Flash Player 11 and AIR 3 to be released in early October

Today Adobe announced that the next version of our runtimes, Flash Player 11 and AIR 3, will be released in early October. This is great news for all developers who rely on the Flash Platform for building desktop and mobile applications.

Just a reminder about some of the coolest new features coming with these releases:

Gaming

If you’ve ever played games like Machinarium or Tanki Online you know that Flash Player is one of the best options out there for developers and companies who want to build online games. To help you getting the most out of the Flash Platform we created a gaming center: Adobe Gaming Solutions.

We are also announcing the Starling framework: a lightweight framework for 2D graphics and animation that combines the simplicity of Flash with the power of the Stage 3D API. It is an open source ActionScript library. Watch this particle effect with Starling and Flash Player 11:

Adobe will also soon make a 3D framework technology preview called Proscenium. This will allow developers using Flash Builder to rapidly prototype apps focused on simple content interaction and display, whether for simple games, visualization, or high-quality rendering of small object collections.

Mobile Apps Support

The Native Extensions feature is aimed at mobile developers. I believe that this feature was the “missing link” that stopped some people who otherwise would have chosen the Flash Platform.

Indeed being able to write native code to expose native hardware and OS features and APIs means that you can basically extend the AIR runtime from now on. So, instead of asking Adobe for support for notifications or the contact list API you can create or buy/reuse a native extension that does this.

I know many people are already working on a number of native extensions many of them taking care of some of the most popular developer requests. I hope we will have some kind of a market so people who want to build native extensions and those who want to consume them will be able to meet.

Finally, the Stage 3D API will come to mobile devices too. So this means it will be possible run even more incredible content on these devices.

What about Flex and Flash Builder

With the new version of the runtimes almost out it is only natural to ask this question: what about Flex and Flash Builder? Well, don’t worry because Flex 4.6 and Flash Builder 4.6 are coming this year too (and if you are a Flash Builder 4.5 customer you’ll get this version for free).

Flex 4.6 extends the mobile support introduced by Flex 4.5 by adding new components and better performance. Here are some of them:

SplitViewNavigator

CallOutButton

SpinnerList

DateSpinner

Toggle Switch

The other big news is the improved support for text input across devices. Flex will be using the native text input control on every platform. What does this mean for developers? It means you can customize the keyboard (having access to all supported keyboards; e.g. numeric keyboard or email keboard) and you have access to features like spell checking or cut/copy/paste.

In terms of performance, simply repackaging with Flash Builder and Flex 4.6 can boost your application performance up to 50%.

These releases will provide support for the latest operating systems like iOS 5 and the upcoming Android OS.

Also Flash Builder 4.6 will have support for monitoring network traffic and unit testing for mobile projects.

Download

You can download the release candidates from Adobe Labs.

If you do the math, you’ll see that it has been almost three months from the previous updates of the runtimes, Flex, and Flash Builder. This is not much time, and yet the teams were able to add lots of new features. So I think they deserve a big round of applause! Well done guys!

September 21, 2011 | Filed Under Others | 4 Comments 

About Flash Mobile Versatility

The Flash Platform as a compelling mobile solution across devices is enjoying an excellent momentum. I’m getting and seeing more and more Flash powered mobile apps. While this is interesting and cool this not what I want to focus on in this post.

Most people think about the Flash Platform for mobile as something that enables developers to build mobile apps for Android, iOS, and BlackBerry Tablet OS. What it is not so evident is it’s versatility: you can build almost whatever you want. And when I say this I mean it. You can build sophisticated games (and soon you will be able to build cool 3D games thanks to Stage3D), you can build beautiful apps for enterprise or consumer brands, you can build high performance apps for consumers, and the list can go on and on.

The last big thing that was a show stopper for some projects is about to be removed by the Native Extensions feature. This feature (it will be available in the soon-to-be-released next version of Adobe AIR) will enable developers to extend the runtime and achieve deeper integration with the device by accessing device/OS capabilities or other applications.

Let me give you just one example. Three applications that are quite different in what needs they solve while working and looking just great.

Cassandra Stand is a companion application for Android, iOS, and PlayBook devices. It picks  your location automatically and displays time/date, temperature, and news. While this app is a simple one it works and looks great. Congratulations to Leonardo Risuleo and the team.

Web Reader is probably one of the best PlayBook apps for those who use RSS readers. It is fast and intuitive and it works great with Google Reader. I’d love to see these guys writing an article about how they built their app. As with the previous two apps I installed the app on my tablet and played with it. My RSS list is pretty big and I was curious about how they will display all the categories and how easy would be to navigate between the various items. All I can say is that they did a good job :)

Hungry Cho-Cho is a funny little game for iOS. Tomer Reiss of KWAZI shown me this app during my visit to Israel earlier this year. It worked just great on my iPod Touch (at that time they were using AIR 2.5; I’m curious how it would feel with AIR 2.7 as this release brought more speed and performance especially for iOS devices). They released their application and he wrote a blog post about some of the things he learned while developing the game.

If you created some cool mobile apps using the Flash Platform, you know how you can get in touch with me. I’m out!

September 19, 2011 | Filed Under Others | Leave a Comment 

Future of Flex

Andrew Shorten (group product manager for Flex and developer tools at Adobe) just posted an interesting write-up about the future of Flex. If you are a Flex developer I’m sure you’ll find this worth reading. I know I did.

I won’t spoil the surprise but I have to say that I think this is good news!

If you have comments, please leave a message here! I will make sure it reaches Andrew’s inbox!

August 26, 2011 | Filed Under Others | 4 Comments 

What are your favorite iOS/Android apps?

I’m really curious to find out what your favorite iOS or Android apps are. If you don’t mind sharing your preferences with me and spending a couple of minutes on writing them down, please drop a comment. You’ll get my eternal gratitude!

PS. You can name as many as you want as long as you consider them killer (or favorite apps).

August 17, 2011 | Filed Under Others | 19 Comments 

About Different Types of Fragmentation

If you are a developer fragmentation is part of your life. Everywhere you look you find it:

Judging fragmentation in terms of good or bad is counter productive. It is what it is, right? In the end it gives us more work which is not that bad :)

There is fragmentation and fragmentation

However, there is another type of fragmentation that is becoming more and more visible. And this version is quite annoying. It is about having all these devices like islands in a big ocean. And all these islands are not aware of each other and they don’t even know they are islands.

What am I talking about? Let’s take a look at a typical household. You’ll find devices like:

And the simple truth is that all these devices are not aware of each other. Or in other words, if I have a smartphone and I’m home enjoying some TV time on the latest television set I don’t get any extra functionality on either device.

All together now

So what could we do to improve this simple scenario (a smart TV and a smartphone/tablet)? Well think of the “ultimate” remote control”. In a perfect world, when I want to find something interesting to watch at TV, I’d pull out my tablet (or smartphone) and open up the remote control app. This app will connect to television or set-top box and retrieve all the programs that are available.

Then it will present them in a useful way. Today, we think in terms of channels. You have x channels and you zip through them. Instead of this, this Remote Control app would display the available programs sorted on categories: SF movies, nature, cooking, news, fashion, sports, and so on. So with a quick flip through movie sections I could find easily an interesting movie. Or if I love football or tennis I can find what’s available right now.

Next, suppose that I select a tennis match (the US Open is coming by the way). While I’m watching the match I could choose the social section of the Remote Control app and I can check to see if my buddies are online. I could ping them to watch the match together and chat using text messages, VOIP, or video calls directly from the tablet device.

While enjoying the match together with my friends, my wife is on the way home. She has a smartphone as well and because of that I can get a notification on my smartphone or tablet that she is quite close to home. So I can go to the kitchen and start preparing the dinner. She could have left for me instructions for me (using her smartphone or personal computer) and I could check them on my device or using the fridge integrated tablet (did I mention the fridge has an integrated tablet?).

While cooking some delicious dishes somebody rings the doorbell. My tablet pop ups a notification and with one tap I can see who’s outside and decide to open the door or to ask him what he wants.

My wife wants a new couch and I start browsing for options using my laptop. Once I found something that looks great I choose to display the web site on my TV so we can see what it looks like. While the images are displayed on the TV I use my laptop to navigate, rotate, or zoom the images.

The next morning, as we are getting ready to leave the house I could check the car status on my phone: fuel level, service notifications, outside temperature. As I arrive at the office I realize that I forgot to program the air conditioning unit. I just fix this using my mobile phone.

Present or the land of opportunities

Now back to reality. Most of what I have described here is already possible. Of course there is no off- the-shelf solution but a smart developer can create software that makes different devices work together. I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately and also I’ve been talking to others smarter than me (fellow evangelist Mark Doherty has lots of idea about this cross device experience).

And the reason we don’t have off-the-shelf solutions (or solutions that do exist are very expensive) is that we don’t have a standard that is implemented by all the manufacturers who build smart devices. Manufacturers will have to expose some of the core functionality of their devices to third parties as well if we want to build software like my “Remote Control” example. Today it is pretty hard to come in as a third party developer/company and try to build in some interoperability.

How is this post related to what I’m usually talking about on my blog? Well, you can do many things with the Flash Platform since you can use it to build stuff for so many devices (personal computers, embedded devices, mobile devices, Arduino and Phidgets). Maybe we can start building cool prototypes and go after the big consumer electronics manufacturers and show them what is possible to do. This is one way to turn around this issue.

I don’t have enough insight into the consumer industry so what I’m about to say could be horribly wrong. I have the impression that many of the big players (companies who build TVs, cars, broadcasters and content providers) are just missing this. There is no doubt in my mind that one way or another we will end up talking about this type of fragmentation using the past tense. Until then, I wish you an amazing weekend and don’t forget to post a comment if you have something to share!

PS 1. Almost two years ago I wrote a post on a somehow related matter (augmented reality + always connected/synced). Back then I was pretty sure that in about two years we would have something like that available.

PS 2. There are some companies who are working in this direction (use your mobile device with your television, making home automation more accessible) but these examples are far too few.

August 5, 2011 | Filed Under Others | 4 Comments 

About Tablets and Smartphones

Lately, it is quite impossible to attend a software conference and not see sessions dedicated to mobile development. This is the hot topic of the day and rightly so, I believe. However, I have the impression that many people think that tablets and smartphones are almost the same thing. This is something that I do not believe is true. Furthermore, I think that because of this belief held by others many tablet applications end up being just a scaled up version of smartphone apps. If a tablet is just a phone with a bigger screen then a tablet app is just a bigger resolution smartphone app, right?

Let’s see why do I think that a tablet it is not just a bigger phone.

Tablets are more powerful than smartphones

This seems to be just a truism. Well, it is and yet most applications that run on tablets and smartphones tend to offer the same set of features and experience.

This is  suboptimal because on a tablet you have more storage space, a more powerful processor, and a bigger screen. And, if the battery doesn’t last for a full day it is not a tragedy. Is not like you end up in the middle of nowhere with a dead phone :)

All these differences should be exploited to create tablet applications that help people to do more than what they are able to do on a smartphone. If you take into account only the bigger screen you have something that enables people to read for hours without getting teary eyed. When more storage space is available , for example, why not let the user decide how many GB your application can use and offer him a true offline experience for things like email, news, RSS feeds, videos, and so on.

Tablets are shared smartphones are personal

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I have the feeling that, at least in the case of home users, a tablet is shared. This is not the case with your smartphone. You don’t say “hey mate, here is my phone. Just return it  in four hours.”

And if this is true, why are so many tablets apps built with a single user in mind? How can you have a tablet shared when you have to logout from your social or email accounts in order to let the other user do something?

Again, this feels to me like a big opportunity that it is missed. Why not enable multiusers for them and support on all the apps for which it makes sense? Remember, you do have plenty of storage space…

The Missed Opportunity

I think that this tablet shortsightedness is part of the reason for what we are seeing today: there a far fewer apps for tablets than for phones. And this is true for all the application stores.

I think that developers have a real opportunity here, and that for now it is just being missed. Once we fully understand that tablets and smartphones are different and people want and should use them differently, we will see much more innovation.

July 29, 2011 | Filed Under Mobile, Others | 3 Comments 

Adobe AIR and Sony Tablet Opportunities Webinar

Today, July 20th, join Adobe & Sony for a webinar on Sony Tablet devices and the Adobe AIR App Challenge. Fellow evangelists, Ryan Stewart and Mark Doherty, will present the two webinars:

You can register here.

July 20, 2011 | Filed Under Others | 4 Comments 

Adobe AIR App Challenge for Sony Tablets

Yes, you heard me right! Sony has just announced not one but two tablets based on the Android 3.x (Honeycomb) operating system. As you can see in the picture above they look pretty impressive. What’s more, one of them has a two screen design. I really look forward to seeing what creative Flash/Flex developers can put together for such a device.

And what better way of getting you mobilized and working on your AIR app for the Sony tablets than entering in the Adobe AIR App Challenge for  Sony tablet.

The big prize is nothing short of $100,00 and there are many more (in fact there are another 7 prizes ranging from $10,000 to $20,000).

All you have to do is write your app optimized for these tablets, make sure you upload the final app to http://www.airappchallenge.com/, and publish it to the Android Market before November 11th. Pretty simple, isn’t it?

All the finalists (top 80) will receive a prototype of these two tablets so they can test and fine tune their apps before the final round.

If you want to get a shot at the MAX Showcase App prizes you have to finish your app by September 16th.

Now get started because the contest just started today :). You can read more here.

PS. In case you’re wondering how you’ll be able to create your app for the Sony Tablet S2 (code name for the one with two screens) then here is the answer: you’ll be able to use one of the coolest features of AIR 3 (the upcoming version of AIR) called Native Extensions. Using this feature you can expose Android APIs to your ActionScript code and use them in your AIR app.

July 13, 2011 | Filed Under Others | 4 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:

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:

Great job João!

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

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