Adobe Releases AIR, Flex 3

[MacRumors]

Adobe today announced the immediate availability of Adobe AIR, a new platform for building rich internet applications (RIAs).

Adobe AIR enables developers to create RIAs on the desktop using the skills and Web technologies — such as HTML, Ajax, PDF, Adobe Flash and Adobe Flex — they already employ. Applications deployed on Adobe AIR have the advantages of browser-based RIAs, such as speed of development, ease of use, and access from virtually anywhere. Yet they also have the benefits of desktop applications, such as the ability to read/write local files, work with other applications on a user’s computer and maintain local data storage on the desktop.

Adobe points out that AIR makes use of various open source technologies including WebKit, the Apple-sponsored rendering engine behind Safari.

Also released is Adobe Flex 3 software which provides a framework for developing applications based on Adobe's Flex and AIR frameworks.

Flex is a free, open source framework for building highly interactive, expressive RIAs. Adobe Flex Builder™ 3, an Eclipse™ based development tool, accelerates Flex application development and includes new capabilities for deploying RIAs on Adobe AIR. Adobe Flex Builder 3 integrates with Adobe Creative Suite® 3 software making it easy for designers and developers to work together more efficiently. Powerful new testing tools, including memory and performance profilers and integrated support for automated functional testing, speed up development and lead to higher performing RIAs.

The Adobe AIR and Flex SDKs are available as free downloads from Adobe's website. Commercial versions of Adobe Flex Builder are also available.

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[eddx]

Should give us a better experience of flash based video such as youtube etc on our macs but when flash comes to the iPhone, then I get excited. Certainly will be checking this new software out though.

 

[DuFFy]

thats quite a convenient release the day before the SDK SHOULD come out, maybe flash in the next iphone update?!?!?!

 

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

I dont see the prospect of this, other than - god forbid - Flash animations and adds in applications.. -.-

 

[BeyondCloister]

I dont see the prospect of this, other than - god forbid - Flash animations and adds in applications.. -.-

I assume you are meaning you don't seem a purpose for AIR?

There are lots of cases where it is useful to be able to use functionality from a website type application while offline. eBay already have an application built using it that lets you set up all the information for selling an item offline and then it just uploads the data once an internet connection is available.

It could also easily be put to use in the data collection field. The application would run on the device the person has out in the field and then once they have an internet connection back in the office it all gets uploaded.

I was at an Adobe event where they demonstrated the technology last year and have several ideas of what it could be used for.

 

[anthonyjr]

So, where's the Shockwave Universal Binary? Eh?

How long has it been now?

 

[ert3]

does anyone else see this as a way for apple to work around an iPhone SDK. I mean if air allows you to read/write files to a given computer then you can write apps for mobile safari that can read write files to iPhone.

 

[AdeFowler]

Yet they also have the benefits of desktop applications, such as the ability to read/write local files...

Not sure I like the sound of that.

 

[razorianfly]

does anyone else see this as a way for apple to work around an iPhone SDK. I mean if air allows you to read/write files to a given computer then you can write apps for mobile safari that can read write files to iPhone.

I agree, I think this may have surfaced to aid Apple with the iPhone SDK. I hope not. I hope Apple provide a fully finished SDK of their own. Thats what i hope. But we all know thats not going to happen, if there is an easy, cheaper way ...

Cue .. Adobe AIR.

R-Fly

 

[BeyondCloister]

Yet they also have the benefits of desktop applications, such as the ability to read/write local files...

Not sure I like the sound of that.

Depends what you download. If it is some random application you find on the internet then it may be trouble. However it is an application a company develops for their staff then the ability to read/write local files is vital or the technology is crippled.

 

[dr_lha]

No way is the iPhone SDK going to be related to this in any way shape or form. Sorry folks, this is totally unrelated.

 

[justflie]

I agree, I think this may have surfaced to aid Apple with the iPhone SDK. I hope not. I hope Apple provide a fully finished SDK of their own. Thats what i hope. But we all know thats not going to happen, if there is an easy, cheaper way ...

Cue .. Adobe AIR.

R-Fly

agreed. It just seems like perfect timing for the iPhone sdk to be released. Fingers crossed!

 

[dgdosen]

I see that Microsoft is about to release Silverlight 2.0 (a beta anyway), and I'd bet that even though Apple is loathe to give up a piece of what may become a key platform to develop upon (iPhone/touch) - I'd think that Adobe's offering is far enough along to leverage.

I do think that Apple will find some way to stop Microsoft from getting Silverlight on the iPhone in some way... If only because we need some political intrigue in here...

 

[BeyondCloister]

I agree, I think this may have surfaced to aid Apple with the iPhone SDK.

There is a world beyond Apple

The beta of AIR first came out only a couple of months after the iPhone was announced so only the most paranoid conspiracy thinking person would come to the conclusion that this is some kind of plot to prevent the need for an iPhone SDK.

 

[vincebio]

i just downloaded Air and tried out the Ebay desktop app..

if it was actually usable it may be actually pretty good....kind of like an Adobe Garagesale app.

but its awfully slow and not very usable...

so why bother releasing such an awful unfinished product?

 

[Bakey]

So, where's the Shockwave Universal Binary? Eh?

How long has it been now?

This one clearly passed the majority of MacRumors well and truly by!!

Anyway; http://www.adobe.com/products/director/ and the UB Shockwave Player is very on it's way!!

This puppy is very much the last piece in my jigsaw as far as my Universal needs go!!

 

[ale500]

This sucks. The release cycle is too short!. They did not even fixed the bugs in Flex 2 !, and the flash player is even buggier :-( (Printing has load of issues, not shown widgets aren't initialized), etc, etc, etc. The parser accepts loads of invalid constructs without warning...
I hope they cooked it up a bit better than what they did with Flex 2, and by the way I hope Flex Builder 3 is less sucky than 2, 400 bucks for a pretty gui maker is a bit steep

 

[FakeWozniak]

Is this new?

Um, I heard of these before and they are either Widgets or Gadgets. The only new twist is that they look like applications. I even thought I saw some shareware available to set dashboard applications free. Anyone recall the name?

I like that Apple is Adobe-Free with regards to PDFs etc, so I hope nothing useful ever comes of this Hot-AIR project because I will have to go without it. I'd like to be Flash-Free.

I wonder if AIR takes about 30 seconds to load every Adobe plugin known to mankind, indicates an update is available every week, and uses 120MB of disk space.

 

[zimv20]

I hope they cooked it up a bit better than what they did with Flex 2, and by the way I hope Flex Builder 3 is less sucky than 2, 400 bucks for a pretty gui maker is a bit steep

flexbuilder 3 has a useable profiler, it crashes less for me, it has some convenience features for developers that flexbuilder 2 didn't.

i'm still working in flex 2 (the framework), but will start moving some of our apps to flex 3 (the framework) before too long. but i've been using flexbuilder 3 betas for some 6 months now and like it better than FB2.

...

for those unfamiliar with AIR, it's a pretty neat trick. you can take your RIAs developed for browser deployment and pretty much automagically run them on the desktop. there's no security sandbox anymore, as there is for a flash app run in the browser, but it's the same as downloading any app from the intarwebs.

 

[Small White Car]

Yet they also have the benefits of desktop applications, such as the ability to read/write local files...

Not sure I like the sound of that.

An example...

Using Apple Mail or MS Outlook or whatever is better than using web-mail in a browser.

They're making it so those web-based mail programs could be a lot more like desktop mail programs.

And you "don't like the sound of that?"

This is pretty cool.

 

[KingYaba]

Awesome. Now I can get some Air on my Air.

 

[mdriftmeyer]

Other than Flash, I'll use WebKit directly. PDF is an ISO standard and there are plenty of kits to leverage those capabilities.

AIR doesn't do a damn thing for me.

 

[ChrisA]

I make actually use this. I has just about to start a new browser based application and I was going to just use simple server side Perl scrips and html forms. Maybe this will work better?

 

[twoodcc]

seems nice. we'll see how it does

 

[Toe]

It's like Adobe is competing with themselves to see how many Adobe brands they can fit into one product description.

AIR builds RIAs, which may incorporate Flex and Flash, using Flex Builder 3, which is based on Eclipse, and which integrates with Creative Suite 3.

Did I get that right? They use the term "open source" a lot, but they are all about creating an Adobe-proprietary world. (Just like Microsoft... and yes Apple too.)