The anticipated coolth of Adobe AIR 2.0

[update: this post has been in the limbo for way too long, I wanted a way to embed the flash videos from Adobe.tv here, but it looks like there is none. I am publishing this post today, in hopes that the reader may find it interesting enough to actually try the links... BTW this here might relate to the silverlight 4 thingy as well! ]

I am yet to sift through all the Adobe MAX 2009 videos.

I find it really generous of Adobe to put all of these up. Even if most of it is marketing, they still share a few gems of information. Really worthwhile for guys like me, who end up being so busy there's little hope of attending an actual MAX event unless planned at least six months ahead of time.

I chanced upon the Adobe AIR 2.0 preview video:  http://tv.adobe.com/watch/max-2009-develop/whats-coming-in-adobe-air-2-/

(I wish there was a way to embed flash videos from Adobe.tv into Wordpress...)

 

To me the most important ones are the support for USB (mass storage devices) and native apps (so you can now open a word document from within AIR). I am still a bit skep about the performance, but, I am sure this is going to improve over the new version too...

Check these videos out. Kinda nice. Kinda exciting.

 

Cheers.

 

S.

[update:

1. there's a lot more videos on AIR2 in the complete video list, but I did like this one by Kevin Lynch as well: http://tv.adobe.com/watch/max-2009-develop/kevin-lynch-demos-adobe-air-2-features/

2. I prefer the adobe media player for working out all of it. nicer neater faster AIR based video playing...]

...CS4!!!

On September 23, Adobe released the long-awaited Creative Suite 4, this also included Flash CS4 and Photoshop CS4.

Check out the wicked new features in Flash CS4 here. Although it looks like Flash CS4 uses Flash Player 9 update 3(press release). Meaning there should be a Flash CS4 update for Flash Player 10 sometime soon.
Niiiice :)

And they have just added more bang to 3D in Photoshop CS4!!! The top new features here. Hey if you were wondering about the sexy resize... it's there in all it's glory... YAY!!!

to re-iterate...

NNIIIIIIICEEE!!!

Adobe's Open Screen Project

Finally!

Adobe is making an effort to bring consistency to the "Flash Player" across PCs and Devices, including mobile devices and set-top-boxes (those cable TV thingies)

Sounds really good to me!

So, apparently now I do not have to worry too much about thinking how my application/content would be deployed on a mobile.

Many things come to light:

• Apparently Adobe Flash Player was licensed to be used on devices. This now goes free. More devices adapt the Flash Player.
  
• Bits of Flash Player were not opensource. This is now open source (see the Tamarin Project on Mozilla). More people are involved, community collaboration goodness.
  
• The ability to publish in the .swf format was licensed. Again this is no longer so, Adobe makes it free... so you and me can create programs that output .swf files, no hassles.
• Adobe now opens up more, publishes AMF protocol and The Flash Cast protocol. Looks like as of May 1, 2008, Adobe has lifted the restrictions on SWF and FLV/F4V specifications.
• Adobe developers will write porting APIs (they call it "the device porting layer APIs for Adobe Flash Player" more wordy and probably more accurate) for developers to make their applications work on different devices.

Cool! I'd say.

Take a look at the following:

• Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch Discusses this.
• Adobe's Press release on this.
• An Interview with Adobe's James Ward on this.
• Here is a lot of big boss companies talking about this, like CEO/Marketing types mouthing noises if they know a lot, when they know nothing... hehe.
• SWF File Format Specification (Version 9).
• Video File Format Specification (FLV/F4V video file format, Version 9).
• The AMF specification.
  
• James Ward's Blog.

I still have a few apprehensions.
Although I do hear it in whispers, I so wish someone would come out loud and say:
AND YES Flash Player will have better support on the iPhone!!!
but, whispers are all I hear... and that is what I have to do with right now...
But good! I am hopeful! and excited!

:) :) :)

about flash performance

Hey People!
In doing SRM06 we faced a major hurdle about flash performance – flash kept crashing
In investigating all that we got to learn a lot of under the hood stuff about the flash player and the flash compiler.Much of it would require a lot of space to share…But, there was one very interesting resource that I dug up, rummaging thru my favs. Folder… hehe .
http://oddhammer.com/actionscriptperformance/
The site is very informative about flash performance issues, has some tests calibrating various operations to milliseconds too!Also there is a wealth of other stuff here – including tutorials on Unicode characters in flash.
It’s a bit old and caters to flash 6, 7, and 8, but the info it gives is still relevant and useful
Enjoy!
:-) :-) :-)
Shaurya