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.

[TrickeyDee]

Come on mate, it's only 9 years old... and the best 2d framework for Stage3D is written in it (no not Starling... the other one).  Anyway, I've inadvertently redirected the topic of the thread, so I'll back out again now.

[superduperjmas]

"the best 2d framework for Stage3D is written in it"

This is purely subjective and therefore meaningless. Genome2D is only partially open source, much like Starling design choices made in that framework are questionable, etc. When it was time for us to go the Stage3D road we looked at Starling and were amazed by it's poor quality, performance and beginner oriented design, Genome2D was disqualified by it use of signals, partial open source, so we have made our own which btw some companies had to do too due to the lack of serious framework out there. You probably think those framework are contributing in saving AIR and Flash, I think they are contributing in putting them down just like Adobe itself does.

[flexengineer]

Jee and I thought I was bas at complaining, you make me feel like the Dalai

Lamaa!!

Your developers life must be miserable because obviously if you were

rocking anything truly better you would not be here winning.

Sent with my Samsung Galaxy SIII

[TrickeyDee]

Actually there is a very objective way to compare them. Just post performance tests of your framework vs Genome2D.

Out of interest, why did Signals contribute to your negative decision?

[superduperjmas]

AS3 is an event based language, user interaction is caught and dispatched via events and there's nothing that can be done to stop that. Using signals is only adding a second system on top of the one you can't get rid of. Signals work well on other programming language either not event based or flexible enough to allow another system to take priority. This is not the case in AS3 and you can come up with a thousand different event systems if you want, you'll still have the AS3 event system on top of everything. no way around it. Besides many people like signals because that saves them the trouble of writing custom event classes but in a company environment custom event classes means code highlighting, code completion, signals mean use constants at best.

Concerning a test request, it's irrelevant to compare a private framework to a public one especially when this framework is no longer in use anyway. But a public framework has the inconvenience of having to fit as many cases as possible, a private doesn't have that restriction and for that reason is likely to be more efficient.

[TrickeyDee]

Wow, I couldn't disagree with your thoughts on AS3 Signals more - but again this is a conversation for another thread.

[rionero_in_volture]

Adobe ditch FLV support in CC 2014 | Patrick Wall

[rewb0rn]

In case you guys missed it: ActionScript rises to #14 on the Tiobe Index

I wonder if this reflects only the fact that AS becoming increasingly popular for mobile apps or its at least partly boosted by all the discussions about Flash going down all over the web (not sure how TIOBE exactly measures that).

Anyway I would take this as a good sign and Adobe managers can not ignore this

[rionero_in_volture]

I think that NO ONE here would question the goodness or as3 flash/air/flex.

I think that you simply ACCUSATIONS Adobe had foolishly abandoned the project.

This is just to satisfy Apple fans (many graphs are). They have invested on HTML5 JavaScript 'cause it was COOL.

Other companies were not so STUPID: Xamarin and Unity ... for example. Now Adobe could have a wonderful tool if it were not for its manager

(sorry for my bad english)

[flexengineer]

I see the delusional water carriers and haters are not tired... Adobe has abandoned AIR, huh? What about WorldCup 2014 Breaking Online Streaming Record Numbers: http://www.overdigital.com/2014/06/18/worldcup-2014-breaking-online-streaming-numbers, brought to you by Primetime, and guess what is at the core of Primetime? Flash and AIR. Let's educate the haters again: http://blogs.adobe.com/primetime/2013/12/adobe-primetime-1-2-adds-native-hls-support-to-flash-player and let's the head of NBC remind the haters who run the show: NBC Sports & Adobe Primetime - Customer Success - YouTube

Don't you get it? Adobe is rocking Flash and AIR without saying a word about it, so you guys can have your lil circus about HTML5 and sell their bogus tools. Meanwhile:

http://www.overdigital.com/2013/12/30/bitter-reality-html5-video-android

So, keep talking!

[superduperjmas]

You are completely off. We don't argue the merits of Flash/AIR, we point out that Adobe is abandoning the platform and there's no stopping it. Flash/AIR will die simply because Adobe wants it to die not because of a never ready HTML5 crap. Adobe has reduced all teams on Flash and AIR development. AIR will not support any new platform. The new released Flash CC updates are all ... HTML5 based. The list is long of Adobe going HTML5 big time and doing about nothing for Flash/AIR. You can keep your head in the sand and refuse to see it if you want.

[flexengineer]

You do not seem to understand that Flash and AIR are mature technologies that do not need the mind blowing resourcing that HTML5 need to get remotely close to a viable solution. At the end of the day, one billion install... do you get that? One billion app deployed with AIR. Olympics broke records with AIR. World Cup broke records with AIR. We have integration with iOS that has never been possible before, such as multithreading. It was never possible to load code at runtime on iOS before, now we can.... with AIR. We get updates every 6 months. You guys are out of your mind. So, I maintain... keep talking.

[makc3d]

As much as I want to believe you, Flash and AIR do need "mind blowing resourcing" to solve long standing issues with video playback like 3 Years Later, NetStream Still Sucks | Brooks Andrus or Bug#3186454 - [Platform_iOS]StageVideo makes stage opaque to Stage3D instead of dismissing them as "as designed", for example. Also, it is good to quote worldcup numbers, but it would be better to explain how adobe can take any credit for them.

[makc3d]

Here are flexengineer replies in essence:

Taken from brooksandrus . com

[User_Unknow]

Ubisoft now hiring AS3 / Flash / Adobe Air developers. You may know Ubisoft game powered by Adobe Air and Starling - CSI: Hidden Crimes

[superduperjmas]

I makes a lot of sense, why sticking with the facts when you can make it all up ... One billion AIR runtime installs become one billion AIR app installs ...  But who are you really trying to convince when making this up? Probably just yourself.

[makc3d]

superduperjmas no, those are literally one billion AIR app installs, see AIR app installs cross a billion They even have this nice breakdown chart:

[mola2alex]

Read this entire thread and I have mixed feelings.  I have always loved Flash and AIR but right now, it is a bit painful especially using Flash Pro for mobile apps which is my primary target.  Every time a new release of Android or iOS, I have my fingers crossed that they haven't broke AIR or broke an extension (that may or may not be supported).  It sounds like AIR is alive and has some roadmap left but it is not reassuring that I should continue to build new apps with this tech.

[Massimiliano_Carli_-_temp]

btw what we are going to do (client side) almost completly with Flash/AIR + native:

Absolutely the first and the only open-business ICT+ICT4D VIRTUAL SILICON VALLEY smart community

[Massimiliano_Carli_-_temp]

Adoobe! Change your CEO!!

newventure@adobe.com is broken (from ADB website!)

community_relations@adobe.com is broken (from ADB website!)

flash marketing is broken.

it is a shit. (new community forum subsystem is also a shit). ceo is broken.!?

mike chambers, where f* are you!?

[Giles_Corey]

AIR works great, and only gets better with time. Can we please stop all the whining? The new x86 Android support for AIR is amazing. It's what 90% of the complainers in this thread were whining about all along. They were all saying "AIR is dead because they won't give us x86 Android support." But guess what... we finally got what we were waiting for. x86 support is here, NOW.

The fact that Adobe goes from complete silence to suddenly implementing a massive feature like that proves that they have a versatile workforce committed to shifting gears for us at a moment's notice as soon as they are able to.

Most of you are really just here to vent because you are frustrated over how painful it is to develop for mobile, and you need a scapegoat for your anger. You blame Adobe, when really it's just a default condition of being a developer for mobile. If you had tried to make the same app with anything else, it would have taken 10x longer, with 10x as many gotcha's from native quirks on different devices. So the next time you get a slight headache from mobile development, just keep in mind it would have been a full blown migraine if AIR wasn't there to help you, and try to resist the urge to come here and whine and spread libel about Adobe. It's telling that they don't even moderate this forum despite all the vicious words; it shows they committed 100% of their employees to working on actual important things instead of wasting precious time pruning internet forum topics.

I would not even have tried to ever make mobile apps if it weren't for AIR. I was able to horizontally transfer all my prior ActionScript 3 knowledge built over the years directly into app-making, and the same goes for most of you. Instead of spending months learning a new language, we were able to use something we already knew for years. Let's be grateful for that, and for an awesome tool called AIR. Thank you for everything Adobe.

[User_Unknow]

I read somewhere yesterday that Unity3D will now support x86 Android. But currently it's not supporting and this is under development. So this feature was implemented into Adobe Air faster than in Unity3D. Why anyone don't tell me that Unity3D is dead?

[User_Unknow]

By the way! This video from Deep Under The Sky Credits game that fully developed using Adobe Air and Starling It's already on iOS and Android. And planned to be published on Mac/PC on Steam. Awesome crazy game!

[pierBover]

Consider this: how long have we been waiting for and demanding Workers in iOS?

Unity, Shiva, Unreal, Haxe / OpenFL, RoboVM, Xamarin, and even Phonegap have provided some form of threading / concurrency for years. Those solutions are mostly open source or developed by small / medium companies (compared to Adobe).  As an example Unity Technologies has 300 employees and is miles ahead in the gaming industry. Adobe has 11000 employees, and of course they won't disclose how many of those are focused on the Air / Flash platform.

If Adobe, one of the best and biggest software developers in the world, hasn't yet given us that fundamental feature is simply because Adobe is not investing enough resources to Air to make that happen. Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere... all those are getting significant new features on a constant basis. Flash / Air is not.

Like someone else said in this thread, Flash/Air is the new Fireworks or Director. It will be kept alive to be an usable tool for the hard die fans, but it will not be given any significant amount of investment by Adobe. Not enough to keep up with the competition with other mobile multiplatform tools.

[chris.campbell]

iOS workers is still on the roadmap.  I don't have a release date, but I know it'll be an extended beta type of feature.  Most of the concurrency work was gated on the new AOT compiler work, which is still being actively worked on.  Lots of bug and performance fixes were added to AIR 15 and we're not stopping there.