ask us to vote.  Shouldn't you just fix bugs?

It's touted as a cross platform mobile environment but it's not listed in a single article comparing them.  No new developer in his right mind would program in Flash at this point. I did for ten years but I'm done. Tired of spending hours on bugs and workarounds.

I wish Adobe would spin out the two or three guys still working on it and open source it.  Maybe they could call themselves MacroMedia.

[User_Unknow]

[72Pantera]

flexengineer, I humbly disagree that this serves no purpose. The fact that Adobe is tuned into these forums makes it critical that they stay in touch with the sentiments of their developer community.  You might argue that it's an old discussion but I weathered the Jobs era and decided to get off the Flash bus just last month.  That's new news and an important data point.

The fact that development on the platform has slowed to a crawl and that infighting is a factor is germaine to this community and this forum.  The right small hord storming the castle can change history.  I'm hoping that the right team in Adobe has the sack to tell managment to "let us win or we quit".

[Jonathan_at_Idle_Games]

I have said this many times, but a community championing AIR is much more valuable than Adobe marketing it or having all their evangelists focused on it.

It's up to us, and right now our biggest challenge in maintaining a positive perception of the future of AIR happens to be people like you.

[iNDDev]

So, 72Pantera, you are recinding this discussions' inflamatory title.  That's as it should be.  "Air Needs Your Help" would be a better title; or even, "You're Dead to Me, Air!" 

[TrickeyDee]

@flexengineer "Indian workforce is simply not fit for creative products or for Adobe as the most creative company on the plabet"

As much as I agree or disagree with your argument, is that comment really needed?

[flexengineer]

Yes it is much needed to understand what is going on with Adobe and how its CEO, not its products or Flash and AIR teams, has been screwing 3 million Flash developers. The same way it is needed to consider how Apple has been screwing 75% of world's developers with HTML5. I explain both in this post and its comments thread: https://www.facebook.com/occupyhtml5/posts/10151861946595679?stream_ref=10. Did you know Adobe India was product owner of the Flash runtime as the time of the blattant failure on mobile occured? Flash Lite anyone? Lot of the issues with Flash are directly related to Adobe's genius CEO thinking doing things cheap is the way to go. If nobody complain and expose that, nothing will change. I have a track record of saying outloud what everyone thinks quietly, bottom line is keeping quiet does not help a thing.

[hybridmindset]

@72Pantera or drive off the bridge and end up in the HTML5 ditch

[hybridmindset]

How do you complain about something that is FREE? I never understood why people do that. It is FREE. If you paid your hard earned money for something then go ahead but Adobe AIR is FREE and works consistently across platforms. Yes Adobe screwed up the message and all that and they deserve that criticism but the AIR platform isn't going anywhere, it works.

[furian]

Guys, this is getting out of control, let's stick to the talk.

I understand your idea to solve the problems and just continue. I've done it numerous times, but this is not the point. The fact that AIR is free is no excuse - if something's wrong with Google - you dare to say you don't like it and ask to fix/change it, right?

We've all used Flash and AIR for a long time, and we all see it's evolution and how things change. But they change slowly, and not in the right direction.

No one can say that they put a lot of efforts on AIR (and in my opinion in Flash and AS). I won't believe it no matter what. And this is the most painful and frustrating thing - this whole AIR idea is doomed - something that is not further developer IS or WILL be soon dead.

Yes, there are workarounds for now, and yes we like it and we still use it, but they don't do it right. They wanted AS4, but dropped it. They try to develop new features, but they do it so slowly and so awkward, that it's just unbelievable. Multi-threading was planned before more than 5 years, right after AS3 was released! And it's made so strange, that I won't believe someone is happy with it. GPU acceleration was a must years ago, and still you are so limited that you cannot even swap Stage3D with StageVideo! And you think this is great?!?

I bet none of you has used Feathers for complex applications! And none of you knows exactly how the Milkman's Facebook extension works, as I've sent numerous e-mails to the support as the documentation does not include all cases (different iOS versions and expired tokens bug in the SDK).

Pantera said it right, and I will repeat myself - if a single guy can make Feathers (one of the fewest frameworks for GPU accelerated UI), and if a small group of guys (or maybe again one?) can make the most powerful collection of native extensions (Distriqt, which are great and I wouldn't be able to release my app without them).. WHY Adobe IS NOT doing it?! They don't want to invest money in 5 people team to develop all that, or what?? You say this is normal and you say this is the best on the market - to pray for third-party obsolete solutions or just make them by ourselves? Nice. If so - yes, AIR will soon be outdated and dead.

And we are still talking about the MOST basic stuff - to make a freaking customized list in Stage3D! Or to put a normal camera to shoot images (Adobe's internal rotates the image depending on OS, WTF?! again - extension). Their GPS is so wrong, that I cannot even explain it (extension maybe?). WHY are they even doing those features if they DO NOT WORK? Oh, alright, we know workarounds (if-else for OS and rotate image, right? it's that simple and I'm stupid). Most common and basic things don't work properly and the documentation is full with "don't use that on iOS", or "works differently on Desktop". But they try to be "innovative" with "new great features, you just need to add few lines to your compiler". Come on guys, uploading bitmap to GPU is so slow, that it's almost a must to do it in the app initialization! What's the current year again?

We won't talk about collision detection for gaming, pathfinding, image processing and all the common things that are needed nowadays. We talk about the most stupid and elementary stuff, and there are still bugs. And things don't change, there are even more bugs.

I'm very sorry to say it, but I think they don't put enough efforts in it and we will be soon developing in other languages.

p.s.

Please cut the crap about "it is free, do not whine". Yeah sure, Adobe doesn't get money from your mobile apps, right? Something good is now getting bad. That's the whole idea, and I don't care if you guys know the best native extension or you have fixed one and used it - this is all non professional as your main goal is to develop apps, not to fix other's crap!

[esDotDev]

Ya, welcome to 2 years ago. We're all aware of the current state of AIR, and that it's been de-prioritized. This is not news to anyone who has been working in AIR the last 3 years. If anything, things have improved in the last 6mths or so. We've seen the introduction of Workers for Mobile, reduced IOS packaging time, and they are talking about an integrated Physics library as well. So the first time in a long time, we're seeing some decent momentum come back.

Has development of AIR slowed? Yes. Is this news at all? No. Welcome to the party we've been having for the last 2 years.

What we don't need, is a bunch of chicken-little's running around screaming about "the sky is falling".

[caiocanalli]

The sky is not falling, but imagine if a famous joker says that Air does not run well on mobile as well as Flash. Voces left without the technology they love in a flash and with the world on top of you saying it is obsolete and does not work well.

[esDotDev]

As an AIR dev you should know better and not listen to what someone else tells you.

Simply using GPU render mode, and shared bitmapData caching gives you the an insanely fast rendering speeds, full GPU acceleration support, and almost no changes to workflow. using bitmapData.draw() can give you almost everything you need, if you give it a bit of thought and planning. If you need to go firther, there is Starling.

Personally I build all my apps with GPU render mode (of which I have quite a few) and all my games in Starling.

If you compare ecosystems of Air ANE's to Unity or Corona (both of which rely on external 'plugins' or extensions like AIR does, by the way) you will see that it's AIR which has the widest breadth and highest quality of extensions for native processes. Unity does destroy it though, when it comes to game resources, like AI, Pathfinding, particles etc etc etc

This is a classic example of 'grass is greener' mentality. You guys have never used these competing stacks, and just assume that they are all roses and dandelions. They're not. And when you compare everything on an objective basis, (costs, efficiencies, api's, reach) AIR is pretty tough to beat.

[TrickeyDee]

Jesus! I am disappointed at myself for having the morbid curiosity to carry on reading this post. But as a child keeps tonguing the painful hole where their tooth used to be, I seem to keep ending up here, drudging through the same old tired arguments.

There are two groups of people here. One group that have successfully used a technology which worked well for the things they were trying to accomplish, and one group that tried to accomplish things with a technology to which those things were not suited.

Funnily enough the ones for whom the technology worked are happy with it, and the ones for whom it didn't are not. Well big f**king surprise.

[Joseph Labrecque]

Hey, all. AIR (and Flash in general) is a tricky thing to put in perspective for everyone to understand.

Animators, Web Designers, App Developers, Game Developers, Interaction Designers, Prototypers, Mobile Peeps... they all have ther own particular use for Flash and I'd bet that most of them have always viewed Flash as a platform with an identity crisis at best... schizophrenia at worst. The use-cases are not as general as they once were - but Flash is still a powerful, unique, and creative platform for many of us working with it. Whether building GPU-accelerated mobile apps for Android and iOS, rich video delivery and manipulation systems, or server based independant file management - trancoding - and information delegation systems...

To those who no longer use the technology to serve their purposes - it may be dead for you. That's fine! For those who still benefit (and many do benefit greatly) from what AIR provides... it is still a rich, creative, efficient, and LIVING platform.

Adobe is working on improving the runtimes. This is a fact. The community around Flash and AIR (and Flex!!!) is growing and adapting. The community is a huge part of what makes the runtimes great and the community is vibrant! So while AIR may be "dead" to some... it's a major part of the every day work for others. One should always look to the big picture when making sweeping statements - it's appropriate and correct to do so.

Perspective and balance

[iNDDev]

Hyperbole and imposed ignorance.  Furian says, "I won't believe it no matter what."  So, what's to talk about?  I like Adobe, I like Actionscript, and I like Air.  It gives me what I need to program what I like.  No other language+product does.

Don't like it, then don't use Adobe.  Like it, then use it.  Want to improve it, then offer constructive criticism or develop free or paid components and solutions. This conversation is old; it started in 2010 with Apple, and has not changed since. 

My views are my own, and may not be shared.  Your views are also your own, and may not be shared.  What is also true is that these views are not objective.  Please talk directly to the programmers and admin at Adobe instead of speculating here.  What good can you possibly do here? 

This will, obviously, be my last response to this post.

[chris.campbell]

Hi everyone,

Happy New Year and thank you for the feedback.  I wanted to respond to a few points in this thread.

First, I would like to re-iterate that we remain committed to both Flash Player and AIR and we will continue to make progress with the runtime going forward.

We have made significant improvements and enhancements to the runtime in 2013. If you look at our Flash Player and Adobe AIR feature list (http://www.adobe.com/devnet/articles/flashplayer-air-feature-list.html) you will see that we’ve been keeping busy in 2013 and we expect this trend to continue in 2014!  The majority of these new capabilities and enhancements were driven by customer, partner and developer community requests.  We’ve also had an active beta program with regularly scheduled releases on an almost monthly basis.

I understand the frustration regarding votes for bug reports and feature requests.  We do our best to make sure that we address any injections (i.e. bugs introduced in recent releases.)  These don’t need to be voted on, but we do need to be made aware of them and we need to be able to reproduce them internally.  If you find and report critical injections and if you find that we are not making quick enough progress on them,  then please let me (ccampbel@adobe.com) know. Making sure that we fix critical customer bugs and maintaining quality/performance are the highest priorities for us (right up there with security.)

When dealing with long standing bugs or feature requests, having comments and votes from the community helps us prioritize and understand what’s important.  A bug that’s existed for years but only has one vote might not get the same internal exposure or scrutiny as one with 50 votes.  Of course, we also have to balance the effort required for new features with the benefit it provides. From there we can make decisions on what’s achievable and what makes sense from a business perspective.

Regarding our version numbers, while AIR 4 and Flash Player 12 might sound like significant version change, they shouldn’t be taken that way.  Due to a number of factors, we’ve decided to change our versioning strategy to something similar to Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome.  Each quarterly release will see an increment in the major version number.  Our current plan is to change the next version of AIR (code named King and scheduled for Q2) to version 13, bringing it in line with Flash Player’s version number.

In the end, you need to pick a development platform that meets your needs. If you’re targeting desktop, Android or iOS, we believe AIR makes a very compelling choice.  As has been mentioned in the thread, there are a number of community frameworks and ANE’s available to extend and simplify your life as an AS developer.  If you need Windows Phones, Windows 8 Modern mode, or another missing feature then AIR might not fit your needs right now. Decisions to support new platforms or implement new features are fluid as community and market changes occur.  We’ll continue to evaluate our choices and listen to your feedback. 

We’re looking forward to 2014 and our goal of making the runtime better than ever. More importantly, we’re excited to see the games, apps and content that AIR and Flash Player developers create.

[72Pantera]

Chris, thanks for the comments.  Can you tell us how many developers are working on Air? 

[User_Unknow]

72Pantera wrote:

Chris, thanks for the comments.  Can you tell us how many developers are working on Air? 

Does this have any sense for you? Generally they working on it. As I said you early . just use Adobe Air and Flash. Use it accordingly to devices hardware specific and you will love it as the rest . In any case - don't tell anyone is dead because the rest can easy find it heartbeating and breathing

[Daniel_McQuillen]

Regardless of the level of support you're getting from corporate, you've always been positive Chris. Thanks for keeping on.

[shawnb81]

Thanks's Chris for jumping in.

If you need Windows Phones, Windows 8 Modern mode ... then AIR might not fit your needs right now. Decisions to support new platforms or implement new features are fluid as community and market changes occur.  We’ll continue to evaluate our choices and listen to your feedback.

This so needs to happen, it's becoming the single major detractor from using AIR. Microsoft just announced record Windows Phone Sales, and we're on the outside looking in. That's a major emerging revenue stream we can't tap I think it goes without saying that anyone with an iOS and Android App, would also 'need' a Windows Phone app as well, insofar as they 'need' money

http://www.gsmarena.com/windows_phones_made_record_sales_this_holiday-news-7510.php

MS is emerging as a serious #3 in the mobile marketplace (150% YoY growth), so I really really hope that somehow, in 2014, Adobe can prioritize this effort and make it happen somehow. I know it's not easy, but neither was iOS, you guys pulled that off.

Also, as an added bonus, this woudl really shutup all this "AIR is Dead" talk once and for all, there would be no doubt that Adobe is committed and the platform has a long future.

323 votes and counting

https://bugbase.adobe.com/index.cfm?event=bug&id=3648920

[caiocanalli]

First , thank you Chris , for the long answer . I think when this post has been open, the intention was not to say that Adobe Air is dead . That was just a reflection of some forum members who are concerned about the future of the Flash ecosystem . Although not seem , rumors that run on the death of Flash , impact the decision to use Adobe Air to our customers . And perhaps this kind of post , only reflects our aspirations for the future of the platform that we love and adore . I know that Adobe has no direct profit to Adobe Air or Flash , and as a corporation with shareholders and partners , spending on the development and maintenance of these technologies is kinda contradictory. But I think that Adobe could find ways to monetize and earn a little more money with the platform . If the Adobe provide native extensions as Distriqt , and to charge for it , I do not mind paying . I know it is a task of Titas support other platforms like Windows Phone . But the time is coming that happening . Microsoft has money to keep the marketing platform for years . And that is what she will do . The question of the platform does not have support for graphical user interface components , is also weird in my opinion . I use Starling / Feathers and find incredible . But it seems more of an effort to keep the relevant community platform , and not Adobe ( even though she fund them ) . Another thing that bother me a little is the question of tutorials . As a full programmer in AS3 , I had no difficulty understanding the frames Starling / Feathers . But I find tutorials right on the Unity site about technology . Adobe Evangelists , should care a little more about it . Anyway, I think you already know the many things I have said here . Hope this clarifies why the post : our passion for technology. We want her getting better and powerful .

[Romil_Mittal]

Hi all,

I manage AIR for mobile platforms (iOS and Android). First of all, let me thank all of you for the candid feedback, and the open discussion.

As Chris mentioned above, Gaming is one of the focus areas for Flash and AIR Runtimes, and we strive to build a solid core runtime, on top of which you can write useful frameworks and really cool applications. A strong foundation for the runtimes implies freedom and flexibilty to developers to use the technology as per their needs.

As Joseph correctly mentioned above, one of the strongest points of Flash and AIR runtimes is the large talented community that exists today (and which is growing everyday). So we, as Adobe engineering, try to first focus on the things which cannot be done by the community outside the runtime codebase. For instance, one can write an ANE independently, without requiring any support from AIR team or AIR codebase. However, if you want to change the way in which you use Android native resources in your extension, then you cannot do that on your own. And that's exactly the kind of work we try to pick up. You will see that we have introduced this capability of accessing resources directly using R.*, starting with AIR 4, and am sure you would love it.

We are seeing a phenomenal growth in the adoption of AIR as a technology platform for desktop and mobile applications (primarily games). I am big fan of numbers, and let me give you a flavor of that. There are more than 60,000 unique AIR based applications on Google Play Store today, and more than 15000 on iOS App Store, and these numbers are increasing at a rate faster than ever.

Apart from working on the core runtime areas and fixing the critical and customer reported bugs (as Chris mentioned above in detail), these days we are also focusing on finding ways to help you (game developers) market your games. You would see a couple of interesting things in the game discovery space coming up in the near future.

I am sure 2014 is going to be a very interesting year, as we continue to build the platform and provide you more capabilities to develop and market your games.

[Guest]

Hi Romil,

I would like to continue to develop in the FlashBuilder AIR in the future,

When did FlashBuilder 4.8 be released?

Blog http://marbayclip.blogspot.jp/

Twitter https://twitter.com/mclippper

[72Pantera]

Guys, with all due respect to the Adobe staff, these two posts and the recent Air4 annoucements should put this argument to rest - Air is Dead.  The staff replies were North Korea PR machine rhetoric -  "phenomenal growth in the adoption of AIR" (less than 1% of appstore apps).  It's not easy to write so many words and say nothing. No roadmap, no new components, no answer to how many full time developers, just a bit of cheerleading for a team thats down by 50 points with a part time coach.

I finally get it.  It's NOT a mobile development *app* environment it's a game maker.  You can't write a business app (or even gamification apps).  ANEs are duct tape offered to cover the gapping holes.  With them you get lost context flashes, crashes and amateur support.

Distriqt has basically outlined (some of) the widgets missing.  Adobe, any reason the base library shouldn't have: Compass, BlueTooth, NativeDialogs, In-App Purchase, CameraRoll (with movies), VideoPlayer (that works with other controls), Vibration, Email, Facebook, Twitter, Calendar, Gyro, Push, Battery, Network, and more?

As for the request to cover Microsoft - wow! Did you read the backpeddling? They don't have enough staff to fix the two year old URLLoader bug.  How are they going to add support for a new platform?

[User_Unknow]

Pantera...

Don't like - don't use. Yep?