Another great AIR app running on multiple mobile devices

The guys from Avant Goût Studios released an interactive book for Android tablets, iPad, and PlayBook last week. It is called Apolline & Léon and it looks just great. If you don’t believe me, watch the video below.

It was created using Flash CS 5.5 and Adobe AIR 2.7. It is already available in App Store, Android Market ~~(and soon it will be available on BlackBerry App World)~~, and BlackBerry App World.

This is just another great example of how easy you can reach multiple devices using the Flash Platform with high quality content and great performance. Well done guys and I’m looking forward to seeing more apps like this!

June 28, 2011 | Filed Under Mobile | 1 Comment

BlackBerry Developer Challenge

This spring RIM offered a free PlayBook device to any developer who got his PlayBook app accepted in Blackberry App World store.

I know many of you didn’t get your apps done in time to qualify for this, but there is no need to be sad. RIM is running a developer challenge until August 12th. What does this mean to you? Well, if you are a Flash developer you can submit applications to the Best Adobe Flash/AIR app category. What can you win? Money and or fame :) They offer over $3 million in prizes.

You can read more and register for the contest here.

PS. A while ago I released my AIR application for splitting a restaurant bill to Android Market and BlackBerry App World. The stats are pretty interesting: I get about 10x more downloads on BlackBerry store than Android Market (my application has excellent reviews on both stores). Of course this has to do with the fact that PlayBook market is younger and there aren’t so many apps in there. I think this is an opportunity for developers/companies to get “THE APP” status for their apps :)

June 28, 2011 | Filed Under PlayBook | 1 Comment

Slides from Bucharest Mobile Camp 2011

Some of you asked for the slides we used at the Bucharest Mobile Camp 2011. You can find my slides here and Arno Gourdol’s slides here.

~~I’m still waiting for Sanyu Kiruluta’s slides. When I get them I’ll update this post.~~

And here are Sanyu Kiruluta’s slides.

Enjoy!

June 27, 2011 | Filed Under Presentations | 3 Comments

Flash Builder 4.5.1 and Flex 4.5.1 are out!

When we launched Flash Builder and Flex 4.5 in May we said that we will have an update a month later that brings Flex mobile development to all three platforms: Android, iOS, and PlayBook (BlackBerry Tablet OS). And this is the update we were talking about.

So starting today, you can build all sorts of amazing mobile apps that run across these different devices.

If you want to find more about this, make sure you register for Adobe Developer Week. This is a series of webinars that will start today.

In the meantime you can check Serge‘s videos.

June 20, 2011 | Filed Under AIR, Android, Flex, iOS, Mobile, PlayBook | Leave a Comment

Adobe AIR 2.7 is out!

We’ve just released Adobe AIR 2.7 for desktop, Android, iOS, and PlayBook. In terms of features, here is a list of the most important.

Mobile:

Improved performance for AIR apps (including those built with Flex) running on iOS. You will see up to a 4X improvement for the same app when running on AIR 2.7.
Faster development time for iOS applications – there is a new mode for testing and debugging your AIR app on iOS devices that will enable faster cycles.
And this is one I’m sure you’ll love: you can install the AIR runtime on the SD card of your Android device.

Desktop:

Integrated support for Media Measurement – allows companies to see how content is distributed and viewed by users
Acoustic echo cancellation – this is the same feature already available in Flash Player 10.3. It means you can enable users to do VoIP using speakers and microphone (no need for headsets).
Navigation Improvements for HTML Content – developers can now respond to a new event to be notified when content within the HTMLLoader control attempts to change the location of a page. This enhancement provides developers with a better way to implement intra-application navigation.

Watch my fellow evangelist, Renaun Erickson, showing AIR app performance on an iPad:

You can download AIR 2.7 from here. This month, Flash Builder 4.5 will get an update to enable support for AIR 2.7 and PlayBook will receive an update OTA of AIR 2.7 by the end of June.

June 15, 2011 | Filed Under AIR, Mobile | 5 Comments

GUIMark 3 – Mobile Performance Test for HTML5 and Flash

Sean Christman of EffectiveUI has released the results for his latest test that measure HTML5 and Flash performance on mobile devices (smartphones and tablets). GUIMark 3 tests different tasks like bitmap drawing, vector drawing, compute tests, and video playback (all in all there are 200 tests).

The results might be a surprise for some but not for me. As Sean put it “Flash maintains a 2x performance lead over HTML5 on average”. I encourage you to read his post and let others know about this. I think this test confirms all the effort Adobe put in optimizing the Flash Platform for mobile. And it shows that it wasn’t just talk.

Disclosure: Adobe funded this effort, but anyone knowing Sean will know that he is more interested in finding the truth than favoring a particular side.

June 14, 2011 | Filed Under Mobile | Leave a Comment

Bucharest Mobile Camp 2011

On June 20th we’ll host a Mobile Camp in the Bucharest Adobe office. If you want to learn about mobile development for Android, iOS, and PlayBook using Adobe tools and frameworks make sure you’ll be there.

For my session I was thinking of showing AIR applications and how you can build them. I’m also open to the idea of letting you show off your mobile apps created with Adobe AIR and Flex/ActionScript. So, if you have such an app just send me an email and we will see how we can fit this in my session.

Finally, we will have a special guest: Sanyu Kiriluta of RIM. She is EMEA Team Lead Developer Relations. If you haven’t seen a PlayBook and want to find more about it, then join her session.

We might have a special guest for the keynote. I will update the post as soon as I have more information.

In the mean time go to the registration page and see you on June 20th (if you don’t know how to get to our office, take a look here)!

June 8, 2011 | Filed Under Conferences | 13 Comments

Coding for Curious ActionScript 3 Workshop

It is my great pleasure to make some noise for a workshop on ActionScript put together by Fernando Colaco. I first met Fernando at the 2010 gotoAndSki() conference. His passion for beautiful and highly functional UIs and his passion to share and teach others are behind his work on organizing the gotoAndSki() Swiss conference, “Coding for Curious” workshop, and other events.

While “Coding for curious” event is not a free event, I encourage you to take a look at the event page. In his words it is all about:

[...]attendees will build a simple game from scratch in this ONE DAY INTENSIVE WORKSHOP, and will learn several advanced concepts and useful tricks along the way. No previous coding (or even Flash) knowledge needed at all. No scary technical jargon will be used to make things sound complex, because they are not.

ACTIONSCRIPT 3 is the ideal language to learn how to program, specially thanks to how easy it is to use and manipulate images and graphic elements, and adding interactivity. The approach will be in the most accessible way, actually without computers in the first hour, using attendees on stage to explain in a practical way how a program works and “enact” concepts like variables, objects, functions, loops and conditions. Then, it’s hands-on and the pace will progressively get more and more interesting.

Well done Fernando and hope to see you soon :)

June 7, 2011 | Filed Under Others | Leave a Comment

Airgile – one of the best online project management tools

Last month, João Saleiro of WebFuel.pt sent me an email about his latest project: Airgile. I logged in using the demo account and looked around. After 10 or 15 minutes of trying various workflows I replied to his email congratulating him and his team for a great job.

So what is Airgile? It is professional online tool for project management. You can:

Manage tasks and projects
Track and plan projects
Collaborate with your team
Communicate with your clients
Share documents
Work remotely

In terms of price and deployment options it offers anything you want: free accounts (it offers a good balance between the features), paid accounts, and deployment on your servers if you want to have complete control over the information.

What about what is under the hood? I talked to João and here are some details if you are curious about how the product works:

Backend. They use PHP and MySQL. For client communication they are using Flex remoting with AMFPHP. They use PHPUnit for testing. Also they are able to update the product with a new version without stopping/restarting the machines.
Frontend. They used Flex framework 4.5, Swiz, and a home baked framework for data management.
What’s next? They are working on integration between Airgile and Eclipse/Flash Builder using Mylyn, SCRUM and Spring planning support, and a mobile version.

Great job João!

June 2, 2011 | Filed Under Others | Leave a Comment