FLEX{er} » News

AIR 2.0 Is Now Available!

Andrei Ionescu — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 07:56:00 +0000

Yesterday, Adobe has released AIR 2.0 runtime and can be downloaded at get.adobe.com/air/.

The new things in AIR 2.0 are:

New Webkit with additional HTML5 and CSS3 support
Multitouch and gestures
Enhanced drag-and-drop support
Enhanced socket support
Enhanced printer interaction
DNS resolution
Local microphone API
Native document handlers to open document
Native process APIs
Native installer
Socket servers and peer-to-peer networking
TLS/SSL sockets
UDP networking support
Global error handler
IPv6 network support

I named just a few changes but there are a lot more, so please read the release notes.

If you to know even more read the Adobe AIR Team Blog article about the new AIR 2.0 at http://blogs.adobe.com/air/2010/06/introducing_air_2.html

Flash Player 10.1 Release Candidate 7 for Windows, Macintosh and Linux

Andrei Ionescu — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 07:16:55 +0000

Yesterday Adobe did release Flash Player 10.1 Release Candidate 7.

This public prerelease is an opportunity for developers to test and provide early feedback to Adobe on new features, enhancements, and compatibility with previously authored content. Consumers can try the prerelease of Flash Player 10.1 to preview hardware acceleration of video on supported Windows PCs, x86-based netbooks, and Android 2.2 supported devices. You can also help make Flash Player better by visiting all of your favorite sites, making sure they work the same or better than with the current player. We definitely want your feedback to help improve the final version, expected to ship in the first half of 2010.

Flash Player “Gala” Preview 2 for Mac OS 10.6.3 Released on AdobeLabs

Andrei Ionescu — Wed, 26 May 2010 19:07:26 +0000

Half a day ago new versions of Flash Player were released. I’m talking about Flash Player 10.1 Release Candidate 6, Flash Player “Gala” for Mac OS X 10.6.3, Flash Player 10.1 for Android and a few other versions.

Flash Player “Gala” introduces support for H.264 video hardware decoding on Mac OS X 10.6.3 which should reduce the processor activity on YouTube or other video social sites. To bad there is no debug version for Flash Player “Gala” yet.

You can read more about these releases here and about “Gala” here.

Adobe Stops Development for iPhone

Andrei Ionescu — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 15:49:17 +0000

Two day ago, Mike Chamber, Principal Product Manager at Adobe announced that there will not be any future investment in iPhone based Flash development.

This is the response after Apple put out a new draft of its iPhone developer program license, which banned private APIs and required apps to be written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine.

Mike said:

We will still be shipping the ability to target the iPhone and iPad in Flash CS5. However, we are not currently planning any additional investments in that feature.

Also, developers should expect that Apple will remove their over 100 Flash CS5 based applications currently in the iTunes Store.

The next Adobe’s move will be to focus on Android platform which grows and is getting stable and mature. This is why developers are advised to port their applications from iPhone to Android platform; and because Adobe announced that they are working closely with Google to bring both Flash Player 10.1 and AIR 2.0 on the Android platform.

In my opinion all sides have to loose because of Apple’s decision to ban third party APIs:

Mobile users – Flash experience will be nonexistent, lots of web pages will display the Lego icon or will look like broken pages
Developers – They’ll have to learn the agreed programming languages to deploy on iPhone
Adobe – Loses a mobile platform
Apple – Loses a part of mobile users, developers and credibility because Adobe has demonstrated that Flash Player is working well on mobile platforms alike iPhone.

In conclusion, Adobe switched to open platforms leaving Apple’s lock down platform behind, focusing on bringing the best experiences into Android platform.

Flash Player 10.1 Beta 3 Is Out on Adobe Labs

Andrei Ionescu — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 09:03:47 +0000

A new version of Flash Player 10.1 has been released: Flash Player 10.1 beta 3. I summarized what’s new from the release notes bellow.

Support for new platforms
Designed for mobility
Developer productivity
Enhanced browser integration
Expanded options for high quality media delivery

Lots of fixed bugs are included in this release, bugs from graphics, networking, audio/video, text input, etc. More in the release notes.

Good news. There is a debug version for Flash Player 10.1 beta 3 available.

Adobe AIR 2.0 Beta 2 Released

Andrei Ionescu — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 22:21:13 +0000

Today, 2nd of February 2010 Adobe did launch Adobe AIR 2.0 beta 2. The first beta release of AIR 2 was in November 2009 and after 3 months Adobe AIR 2.0 is almost ready for release. Good job AIR team!

Some features and enhancement:

Print Job Enhancements – better control of the way content is printed from an AIR application
TLS/SSL sockets – TLSv1, SSLv3
Flash Access support
IME API/IME Text Input Enhancements
AIRCore framework – service monitoring and URL file promise classes

Go to official AIR 2.0 page and read the release notes, the FAQ and download the AIR 2 beta 2 runtime and SDK. Along with all these read the announcement on the Adobe AIR Team Blog and test the samples.

Applications built against Adobe AIR 2 beta 1 will not run using the AIR 2 beta 2 runtime. In order for an AIR 2 beta 1 application to run on the AIR 2 beta 2 runtime, the namespace of the beta 1 application descriptor file must first be updated to “2.0beta2″ and compiled against the AIR 2 beta 2 SDK.

Build Applications for iPad with Flash

Andrei Ionescu — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 01:31:11 +0000

Today, Apple just announced the new iPad device. Great peace of work… and a better news is that the developers will be able to develop applications for iPad using the Flash Pro CS5. You may already know that we are able to develop applications for iPhone using Flash Pro CS5. Following that path, making applications for the new iPad using the tool above, looks like the natural way.

Although Adobe didn’t announced that Flash Builder 4 will be able to package iPhone apps it seems that it is possible – read this article from Ted Patrick blog.

I’m glad that Adobe is prepared for the new iPad. And although Apple do not want to add the Flash Player on their devices Adobe found a way making all Flash Platform developers, also, iPhone and iPad developers. You can read more here.

New Updates to Flash CS4 Professional and Flash Media Server

Andrei Ionescu — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 20:57:33 +0000

Last week some updates where released by Adobe on the following products:

Adobe Flash CS4 Professional
Adobe Flash Media Server

All of them are updates containing bug fixes and performance improvements. Adobe Flash CS4 Professional 10.0.2 Hotfix targets the Mac Pro desktops, Adobe Flash Player 10 Security Release Update for Flash CS4 Professional do fix this security issues and regarding the Flash Media Server 3.5 update read more in this pdf. Read also this post from Kevin Towes.

Adobe AIR 1.5.3 Released

Andrei Ionescu — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 22:50:57 +0000

On 8th of December 2009 Adobe did release Adobe AIR 1.5.3. This new version includes:

updated version of Flash Player
security updates
bug fixes

Both the runtime and the SDK are available for download. Please read the developer release notes which include critical information that all developers building AIR applications should be sure to read including important information related to certificate renewals as well as bug fixes. Read also the article on Adobe AIR blog.

Localized versions of the release notes for both developers and end users are also available.

We wish you happy coding and development.

First Full Flash Player for Mobile Devices and PCs from Adobe

Andrei Ionescu — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 08:28:48 +0000

Today, Adobe unveiled Adobe® Flash® Player 10.1 software for smartphones, smartbooks, netbooks, PCs and other Internet-connected devices, allowing content created using the Adobe Flash Platform to reach users wherever they are.

A public beta of the browser-based runtime is expected to be available for Windows Mobile, Palm webOS and desktop operating systems including Windows, Macintosh and Linux later this year. Public betas for Google Android and Symbian OS are expected to be available in early 2010. In addition, Adobe and RIM announced a joint collaboration to bring Flash Player to Blackberry smartphones, and Google joined close to 50 other industry players in the Open Screen Project initiative.

The browser-based runtime leverages the power of the Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) for accelerated video and graphics while conserving battery life and minimizing resource utilization.

Led by Adobe, the Open Screen Project includes close to 50 industry leaders working together to provide a consistent runtime environment across mobile phones, desktops and other consumer electronic devices. The initiative addresses the challenges of Web browsing and standalone applications on a broad range of devices, and removes the barriers to publishing content and applications seamlessly across screens.