Adobe has decided to stop developing software tools that allow Apple’s iPhone and iPad to use its popular Flash technology.
The decision reverses an earlier pledge in which it said it would help get Flash working on the gadgets.
Closed tools
In mid-April, Adobe released software Creative Suite 5 that contained option to export Flash applications into native iPhone applications. Shortly before the release, Apple updated the terms and conditions of the license software developers must sign to create iPhone and iPad applications. The revised terms placed strict restrictions on what developers can use to create these applications and effectively banned them from using 3rd party tools such as Creative Suite 5.
At the time Adobe wrote that it still intended to deliver the feature. Now it has said it will halt development of future export tools for Creative Suite.
“We will still be shipping the ability to target the iPhone and iPad in Flash CS5,” wrote Mike Chambers, Adobe’s principal product manager for developer relations, on his blog. “However, we are not currently planning any additional investments in that feature.” Mr Chambers also commented on Apple’s revision of its terms and conditions. He wrote: “…as developers for the iPhone have learned, if you want to develop for the iPhone you have to be prepared for Apple to reject or restrict your development at any time.”
Apple responded in a statement to technology news site CNet in which it described Flash as “closed and proprietary”. Apple preferred to support more open standards which replicate everything Flash can do, added the statement.
Mr Chambers wrote that now Adobe will concentrate on Google’s Android smartphone software and ensure that its Flash technology works well with that. “Fortunately,” he wrote, “the iPhone isn’t the only game in town.”
With Flash Professional CS5, we can now build applications for iPhone and iPod touch using ActionScript 3. These applications can be delivered to iPhone and iPod touch users through the Apple App Store. A public beta of Flash Professional CS5 with prerelease support for building applications for iPhone is planned for later this year. At MAX 2009, Adobe showed a number of applications and games for iPhone that have been built using a prerelease version of Flash Professional CS5. The tooling update allows developers to use Flash technologies to develop content for iPhone and iPod touch. Developers can write new code or reuse existing web content to build applications for iPhone. Because the source code and assets are reusable across the Flash Platform runtimes,—Adobe AIR and Flash Player—it also gives developers a way to more easily target other mobile and desktop environments.
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At Adobe MAX in Los Angeles today, Adobe previewed the next major release of Adobe AIR to thousands of Adobe customers and partners. Several exciting new capabilities of the AIR runtime were demonstrated by Adobe’s CTO, Kevin Lynch, as part of the “day one” keynote. In addition, Christian Cantrell, a member of the AIR engineering team, presented a session titled “What’s Coming in AIR 2″ that provided a more detailed sneak peak of some of the upcoming features of the AIR runtime (stay tuned — we will soon be posting a recording of Christian’s talk).
After shipping AIR 1.0, many of developers challenged Adobe to open the runtime up even more by, for example, allowing communication with native processes and providing enhanced networking support. With AIR 2, Adobe’s goal from the outset was to remove limitations in the runtime that prevented developers from building their applications.
HTC will be the first mobile company to bring Adobe Flash Player Lite to the Android Open Source Mobile platform with the release of its new Hero mobile device. The HTC Hero phone will come with Flash Lite 3.1, which means it’ll be able to cope with anything written with ActionScript 2.0 and thus be very well equipped for interactive content as well as streaming online video and audio. Checkout a demo video here:-
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/devices/articles/htchero.html
Flash And Flex Developer Magazine
FFDMag.com has come up with the new ‘Flash And Flex Developer’ Magazine.
Rainbow Live Flash CMS
Rainbow Live combines the ease of Visual XML editing with the power of a Live Content Management System (CMS), making it easy to design data in whatever structure you want, and then edit it online without having to re-upload new XML files. It’s been designed specifically to provide Flash website developers with an easy way to edit and build XML based sites. Rainbow Live has been developed to answer the needs of Flash developers who use XML as a data source. Checkout a demo and more details at:- http://www.codeandvisual.com/rainbow
Rainbow Live removes the need to rely on a backend developer to build and maintain a database. Rainbow Live saves time and money as the process of setting up XML structures is familiar to many Flash developers and is made even more intuitive with Rainbow Live’s node-based approach.
Rainbow Live provides you with a User log-in to allow data to be managed by the client long after your involvement is through. Rainbow Live provides the perfect lightweight solution when you don’t need all the bells and whistles (and overhead) of a complete CMS system.
Adobe Flash Builder 4
Adobe has officially announced re-branding of Flex Builder to Flash Builder. Naturally, this change has caused quite a stir among the Flex developer community. The announcement has been received with mixed emotions. I had a feeling that would be the case, considering people involved in Flex development are generally application developers and the word ‘Flash’ does well with designers. In the early days there was a pretty solid line between people working Flex and people doing Flash. Now Adobe might want to remove this separation to some extent (atleast in the name to begin with) and get both the Flash and Flex community together to further the usage of Flash Player as an application development platform.
Adobe Flash Platform
Adobe is renaming the next version of Flex Builder to Flash Builder 4, it will still be the same Eclipse-based IDE with lots of exciting new features. Adobe is not renaming the open source Flex Framework or the free Flex SDK. Adobe will also continue to promote the use of the Flex Framework and Flex development in general.
Also this move to the Flash Builder brand marks the separation between the Flex Framework and the IDE built on Eclipse that can be used for the development of ActionScript as well as Flex projects.
An another interesting development with regard to getting Flash and Flex developer community closer is arrival of Thermo, which basically lets the designers do some part of application development without bothering much about coding.
Adobe is also conducting a pre-release demo of Flash Builder 4 at different locations of the globe. In Bangalore it is slated to be on June 3rd. So if you want to find out more about the upcoming beta releases of Flash Builder, this would be a great place to start.
Few months back I had developed an Adobe Flex based application enabiling users to search and order pre-owned cars. There are two applications in the project
