There was so much exciting news to come out of Barcelona this week if you are a fan of mobile devices. We saw Flash Player 10.1 and Adobe AIR both announced on the Android platform. As I’m sure you have seen from the demos, not only are these technologies running on Android, but they are running extremely well. There was also the announcement that Flash Player and AIR will be coming to Blackberry devices as well. It’s great to finally see some results from all the hard work Adobe and its partners in the Open Screen Project have been doing.
The example that really blew me away regarding the potential of AIR on tablet devices was the new magazine reader created jointly by Adobe and Wired Magazine. This amazing application allows for a state-of-the-art digital magazine experience and includes things like a multi-touch UI, 3D views, and fully integrated social media and video content. It also utilizes the Text Layout Framework, which provides amazingly rich text capabilities that far exceed what is possible with any other runtime. Check out the video below to see the new reader in action.
If you want to check out an existing AIR application that uses some of the elements shown in the Wired Reader, I highly recommend downloading the New York Times Reader application. This is one of the slickest AIR applications I have ever seen.
The creative community that designs and develops content using Adobe tools are legendary for creating unique interactive content. Through Adobe AIR, this community will be able to easily turn design ideas into finished applications that run across virtually all operating systems and mobile devices. They will even be able to export these applications for the iPhone and iPad using the new packager coming in Flash CS5. As a side note to that, no single individual, regardless of how many tantrums they throw, will ever be able to stifle the innovation of the Flash community.
Lee
Go Flash!
Maybe because I don’t know how the AIR virtual machine works, but am I correct to assume that if I compile out my Flash project into an AIR application that I should be able to run it on the iPad?
@Smithe you can publish the same content to the iPad by using a special compiler that we are releasing with Flash CS5. It converts your Flash content into a native application for the Apple platform. Ideally we would have the AIR runtime on those devices but that seems unlikely.
Wow, absolutely fantastic demo. This is definitely an exciting time to be a flash developer; the design possibilities are expanding beyond the browser and into a world where flash can literally power useful and productive applications on full featured, and mobile devices alike.
Stefan Richter is right, “Go Flash!”
looks beautiful. can’t wait to play with!
also, lee,
when can we expect a new tutorial!?
The transformation of Flash from being a “simple” animation tool, to being a leading(soon to be) application development environment, is indeed impressive.
“Flash – a-ah – saviour of the universe!
Flash – a-ah – he’ll save everyone of us!”
AIR Rocks !
aah.. goosebumps!
Ive been a flash designer/developer for about 8 years and I must admit, I felt threatened when Apple didn’t support it on the iPad. The future of web browsing without Flash? Jobs had to be losing his marbles, I thought. Well Im glad that the future looks bright now, and the possibilities seem limitless. Thanks for putting up the demo Lee.
btw, whats the ETA for the CS5 public beta? Will we be able to try this kinda stuff with the beta?
Amazing, in these days I have been development some application with AIR and Flash. Excellent news.
5 Years from now I hope this will be the norm. I can’t wait to enjoy these type of expriences integrated with my daily life. A lot has happend in the last 5 years and the pace is definately accelerating.
Do you know what physical hardware this was created for?
It’s really going to be interesting to see how it shakes out from a platform perspective. With the iPad being so closed I think Microsoft has a real opportunity to set a standardized chassis for “PC Slates” that these publishers, etc can target experiences on. Much like they have done with Windows Phone 7 Series, Microsoft could create a standard “Slate” chassis and then people could build in AIR, Flash, Silverlight, WPF, HTML, etc, it wouldn’t matter.
The key would be processor and graphic minimums and a min bar on the touchscreen technology, maybe capacitive touch.
Microsoft has a real opportunity here….otherwise you know I’m getting an iPad
.
Loved your last line “Side note”!!!! Now you are talking. We the Flash community and their supporters do not need to depend on someones mercy and do not need to kiss any ones AXX!!!
Thanks for sharing Lee! It feels fantastic to be apart of the advertising industry during such a pinnacle point of touch technology (the fuse has been lit, we just need the bomb to explode when it comes to mainstream use). Just how social left a deep thumbprint in our industry, touch applications will soon do the same. To think that in 5 years where we’ll be when it comes to technology and user experience is thrilling.
Thanks again!
Fantastic !
i think that flash ( and adobe ) is still innovating, but i’m a little bummed that it’s taken this long for any work involving flash/air on the apple platforms to be looked at seriously.
if it takes adobe being scared about html5′s canvas & apple’s ipad/ipod/iphone for it to get their butt in gear with creating content that can be adapted for the platforms, that’s awesome. just wish it didn’t have to :/
ps : as a mac user , i’m sure lee knows all too well about the downsides of flash on mac as a developer as well as an end user. and i’m not saying apple is perfect in any of this, they aren’t, but for adobe’s part, it would’ve been nice if they could have done a bit more so it doesn’t seem like a ‘too little too late’ situation.
rocksteady,
danno~
This is just amazing!
Only few days ago all we had was “doom and gloom” and now, just few days later, we have demo after demo after demo, coupled with announcement after announcement…
Flash was always awesome – but with recent news I can conclude that it is healthier, better and more promising than ever before!
Keep up the fantastic work!
Adobe was really missed out on the whole smart phone revolution so far.
Adobe should’ve really been looking into creating their own mobile operating system a few years ago. Maybe they still can. Adobe could purchase Palm and integrate flash into webOS.
I’ve been developing for Flash/Director for many years. I always felt my apps had too many limitations in what they could do (for example text/html rendering in Flash has sucked for many years).
Recently started learning Cocoa and I love it. The developer tools are awesome. The libraries and help documentation is really good. It’s fantastic to develop in a language that gives you little limitations to innovative platforms.
“As a side note to that, no single individual, regardless of how many tantrums they throw, will ever be able to stifle the innovation of the Flash community.”
Or, God forbid, the Flash community could learn Cocoa and be even more innovative! LOL’s. Maybe Adobe could do the same. Start by hiring more programmers that aren’t outsourced, that would be a start. Make your platform work through some innovative ways. You want innovative? How about shifting work to the server side for Flash video on the iPlatforms, Mr. Softy is doing that with Silverlight.
Throwing a tantrum here is only going to get Adobe smacked down even more. I have other ideas… support Ogg Theora over H.264 in HTML5. That way you could really take the high road on Open Standards. Plus, it would be a smack at Apple.
Lee, do you know which hardware was used in this demonstration?
cptvideo
It would be nice to be able to easily export pages from Indesign for use in the flash player – utilising the Text Layout Framework.
Or perhaps can you do this already? It has been a year or two since I last touched Indesign so excuse my ignorance if necessary!
The times app is amazing. Reading news papers has never been so easy and fun. I’m even subscred. Very handy app.
Speaking of the FTE (former TLF), it’s not ready yet. Still about 20% of lib is not implemented. For example the FTETextField still has only 60% working methods.
Does this mean that we can use Flash CS5 to create apps for android? and even maybe, blackberry, in the future? or does this mean we can create mobi pages using flash cs5 for these mobile devices?
Blackberry support is critical! People focus way too much on iPhone, because they themselves own one. But I don’t know a single business (other than design houses consisting of a handful of people) that standardize on iPhone for their employees. Most companies use Blackberry. We need Flash support on Blackberry for many things, most importantly elearning content.
Screw the iPhone/iPad. It’s irrelevant to the real business world.
I agree with Mark and yes we too only use Blackberry now, though we have experimented everything but at last settled down with Blackberry, Flash suppose in BB will create wonders and yes we may go for better managed people and business and a step ahead in IT
Hi Lee, your contact page doesn’t work, I kinda wanted to ask you this directly and get your own opinion on it.
Do you think Apple will actually allow any apps created with CS5 to be allowed in the store? After all the jibes they’ve made doesn’t it seem somewhat likely that they will not allow any of the CS5 apps onto their devices stating they all fail quality control. I’m just curious if you think there is any chance this will be an issue. I find it hard to believe they are not aware of what Adobe is planning on doing although I’ve not yet read anything from the Apple camp about what they think about it.
“no single individual, regardless of how many tantrums they throw, will ever be able to stifle the innovation of the Flash community.”
This describes how I see so many things today!
Hi Lee
Someone please note this as I just can’t log into Jira. flash player 10 beta 3 is breaking dynamic text multiline when masked. The mask plays in and then preloaded xml data populates a textfield halfway through the mask. The text breaks up until clicked at which point it displays another line of text in the textfield, still broken and not the full text. This wasn’t an issue before this build. Windows 7, intel.
Hi Lee,
Good to see you at the party in Amsterdam last night!
Can you also tell me what kind of screenreader /tablet is used for this demo?
Thanks!
Sid
Does any body know what tablet they are using in the video?
What tablet are they using here?
Is there any truth to the rumor that Flash CS5 can create Atari 2600 apps?
I’m not sure what tablet this is. I have asked many times internally and haven’t gotten an answer. My guess would be some kind of Android prototype.
Happy to see that the air support is growing