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.

[Massimiliano_Carli_-_temp]

[updated]

great post, Ico.. our cousins from the videogame sector..

(the only one not exact thing of your post is that "who cares??" about the flash plugin for mobile browsers, for which (but finally I said to myself the same like you) I do not agree 'at all' - but ok you produce games: you do not need your clients users to interact from their PCs with their web customers, which may use tablets and occasional users use browsers, eg! on a mobile website we always need to launch an app - see later)

recently (in adb forums see https://forums.adobe.com/message/6316917#6316917) adobe finally announced Air is going to support android x86 architecture ("yess, god is back!"), this means Air is not dead and will not die. this move is significant for my evaluation of adobe on flash runtime.

but..

the most valuable error here is that everybody are speaking only about games!

flash core marketplace "is" (should be) [realtime] ria apps & [realtime] online business+social platforms, because _they design_ a new level of the Internet usage (I said this fact also at the times of Macromedia). not videogames. game producers are [just] great cusins (like in the realtime field in general). the universe of (online) software is biiggger.

html5/js will be never ahead of flash(/air) because the limitation of html is that browsers must render html _pages_ (today they can be [true-]interactive, but they are not [true-]realtime: ->). since flash5, flash enables another client/server software development approach, where the 'client side' and the 'server side' are different software layers of the same application, and within this model the server side dictates in realtime the client side (the GUI) behaviours -- the model is mostly unused today for a lack of this flash-alternate_advanced_approach penetration in the Internet developers community but it is set to be the future for the [true-]realtime Internet software which is an alternate model to (from) standard html (to servlet) approach. I would love Adobe get it. I call this model Internet+ or True-RealTime Internet (see my 'old' little article on Real-time web - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia at p2 - of course I have my own implementation but the tecnological approach is valid for all flash/air/+ developers and [rich] service producers).

Once understood this angle, and understood the fact that from the industry point of view the trinomial web app+desktop app+mobile app can't be forked in the real life, we can face the reason for which - supported by a correct Adobe management of Flash runtime marketing - Flash could never die ++.

What I miss is if I'm the only one man left with these long-term points of view.

Want to be the Adobe CTO 😆

Max

[Massimiliano_Carli_-_temp]

(left a note about the above post on my company blog. http://docs.mc2labs.net/2014/05/massimiliano-carli-on-adobe-flashair.html)

[Justin_as3_rules]

The fundamental problem is the mobile industry itself......anyone trying to earn a living in this industry as an INDIE developer is going to be hard pressed....no matter how good there app is.

We used AIR because of its ease of use and its ability to quickly turn an IOS app into an Android app.  AIR has made great improvements during the past 2.5 years that we have been using it and it is incredible how far it has come.  Graphics that could not be handled 2 years ago can now be run smoothly on any platform with the latest version of AIR.

The problem is the appstore itself.  Without marketing, your app is done after 2-3 days.  It does not matter the price point, nor the updates or improvements you make in your app during its lifetime.  If your app does not score a lot of downloads during those first 2 or 3 days of release, it is finished.  All those months of hard work in development come down to a few days after the launch. 

Forget about the other market placed.......they are not much better at making your app visible.  You have a better chance at winning the lottery then getting your app to be visible without significant marketing.

So if Indie Developers cannot make a decent living making apps, then how is Adobe going to continue to invest resources into Flash/AIR?  Adobe and others have figured this out..... there is no profit in Flash/AIR.

[Massimiliano_Carli_-_temp]

justin, your post sounds not to be about AIR, my friend.

you want to become rich with 1 app for which you worked on some months and because the fact that your potential customers (the entire mobile marketplace of users) did not liked your app in the first 3 days from your own launch like you expected (we understand what you mean), now the problem is about the clientside technology you used to build your app.

my friend, <syntax error in line 10>, (did you get different results with your apps built with other clientside technologies?)

'indie developer' is a not-exact way to see the skill you must adopt to pay your bills, in my opinion. you must be an indie software producer (before feeling to be an indie developer) if you want to pay your bills every month with your softwares: you must be able to find customers for your apps and yes, of course, you can try some "boom app" launch (but you must understand your marketplace: please share your app if you care) .. Edit: or "go to work" :>, find customers to make apps for (with your special skill).

max

[rionero_in_volture]

Anyway, I used phonegap/Cordoba recently ... is really shit.

[rionero_in_volture]

Friend!! xamarin wins today! forget the nightmare html5 + javascript + phonegap

XAMARIN 3!

[User_Unknow]

I never used phonegap for production. My choice it's Adobe Air + StageWebView instead

[rewb0rn]

Hi guys, I would like to join the discussion. I have mixed feelings about the Adobe Flash platform, as it's a great platform with an uncertain future.

I am an indie developer based in Berlin. I make a living of my currently 3 games with ~25.000 DAU. Using Air/Flash I now support the following platforms:

- Standalone Website

- Facebook

- Android

- iOS

- Amazon

- Blackberry

- Windows 8 Store (desktop certified apps, it works)

- PC Boxed Game (those offline things you can buy in a store)

I do not see a way I could support all these platforms if it wasn't for the Adobe platform. Also, from a developer perspective, I love it. Looking at other tools available, I do not see a vital alternative. There are lots of game developers (large companies and Indies) in Berlin. The indies mostly use Unity, and I would consider it my first option if it wasnt for Air. But despite all the hype, none of the Indies I know are making a profit.

When I talk to investors or Business angels, and we talk about technology, I often here phrases like "Oh you are using Air, yeah I wondered how you could have done that with PhoneGap/HTML5". Despite all the bashing, the experienced people know how good Air is. The bashing mostly comes from people working on web development that have no experience with games and take their knowledge from fellow HTML5 believers. That brings me to the major companies: 3 gaming companies in Berlin that I know quite well are using Adobe Air/Flash for their games. GameDuell, the largest, also use Native and HTML5, depending on the usecase, where they reserve their Air resources for the rich content applications. NeuroNation, a startup by some friends with a 7 digit funding also use Air for their app and got recently featured on iTunes. Crowdpark, a social casino company that I used to work for, are using Flash/Air for their Casino platform. That said, Air is all but dead. The question is, is it dying?

I do not mind having to develop / buy the ANEs, even if it's getting messy sometimes (getting Facebook login to work on Desktop required some serious voodoo). But I also feel that Adobe is slowly letting us down. I do not know what they plan, but if I was Adobe and I was planning to stop Air support while pocketing as much money as I could from it, I would do exactly what they are doing right now. After the official drop of Air for SmartTV I found recently a page on the official website by Adobe still stating "they are firmly committed to continue developing Air for SmartTV". I know what Adobe's committment is worth, now.

In my oppinion the dilemma is, that Air is a great platform, but there is not a lot of money to be made from it for Adobe. Their weird approach with premium features failed, whatever that was. The thing is, I would be willing to give them more money. I would gladly pay 1000€ for a Windows 8 Metro Air license, and many others, too. Why dont they try this, I can only wonder.

I really hope that Adobe continues to provide support for Air for at least the current existing platforms for the next 10 years. It is the best platform out there. The only thing missing is Adobe waving the Flag and lighting all beacons, showing they are alive and committed, not only saying that from time to time.

Sorry for the long post, potatoe

[Massimiliano_Carli_-_temp]

After the official drop of Air for SmartTV

another error.

[rionero_in_volture]

I think just like you.

also I have much difficulty in persuading the customer to use air

I also used phonegap for an (no-game) app and I can tell you that is a nightmare! (bugs, documentation, plugins, debug ... )

really do not understand why Adobe quit flash (air + flex)

xamarin 3 is a valid alternative (no-game app) ready just yesterday.

unity is a valid alternative (game). Recently also for 2d.

conclusion: adobe has thrown in the toilet a good product and our skill ... mbah

bad company management

i love this post! It is better to antidepressants

[flexengineer]

Can I be very honest? You guys are really annoying. It is our roles as consultant and independant contractors to convaince our clients, otherwise they are not client and we are employees.But with such winning and passive agressive attitude no wonder you have hard time getting your client use not AIR, but the technology you are clamoring as being abandoned by Adobe. Where have you been for the past 4 years, under a rock? Because in my world with every single of my contracts for the past 9 years being nothing but Flash, Flex and AIR, that stack kept my work and my client a decade ahead of a-n-y-t-h-i-n-g else. Do not get me wrong, I have been among the most vocal in exposing Adobe failures and nonsense third world fused corporate strategies, as you can see on this post and particularly the comments:

Let me try to explain why Adobe AIR is... - Stephane Beladaci | Facebook

However, what has been happening is that Adobe just served the soup to the HTML5 delusional but dominant market by developing some tools for which the media said Adobe "set the web 15 years back". In the same time, Adobe simply and very quietly kept Adobe AIR and Adobe Flash at the very top of multimedia and application development technologies.

Now instead of just complaining that Adobe does not do enough, try to see what we got and just get yourself together and do what Adobe is not capable of doing: communicating our passion, we are one of the most passionate breed of developers, because we rock the best and most innovative set of technologies and we have for over a decade solid. We've seem it every other year, when it was not Ajax and OpenLazlo, it was Expression and when not that, it was Silverlight and when not that it was Quicktime, and HTML5 and PhoneGap.. none of which ever powered even a fraction of an industry. We powered entertainment, gaming, media and enterprise apps including two third of the finance industry from NYC to London to Singapure.

While everyone is going coucou about HTML5, Adobe has been keeping the relevancy of Flash Player on the web stacked at 99% penetration by focusing on gaming and video, domain in which Flash and AIR advance along with Adobe's unbeatable integration made it untouchable. Even Steve Jobs failed, I wish he was here to see it even though he would have probably find a trick on stage to fool everyone again and make the world line up at the stores to thank him.

Now, the beauty of it is that no matter how bad at communicating Adobe is, they are establishing AIR as new standard for app development and they have been literrally taking over the entire digital television technology market, or at least they are in the process of. Check this out:

This is the head of digital media at NBC Sports, watch this carefully and pay attention to what he says, then read your post on this thread again and have some introspection:

Adobe and NBC Olympics Launch Apps for 2012 Olympic Games - YouTube

Then, if you need inspiration to talk to your client you can find some in this news report, pay attention to th statements and again compare with the words you spread about Adobe and AIR dead (I'm heating up just typing this, I do every single time I get an email notification with this damn title):

Free Apps Bring Streaming Olympics to Phones, Tablets - YouTube

If you have a doubt about Adobe Flash being at the core of whatever names Adobe has been using to not deal with the massive, global brain washing abut Flash maybe this article will help see it. This is Adobe breaking ground again and keeping Flash the defacto porvoyer of the best video quality on the web:

http://blogs.adobe.com/primetime/2013/12/adobe-primetime-1-2-adds-native-hls-support-to-flash-player...

You are probably going to say but that was two years ago and Adobe this, Adobe that since then. Well, this is the head of digital media at NBC Sports again and it's in 2014, listen crefully to the statements, again. Because yes, Adobe Flash AIR and Apache Flex has been bringing both the 2012 and 2014 Olympics to unprecedented audiences, delivering the largest video events in history to all mobile devices from one code base. They saved NBC tons of cash and brought them a mind blowing competitive edge:

NBC Sports & Adobe Primetime - Customer Success - YouTube

Competitive edge which I have been establishing as my technical approach of choice for application development from web to mobile to TV:

One Code. Any Screen. Develop once, deploy everywhere is a reality.

[rionero_in_volture]

the problem is that while adobe SLEEPING come out Unity and Xamarin3

(sorry for my bad english)

[rewb0rn]

I do not think dropping SmartTVs was a bad move. Of course I would like to have as many platforms as possible, but better drop a platform no one uses (I dont know anyone who released anything there) than to waste precious resources you could use to develop more important stuff. But I do mind Adobe's communication strategy on these decisions.

I heard saying (this is not verified information) that King decided not to use Air, not because they felt the technology wasnt strong enough, but they didnt feel Adobe is committed to it for the next 5 years. What a sad reason to turn down an otherwise great platform.

[rewb0rn]

I totally agree with you that Air is great just as it is right now, never said anything else. But I am missing Adobe putting Air and Flash on their agendas. Last time I checked the talks on an Adobe conference, there was not a single mention of the entire technology. Same with the recent, largely discussed, annonouncement, that PhoneGap is Adobe's capital technology for cross platform development. I know it's an issue with the marketing strategy of Adobe. They should just allow their developers to talk openly to us instead of this marketing bullshit that has nothing to do with reality.

Again, I love Air, and I dont complain about anything I have right now. But I am worried that it might not stay like this. And definitely there are people moving away from Air because of this impression, which worries me as a general tendency. Even when it makes me wonder where they are moving to

Btw I read your link about multi screen development before, its a good one

Cheers

[flexengineer]

Again, watch the videos in my last post. It says it all. Adobe is telling whatever it takes to please its core consumers, do not forget what makes Adobe a living... Photoshop and Creative Suite, which are Apple fanboys for the most. I got scared too, I called Narayen every name publicly, tagged his personal profiles on Facebook public note exposing stuff no one, not one single soul at Adobe dared to say, but thought and agreed by most. But I also have 250+ contacts at Adobe worldwide, I have been communicating with most project managers of the Flash platform for the past decade (very interesting what former employees have to say), and I know the core industries of the Flash platform inside and out (except gaming), and what I observed is a brilliant middle finger from Adobe to dead Jobs  by taking over its entire ambition for media and TV. Again, watch the videos.

By the way, who won the CES 2014 award for best consumer mobile application development technology? No PhoneGap, not Xamarin, not iFool:

Compass Intelligence Announces Winners of the 2014 Mobility Awards in Wireless, M2M, and Green Techn...

Who just passed a billion app install on mobile? I'm laughing as I type "not PhoneGap":

http://blogs.adobe.com/flashplayer/2014/04/air-app-installs-cross-a-billion.html

And here some fresh stuff for those of you who still believe HTML5 is not a scam, will not be a website technology by 2015, and is not about to blow up to the face of blind adopters:

1/ Timeline Photos - Stephane Beladaci | Facebook

2/ Twitter / flexengineer: PRICELESS! Youtube #HTML5 ...

[Massimiliano_Carli_-_temp]

just to say,

"Where is NewEconomy?"

We use Flash/AIR.

(not flex.. flash).

[furian]

Well with the release of Swift from iOS, I can truly say that Adobe just got an agreement with Apple and dropped out AIR in their favor. It's too much of coincidence to have a language so close to AS, with all that "addChild" methods and concepts of design..

But the real frustration here, that lead me to that thoughts, is that people like Lee Brimelow and the almighty Thibault just left AS, and are now advertising Swift as the new awesome language.. This is not a coincidence too.

I would ask Adobe how many people from the AS/AIR team now work on Swift?

[makc3d]

I think it's 0 people, actually. People appreciate Apple coming up with

something better than ObjC, that's all there is to it.

What Flash IDE folks are doing, however, is different issue

http://wwwimages.adobe.com/content/dam/Adobe/en/features/flash/cc/images/207x116/fl-native-html5-canvas.207x116.jpg

[User_Unknow]

You absolutely wrong!

Adobe Air it's cross-platform solution. Not only iOS & OSx. Where is Swift for Android with one codebase?;)

Thibault is a cool dude. But today here is Chris and he doing own job great (from my view point). Bugs get fixed and improvements are coming. So don't panic.

Also want to add - ActionScript was used in a lot of apps outside Flash Runtime

[furian]

From Flash Player 14 / AIR 14 Release Notes:

[Chrome] Angry Birds on Facebook now works as expected (3761933)

This is the holly bug fix I've ever seen. Along with the other ones (check here) I am truly amazed and speechless...

[superduperjmas]

For the past two years or so it has been clear for me and my company that AIR and Flash are slowly dying and we need to move away from that technology asap. Adobe has cut all real support to Flash and AIR and now those technologies live on momentum and are simply updated by the smallest teams up until everyone has moved on and they can finally pull the plug.

Is it not obvious that AIR will never support Windows Phone? Or any new technology coming to the mobile market (FireFox OS)? Adobe will never invest any money to support new platforms which is by definition the death of a cross platform technology.

Swift might facilitate the transition for many coder but whether you are an indie dev or a company my advice to you: don't wait too long to make the switch, it is just a matter of time now and maybe sooner than you think.

[flexengineer]

There goes the bullshit again. First of all, AIR is a decade ahead of

anything and is a mature technology, its not like it needs the whole planet

to keep it on artificial life support like HTML5. Second, nobody cares

about Firefox OS or Chrome Web whatever until they are supported by all

main platform and that aint gonna happen . So keep talking, one billion

install its us, nobody eleses. 99% browsers it's us, nobody else. CES 2014

award for best mobile app dev technology it's us, nobody else. As far as

Windows is concerned, last time I spoke to group manager he asked me to

contact whoever I know at Microsoft to push for AIR, therefore the block is

from MS, not us. You know MS, that big dude still bidder that Macromedia

turned its offer and sold to Adobe for 2 billion less. Jeez you guys give

me headaches, cant you go flaunt Firefox or HTML5 on their forum and lets

rock what rules?

Sent with my Samsung Galaxy SIII

[TrickeyDee]

How about we let this thread die as well then?

[TrickeyDee]

Tell you what, here's a solution. Lets all stop arguing and just use haxe and openFL instead of as3. As I'm sure most of you know it's basically the same language but much better, with features such as superior interfaces, better getters/setters and best of all, inline functions; and it can end up producing swfs that run 20% faster. Then if air does die (which I don't believe it will in the very near future at least) then you can just publish to other targets including windows, iOS, android and HTML5.

Everyone's happy!

[superduperjmas]

Axe? The technology that was and still is born dead? It doesn't matter what it does or how good it is, the market has decided right at the start that Axe will only be for indie devs and nothing else. What's the job market for AXE? Oh yes now I remember there's not even one.