Adobe Updates Flash Builder and Flex to Support Building iOS Applications

Oh Flash, how I miss you.

Definitely kidding, but I suppose it's good to see progress being made in some weird fashion.

So he is on an Apple laptop with a nice iron man and android sticker to hide the Apple logo.

If it works, it works, if it doesn't, apps that use it will get drowned out by bad reviews. The customer gets to decide now.

MSlaw said:

If it works, it works, if it doesn't, apps that use it will get drowned out by bad reviews. The customer gets to decide now.

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Millions of iPad buyers have already decided.

z4n3 said:

Quite sad to see Adobe use a MacBook Pro covered with a Android logo.. although it looks quite cool, still kinda seems petty...

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I'll break this down.

Quite sad to see Adobe use a MacBook Pro covered with a Android logo..

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although it looks quite cool,

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still kinda seems petty...

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Even the first order predicate logic and rules of inference fail to prove the conclusion. lol

kerryb said:

Millions of iPad buyers have already decided.

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As well as over a hundred million iPhone and iPod touch users.

Here's to more WATERED DOWN Apps on the AppStore . . .

If it's "cross-platform" then that means NONE of the UNIQUE FEATURES of iOS will be usable in these conversions. Otherwise, the conversion would not work on Android and Blackberry.

Hence, Apple's argument the first time. Apps wll be "ordinary" leading users to feel that it is iOS that is simply "ordinary."

There ought to be a disclaimer for these Apps.

BigJayhawk said:

If it's "cross-platform" then that means NONE of the UNIQUE FEATURES of iOS will be usable in these conversions. Otherwise, the conversion would not work on Android and Blackberry.

Hence, Apple's argument the first time. Apps wll be "ordinary" leading users to feel that it is iOS that is simply "ordinary."

There ought to be a disclaimer for these Apps.

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what unique features?

I am curious as to how developers truly view Flash as a development tool for iOS devices. I had a chance to consult on a project and found that the developers were nothing but frustrated with Flash.. the designers, on the other hand liked it because they (thought) they knew what they were doing... yet they brought in developers as well as me because they couldn't get the project off the ground...

kerryb said:

Millions of iPad buyers have already decided.

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cvaldes said:

As well as over a hundred million iPhone and iPod touch users.

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This isn't a discussion about the Flash plugin, it's a discussion about Flash Builder.

zim said:

I am curious as to how developers truly view Flash as a development tool for iOS devices. I had a chance to consult on a project and found that the developers were nothing but frustrated with Flash.. the designers, on the other hand liked it because they (thought) they knew what they were doing... yet they brought in developers as well as me because they couldn't get the project off the ground...

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Frustrated because what?

I've developed in AS3, and I had no issues.

BillyBobBongo said:

This isn't a discussion about the Flash plugin, it's a discussion about Flash Builder.

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You think they know the difference?

Yeah, kinda funny with the giant sticker on the MBP and that he didn't demo on the iPhone, just on the iPad and iPod... seemed to work pretty good an all machines though (prehaps they edited the sound not to hear the fans on the MBP go bezerk at +6000rpm

kerryb said:

Millions of iPad buyers have already decided.

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cvaldes said:

As well as over a hundred million iPhone and iPod touch users.

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What, exactly, did millions of us decide about which compiler devs use to bring us apps??

BillyBobBongo said:

This isn't a discussion about the Flash plugin, it's a discussion about Flash Builder.

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They don't care; they hear "Flash " and instantly froth at the mouth.

Printing support

That is one of the features that makes writting Flash applications worth, at least for me. It works across platforms (when it does) quite well, the rest (for forms and similar uses) HTML5 may be a better option.

BigJayhawk said:

If it's "cross-platform" then that means NONE of the UNIQUE FEATURES of iOS will be usable in these conversions. Otherwise, the conversion would not work on Android and Blackberry.

Hence, Apple's argument the first time. Apps wll be "ordinary" leading users to feel that it is iOS that is simply "ordinary."

There ought to be a disclaimer for these Apps.

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Are you one of those people that think iOS is somehow 'magical' and anything other than an operating system for a mobile platform?

"Apps will be ordinary"... Give me a break. Also, unique features? Eh?

Who cares. LOL that Adobe is still peddling this junk. And for hundreds of dollars.

People sure get worked up whenever Flash is mentioned.

As a developer believe me when I point out:

* Developers don't care about the Flash debate directly one bit. It's about using tools that meet the needs of the project. All platforms, SDKs, IDEs, etc., have their advantages and disadvantages. It's hard enough to choose the best tools for the job, balancing short and long term requirements without thowing a lot of emontion into the decision. Flash is amost unbeatable in some areas, useless in others and somewhere in between in most. I won't even comment on Flex directly because I haven't used it.

* There are tons of misinformation in this area thrown about.

* The ability to develop apps using Flash will not reduce the quality of apps in the app store. Flash makes some things easy but releasing an app requires a lot of different skills. Flash only makes a few of them so easy "anybody" could do it. You're still going to need developer skills to release apps. There are tons of crap now and a small percentage of good to great apps. That's not going to change.

BigJayhawk said:

If it's "cross-platform" then that means NONE of the UNIQUE FEATURES of iOS will be usable in these conversions. Otherwise, the conversion would not work on Android and Blackberry.

Hence, Apple's argument the first time. Apps wll be "ordinary" leading users to feel that it is iOS that is simply "ordinary."

There ought to be a disclaimer for these Apps.

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Have a look at this and tell me what's ordinary about it:

http://machinarium.net

That game is made with Flash, it runs on OS X (and can even be purchased in the Mac AppStore), Linux and Windows and if Steve Jobs would listen to reason, stuff like this could also run just as easily on your fancy little iGadgets. At least now, thanks to Adobe and not thanks to Apple, there is a way for developers and designers to also port their great work to your crippled iPads and iPhones.

By the way, Flash 10.3 runs extraordinarily well on the Samsung Galaxy S2. I don't know why His Steveness is brainwashing everybody to believe that Flash performs poorly on phones. But then again, the S2 runs with an OS that was NOT designed to restrict its users and it also has a fully featured web browser.

flash support?

im a bit confused... is flash supported on iOS???

eugo said:

im a bit confused... is flash supported on iOS???

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In the web browser, no. Apple was banning third party development tools but they gave in because they ended up hitting too many developers. This is similar to the game engine Unity, if you want an example.

I'm just hoping this won't be a complete mess like Adobe's publishing tools where you download 500 mb pictures instead of text. Might as well just scan the printed magazine while they're at it.

Winni said:

...
By the way, Flash 10.3 runs extraordinarily well on the Samsung Galaxy S2. I don't know why His Steveness is brainwashing everybody to believe that Flash performs poorly on phones. But then again, the S2 runs with an OS that was NOT designed to restrict its users and it also has a fully featured web browser.

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Probably because the OS X implementation of Flash was terrible. And if Adobe wasn't going to fix issues on that, who could say how well they would do an iOS version of Flash? So it's great that Adobe actually did a good version for something. However, Apple made its decision based on the support and performance Flash had on OS X. I also believe Apple examined Flash on other platforms and found issues as well.

Flash may be a great product, but to me it's worth is tarnished because people used flash for everything on websites that simple html could've done. Every tool has its uses. And every tool has its abuses. Flash was abused and bloated websites that had no reason to use Flash at all.

But how else can I have my restaurant's wine list take 2 minutes to load while you listen to elevator music?

It's a dog sleep dog technology

Winni said:

By the way, Flash 10.3 runs extraordinarily well on the Samsung Galaxy S2. I don't know why His Steveness is brainwashing everybody to believe that Flash performs poorly on phones.

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Sounds like Adobe has spared no expense to make 10.3 suck less. "His Steveness" has no incentive to wait several major releases out for Adobe to 'get it right'. I will say that on XP, I see my browser complain regularly about the Flash plugin crashing. I for one can't wait to enjoy that experience on my iPad 2.

I will say that Flash on my Tivo Premiere is dog slow. I am sure this embedded form of Flash isn't yet synced up with the improvements that came with 10.3, but given how much coffee I've been able to brew while enjoying Tivo's glorious HDUI written in Flash, I can hardly fault anyone having naughty thoughts about Flash running on a PHONE when I could launch my own Starbuck's franchise with all of the wait states generated by my Flash-based DVR.

Oh yeah, Tivo says they can't enable that second core either thanks to the fine engineering of Flash on Linux. Wish Tivo's execs had some of His Steveness' caution before basing their entire new Series 4 UI architecture on Flash technology. It's not been good.