Building Applications for the iPhone with Flash
This morning during the day 1 keynote at Adobe Max 2009, Adobe announced that the next version of Adobe Flash (Flash Professional CS5) will include support for creating stand-alone applications for the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch. As you can imagine, this is something that we are really excited about, and we expect there to be a lot of questions. This post should address some of those questions, and point to additional resources with more information.
So, what exactly did we announce?
The next version of Flash Authoring will enable developers to create stand-alone iPhone applications using Flash technologies (including ActionScript 3). These applications are just like any other iPhone application and can be distributed via the Apple iTunes Application store. Indeed, there are already a number of applications created with Flash on the store today.
One thing I want to stress is that this is for standalone applications, and is not the Flash Player for mobile Safari (which is something we continue to work on). The end result is a native iPhone application, and not a SWF that runs in the browser. We compile the SWF to a native application using LLVM. There is no requirement for the Flash Player / Adobe AIR Runtime to be installed on the device or included in the application. The end result is a native iPhone application.
Currently, this project is in private beta, and we plan to release a public beta of Flash CS5 with support for building iPhone applications before the end of this year. We are not accepting any new people for the private beta, but you can sign up to be notified when the public beta is available.
We have posted a developer FAQ on labs, which addresses a lot of the questions we expect you will have (we will continue to update this as necessary). The FAQ also includes some information that will be helpful if you want to start working on some content in anticipation of the public beta.
One thing that I really want to stress though, is that developing for the iPhone is mobile / device development. The iPhone has a significantly slower processor and less memory than what can be found in a typical desktop computer. As such, existing content may need to be optimized for performance, and / or user interactions (given the smaller screen and different UI metaphors). So, design and develop content with these limitations and differences in mind. Fortunately, we have done some things in the compiler, including enabling support for hardware accelerated rendering, to help with performance. Expect more information on this, and other optimization strategies once the public beta is available.
I am sure there are a lot of questions. As I mentioned above, we have created a developer FAQ that should address a lot of the most common questions. We have also created a forum for discussion of the announcements and technologies. Please feel free to also post any questions in the comments here.
Here are some additional resources:
- Flash Applications for iPhone on Labs
- Developing for the Apple iPhone using Flash
- Developer FAQ
- iPhone forum
Finally, if you are attending Max, we have a number of sessions which will cover building iPhone applications using Flash. I will make another post with information on those shortly (my session will be a general Q & A session on building iPhone applications with Flash).
great news!
thisfix
5 Oct 09 at 11:34 am
[...] opinion on http://www.mikechambers.com/blog/2009/10/05/building-applications-for-the-iphone-with-flash/ [...]
Stephen Paul Weber (singpolyma) 's status on Monday, 05-Oct-09 18:40:52 UTC - Identi.ca
5 Oct 09 at 11:40 am
[...] can find a detailed article on Mike Chambers’ blog. Basically, Adobe is using the might and mighty LLVM project to create native iPhone applications [...]
Flash on the iPhone | Promethe's Blog
5 Oct 09 at 11:41 am
[...] 4: Mike Chambers has a blog post on this. Also article at Adobe Developer Connection. And Mark Doherty wrote about it too. No [...]
Dave Yang : swfoo » Flash to iPhone development
5 Oct 09 at 11:45 am
Great, bring on the crap content. Now every DB and his pirated version of Flash will be able to make shitty iPhone apps. The nice thing about the App Store was that it kept these crappy programmers away. Time to move on…
Jean-Guy Niquet
5 Oct 09 at 12:08 pm
[...] (vai mikechambers) [...]
Flash CS5 to support iPhone development! « 8bit Feed
5 Oct 09 at 12:12 pm
There is a question on the FAQ: “Can I use the Flex Framework to create content for the iPhone?”
But what about using mxmlc in the SDK to compile iPhone apps?
enefekt
5 Oct 09 at 12:32 pm
Great news can’t wait to develop
Franz
5 Oct 09 at 12:48 pm
This Is Just Awesome
Bucket Truck
5 Oct 09 at 1:02 pm
[...] Marc Chambers: Building Applications for the iPhone with Flash [...]
ActionScriptJobs.com
5 Oct 09 at 1:16 pm
[...] Store, Apps, Developer, iPod Touch, iTunes At its developer’s conference today Adobe announced that he next version of Adobe Flash (Flash Professional CS5) will include support for creating [...]
Adobe Announces Support for Creating Stand-Alone Flash iPhone Apps — But Flash for Mobile Safari Still a Work in Progress : iPhonesAtWork
5 Oct 09 at 1:25 pm
[...] announced that Flash Professional CS5, the next upgrade to the Flash developer package, will be able to creative native iPhone applications for distribution through the App [...]
It’s Flash on the iPhone (Well, Sort of) | Technologizer
5 Oct 09 at 1:35 pm
@enefekt
This is covered in the Developer FAQ:
Which Flash Platform tools and technologies can be used to build content for the iPhone?
http://bit.ly/nOhOZ
mike chambers
mesh@adobe.com
mikechambers
5 Oct 09 at 1:36 pm
@Jean-Guy Niquet,
Umm, 98% of the apps on itunes are crap. Apparently some crappy programmers bought crappy books about objective C. lol
orgreeno
5 Oct 09 at 1:37 pm
[...] the most interesting and unexpected thing of the year. I couldn’t believe at first but the official Adobe statements made me believe that iPhone apps can now be developed with Adobe Flash. If you suspect that it [...]
Now Develop iPhone Apps on Windows Using Adobe Flash CS5 and Actionscript 3
5 Oct 09 at 1:47 pm
@Jean-Guy Niquet : From what I can tell, the ratio of crappy Flash developers to good Flash developers is about the same as crappy Cocoa Touch developers to good Cocoa Touch Developers – as evidenced by the 80k+ crappy apps in the AppStore.
Erik
5 Oct 09 at 1:48 pm
I downloaded 3 games from the list you provide, just out of curiosity. None of them play any sound, is sound actually supported? There seems to be a significant lag in detecting fingers moved on the screen and a general jerkiness in the movements (all the games I saw on the iPhone are pretty smooth, these are very simple games with small objects but they have some weird movements).
Why app are so big? (Average of 9 MB)
Also, some say compile from AS3 to ObjC, here you says ARM assembly… who’s right? (I guess you since you talk about LLVM). This precludes the developer to further integrates the converted application with more native iPhone stuff. To be fair, the lack of simulator running version is quite disappointing, hope it gets fixed before release.
Being OpenGL used just as a rendered surface it means access to native controls, system transition and other (like camera) is precluded I guess. Hope it can move beyond supporting just simple games and integrate more with native iPhone stuff, there is no need to redo the interface all the time if it is already there.
Interesting stuff anyway, well done!
Emanuele Cipolloni
5 Oct 09 at 1:54 pm
Sounds a lot like what MonoTouch does for Silverlight. It’s about time Apple just opened the door instead of making everyone jump thru hoops.
Tim Greenfield
5 Oct 09 at 2:02 pm
This is great news. Keep up the good work!
I think it’s awesome that the million+ Flash devs are now iPhone devs. Bring it on! Let’s flood the market and hopefully the crap apps don’t float! ;-P
iBrent
iBrent
5 Oct 09 at 2:03 pm
@Emanuele Cipolloni: I also tested some of the free Flash/iPhone apps and they do have sound… Check your “silent” switch!
Quentin
5 Oct 09 at 2:20 pm
I tried Just Letters (ok… no sound evidently :-) ), Fickleblox and South Park Avatar Creator, none of them has sound and my switch is “on”
Emanuele Cipolloni
5 Oct 09 at 2:26 pm
@Emanuele:
Try Red Hood:
http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=331140070&mt=8
I’ve tried it and heard audio and sound effects. (I haven’t tried those other apps you mention yet.)
Paul Robertson
5 Oct 09 at 2:52 pm
whoa…..this blows my mind so far
leef
5 Oct 09 at 2:56 pm
Yep, thanks Paul, I should have tried that first, considering it is even free!
Anyway, I was expecting something more exciting/impressive to be honest, this sort of casual games are ok on lesser platforms, iPhone users seems to have different taste.
Let’s see how they receive it!
Emanuele Cipolloni
5 Oct 09 at 3:31 pm
[...] can feed on the same online data as their browser-based counterparts. [Flash apps for iPhone and Mike Chambers] Tagged:adobeadobe flashappsflashiphone [...]
Flash Apps To Arrive On The iPhone, But Not On Safari | Gizmodo Australia
5 Oct 09 at 3:53 pm
[...] Chambers is, as always, a great resource for information on this topic. He has a nice summary blog post, plus I know he’s collecting questions to answer in his MAX session (on Wednesday, I [...]
Building iPhone apps with Flash Platform tools roundup, a bunch of Words, punctuated - by Paul Robertson (http://probertson.com/)
5 Oct 09 at 4:08 pm
I completely agree with Jean-Guy Niquet. This only opens iPhone App development to a market that will only flood the store with, on average, lower quality apps.
Lower quality only because development in Obj C you have to manage memory and patch leaks. I can see that the Flash adaptor will obscure these methods and the apps will overall be crashy, laggy and probably not use proper Apple UI standards.
I doubt Apple would continue to pass these apps if they arent stable enough. I really dont care about Flash on the iPhone at all… bring on HTML5!
Alex E
5 Oct 09 at 5:00 pm
I’ll withhold judgement on CS5 until I see it, but I have a baaad feeling about this… did Adobe spend all it programmer resources on bringing this feature to CS5 when they could have been fixing all the bugs/missing features that have been such a drag on CS4? So they could pit Flash IDE against XCode? Which is excellent and Free? At least there’s flash builder….
Ransom
5 Oct 09 at 6:06 pm
[...] Read some more at Mike Chambers Blog [...]
Flash on IPhone using cross compiling :) «Dev by MX
5 Oct 09 at 6:31 pm
[...] Building Applications for the iPhone with Flash - Mike Chambers [...]
“Use Flash to build native iPhone apps” and related posts « Twitter
5 Oct 09 at 8:08 pm
[...] to watch Hulu videos through your phone’s browser. But for the iPhone, Hulu would have to use Adobe’s new development tools to create an iPhone app containing the Hulu [...]
The Cool Tech Stuff Blog » » Flash Lands on iPhone — One App at a Time
5 Oct 09 at 9:52 pm
[...] ???????? Building Applications for the iPhone with Flash ? Developers [...]
kirillrybin.com » Blog Archive » ?????????? ??? Apple iPhone, ????????? Flash!)
5 Oct 09 at 10:28 pm
[...] Chambers here has a post that gets into more details of the iPhone support [...]
Flash CS5, iPhone support, Flex SDK 4 b2, Catalyst b2, Story and Flash Player 10.1 « codescape : shaurya
5 Oct 09 at 10:44 pm
[...] Source [...]
Adobe Flash Lands on iPhone | ToTheMobile.com
5 Oct 09 at 11:48 pm
[...] will include support for creating stand-alone applications for the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch. Read more addthis_url = [...]
Flash | Building Applications for the iPhone with Flash at Mike Chambers | Give Up Smoke Now Blog
6 Oct 09 at 12:04 am
[...] Apps for iPhone @ Adobe Labs Using Flash to compile to iPhone applications Building Applications for the iPhone with Flash [...]
Apukeittiö.fi » Blog Archive » Flash leviää mobiiliviestimiin
6 Oct 09 at 12:23 am
[...] Building Applications for the iPhone with Flash [...]
Lav iPhone applikationer direkte i Flash CS5! · omFlash();
6 Oct 09 at 1:16 am
[...] Shared Building Applications for the iPhone with Flash at Mike Chambers [...]
Channel updates, October 6th | The Lifestream of Robert Fransgaard
6 Oct 09 at 2:28 am
[...] Adobe compiles the SWF to a native application using LLVM. There is no requirement for the Flash Player / Adobe AIR Runtime to be installed on the device or included in the application. The end result is a native iPhone application. [...]
Using Adobe Flash Professional CS5 to build iPhone Native App « Web Builders
6 Oct 09 at 4:22 am
[...] http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flashcs5/appsfor_iphone/ [...]
Flash CS5 for iphone – well sorta… » David Ehlers - Art, Algorithms, & Design
6 Oct 09 at 6:29 am
Will the Flex SDK get updated to support this? Most flash devs don’t make use of the Flash IDE anymore… I use FDT to do all my work and publish using the Flex SDK…
Jeff Fall
6 Oct 09 at 6:44 am
[...] Now, if Adobe introduced a Flash video player, and Apple enabled Safari to recognize Flash video like they do now with YouTube H.234 material, everything would be fine. [Flash apps for iPhone and Mike Chambers] [...]
jean philippe gousse » Blog Archive » Flash Apps to Come to the iPhone, But Not to Safari [IPhone]
6 Oct 09 at 7:23 am
[...] in einem Blog-Beitrag von Adobes Principal Product Manager Mike Chambers bekannt gegeben wurde, können Entwickler mit [...]
Adobe kämpft um Flash auf dem iPhone | áppletrend
6 Oct 09 at 7:57 am
@Jeff Fall
You question is addressed in the FAQ :
Which Flash Platform tools and technologies can be used to build content for the iPhone?
http://bit.ly/nOhOZ
mike chambers
mesh@adobe.com
mikechambers
6 Oct 09 at 8:05 am
There’s a small mistake in the FAQ where it says near the bottom that the resolution for the iPhone “with the status bar showing…is 300 x 480 in landscape mode”
Otherwise this is ultimate news. I kinda feel sorry for those who have spent so much time learning C# and other languages to get their games on the iPhone.
dVyper
6 Oct 09 at 8:37 am
[...] Building Applications for the iPhone with Flash - Mike Chambers [...]
“Adobe Shows Off Flash Apps For iPhone. Yes, You Read That Right.” and related posts - KuASha Organization
6 Oct 09 at 9:04 am
Really nice news Mike, can’t wait to try!
@ Jeff Fall: “Most flash devs don’t make use of the Flash IDE anymore”… yeah right, that’s why Adobe did this:
“The primary tool for developing iPhone applications using Flash will be Adobe Flash Professional CS5.”
While Flex is a wonderful development tool, the minute you start to work with designers in interactive and graphic intensive websites/games. etc. it makes more sense to stay with Flash IDE to keep speedy…. unless you want to teach Flex to designers, I want to see that :)
Freddy
6 Oct 09 at 9:35 am
@dVyper I feel sorry too for the ones that have studied C# in order to program the iPhone, because they should have studied Objective-C instead….
Not sure if somebody here realize that they are at least one year away from being able to use CS5 and by that time they will be able to deliver ultra simple games that iPhone users briefly fall in love two years ago. Users don’t give a flip on the fact that you have used Flash or anything else to make it, if it sucks they won’t say “Yes, but it is cute anyway because it is written in Flash”.
And I don’t think you should deride people who try to learn new things, you may find out they will have better chances to actually deliver stuff more than geniuses that can only play in the Flash sandbox.
Emanuele Cipolloni
6 Oct 09 at 9:55 am
@Emanuele Cipolloni Fun gameplay is not based on performances. I’m sure this opportunity will open a new door to Flash designers and coders for bringing some cool ideas and concepts to iTunes community.
But when you say “I don’t think you should deride people who try to learn new things”, I totally agree with you.
francis bourre
6 Oct 09 at 1:50 pm
@francis bourre True, but remove yourself for a second from the concept that “is cool because is made in Flash” and read some comment on iTunes from people that actually tested the games; not a great start…..
Cool ideas most of the times need performance and while I agree this is a very early stage, it is simply not there; Flash developer are generally not the ones that worry too much about allocating/releasing, optimizing for memory and so on.
This CS5 “hack” only gives to developers the illusion that they just need to push a button to make iPhone apps from their stuff.
And I should remind that there are already 45.000 games on iTune, so it is not like Flash is enabling a new world for everybody. On iPhone, Flash is really trying to catch up by providing a much more limited environment than the native one. The precluded access to UIKit means you can forget about all the nice hardware assisted user interface look & feel, you will have to recode them entirely from Flash side. Look at the South Park Avatar app, they use a screen to list all the episodes available to be purchased on iTunes, they have tried to replicate the native look&feel of UIKit Table component, without much success, it is slow, ugly and looks really like a hack.
The beauty of developing natively on iPhone with the standard SDK is that you have to worry very little about inner workings of the UI components or worse code them, they just works and they are constantly hardware assisted; try to do a page flip on a device using Flash and see what happens.
In my opinion it is too little too late but we shall see….
Emanuele Cipolloni
6 Oct 09 at 2:37 pm
Well, this news just killed a future well paid 3 months project for me, since that company can now create their content with Flash, and I kind of worry about another project now as well.
Thanks Adobe…
These days, it’s getting more and more difficult for real coders. iPhone development was one of these rare islands, where real coding was still in demand, and now with the advent of clicki-bit-scripti-flash-apps, we will see a lot of less demand for that.
Thanks, Adobe..
embion
6 Oct 09 at 3:46 pm
[...] Building Applications for the iPhone with Flash - Mike Chambers [...]
“Adobe Shows Off Flash Apps For iPhone. Yes, You Read That Right.” and related posts « Twitter
6 Oct 09 at 5:42 pm
Great news!.
Kalyan Katika
6 Oct 09 at 8:45 pm
[...] [...]
?? Flash ???? ??? iPhone ??? apps
7 Oct 09 at 8:06 am
[...] is a good post about the new release on Mike Chambers blog called Building Applications for the iPhone with Flash which has a bit more of a technical [...]
Flash applications on the iPhone | Design Manchester | Web design blog
8 Oct 09 at 4:01 am
[...] completar indico os links abaixo: Building Applications for the iPhone with Flash Adobe Max 2009: Entrando na General Session Adobe Max 2009: What’s new in Flex 4 Adobe Max [...]
Resumo Adobe Max 2009 | Lucas Marçal
8 Oct 09 at 10:38 am
@embion
What do you define as “real coders”?
It seems a bit misguided to suggest that the language and / or platform that a developer chooses defines whether or not they are a “real coder”.
As far as you loosing a project because of the announcement, it sounds like it will be cheaper for your client to do the project In Flash as they already have the resources for that. While maybe that isnt good for you, it is good for the client (who is the one funding the application development).
mike chambers
mesh@adobe.com
mikechambers
8 Oct 09 at 3:12 pm
@Alex
–
I can see that the Flash adaptor will obscure these methods and the apps will overall be crashy, laggy and probably not use proper Apple UI standards.
–
Speaking as someone how has worked with the team on this project, I can tell you that that is an incorrect assumption.
It is also possible to build “crashy, laggy” apps with Apple’s frameworks. As far as proper UI standards, all applications have to be approved and vetted by Apple, so if Apple is not happy about a specific UI interaction, then they probably won’t approve it (as they have proven so often).
mike chambers
mesh@adobe.com
mikechambers
8 Oct 09 at 3:22 pm
@embion
lol? ActionScript 3.0 is a real OOP programming language… As everything else in life, some people do it correctly and follow all the best practices and others don’t. There are real coders in flash and there are “not” real coders, as you call them.
Mauro
8 Oct 09 at 3:22 pm
@embion – I can work with objective-c/c++/c and actionscript (amongst others) – I can imagine some projects being more relevant for Flash CS5 and some more relevant for XCode.
I’m unsure whether FlashCS5 projects can be extended / mix-compiled with XCode/objective-c projects (would be super cool if they did, cos Interface Builer is not so great imho, but from what I’ve seen so far may be unlikely – @mesh?) – either way there will still be plenty of space for both types of development.
This is very exciting news indeed.
an unreal coder.
atom
8 Oct 09 at 3:22 pm
“These days, it’s getting more and more difficult for real coders.”
WOW @ embion
Fake Coder GenoBaby
8 Oct 09 at 3:23 pm
@Emanuele Cipolloni
–
read some comment on iTunes from people that actually tested the games; not a great start…..
–
Actually, the apps have been on the store for a couple of weeks, and there we no comments / reviews at all mentioning performance UNTIL people found out they were done in Flash. Indeed, most of those reviews specifically mention Flash. Both of these points suggest that the reviewers had alternative motives.
Regardless less, the technology is in an early stage, and thus things like performance, will only improve.
mike chambers
mesh@adobe.com
mikechambers
8 Oct 09 at 3:32 pm
@embion
A couple of years ago a reader wrote a review of my Flex book, on Amazon.com, that said “A true programmer would embrace the command line compile of flex and the author blatently avoids that.”.
The means to the end is constantly evolving. The way we did things in 2005 may not necessarily be the way we do it in 2009. Obviously, Adobe has created a solution that will help your client achieve their desired goal easier and, hopefully, more economically. It seems to me that giving your client that news would raise your professional esteem. You would be the hero.
In my opinion, Adobe just gave you the means to do your job easier and more efficiently.
Charles E. Brown
8 Oct 09 at 3:34 pm
Kudos Mike! As for the “real coders” comment. Real developers don’t call themselves “real coders”. Just an FYI.
Abel Rios
8 Oct 09 at 3:40 pm
Anyone who is a ‘real coder’ (meaning good at programming I assume) is not having a hard time finding work. You can not get to B from A.
Robin Debreuil
8 Oct 09 at 3:58 pm
This is truly astounding – great news.
What people fail to realize is that if Adobe didn’t do this, someone else would have. Not with Flash per se, but I’m sure people are working on authoring tools for iPhone app development.
What I would like to see is that Flash CS5 not export a packaged binary that’s a “black box.” Instead, I’d rather it exported the generated source code that could then be tweaked and improved upon, like Torque does. I bet there’s a lot of developers out there who could improve the performance for specific apps or even the Flash exported code in general. Keep it open, Adobe!
Geoff Gaudreault
8 Oct 09 at 4:01 pm
Props, @Mike and agreed, @Abel.
I try to maintain the “right tool for the right job” mentality. If that means that I need to break out ActionScript, Objective C, or even FORTRAN 77 (*gulp*) to get the job done right, then so be it.
Eric
8 Oct 09 at 4:06 pm
@embion
Sorry to hear about the loss of work, but it is certainly the job of platform companies to enable engineers to solve problems more efficiently. As engineers it’s not only our job to implement elegant solutions, but also to select the best tools for the job. If one platform provides a significant advantage over another, pragmatically it is a better choice.
As a coder (not sure if I’m real or imaginary) I’m always looking for ways to improve the efficiency and maintainability in the way the teams I work with solve problems. There are many examples where Adobe (and other platform companies) have presented tools that promote better development options and being informed on these options is a responsibility of any good engineer.
Skepticism of a cross compiler tool like this is definitely justified, but it deserves a shot to prove itself. In many ways it has proven itself by having apps built with the technology already released on the app store.
Maybe “real coders” only write in assembly?
Adam Flater
8 Oct 09 at 4:43 pm
I’m sick of you XCode pussies claiming to be “real coders!” Back in my day we didn’t have “IDEs”, and “compilers” and all that nonsense. Us *real* real coders had ones and zeros, and WE LIKED IT! Hell, we didn’t even get ones until I was in my 3rd year at MIT!
Josh McDonald
8 Oct 09 at 5:01 pm
@mikechambers
“Actually, the apps have been on the store for a couple of weeks, and there we no comments / reviews at all mentioning performance UNTIL people found out they were done in Flash”
——
true, there were no comments, because nobody bought them until they were presented at MAX.
People buying on AppStore don’t pay attention to what technology you have used to write the applications but certainly they judge by look, playability and speed. By the way, the negative comments focused exactly on the last 3 parameters I listed, while the few positives ones were “it is cool because it written in Flash”.
Emanuele Cipolloni
9 Oct 09 at 2:37 am
@ Charles E. Brown
“In my opinion, Adobe just gave you the means to do your job easier and more efficiently.”
——–
Really? Based on what parameters is going to be “easier and more efficient” to produce iPhone applications with this?
Emanuele Cipolloni
9 Oct 09 at 2:49 am
[...] By the way, if this is Flash on iPhone stuff is new to you, you should definitely read Aditya’s “Developing for the Apple iPhone using Flash” article on adobe.com. In addition to being an all around great guy, Aditya was also a huge help in working through the very early beta issues we encountered. Ted Patrick posted some cool iPhone example apps with source. (Not only does Ted make a good jedi, he also helped me debug some rendering issues in Trading Stuff at the last minute. Thanks, Ted!) And Mike Chambers, who brought me into the program, has posted more explanation with a lot of useful links for Flash/iPhone work. [...]
» Flash on iPhone: My Experience »CoderHump.com
9 Oct 09 at 7:38 pm
@ Everyone who thinks he is a rela coder
I am actually relatively new to the new media scene with only 2 years of actual full time experience as a Flash & Flex developer. But I have started learning programming back in 1993 (C and Pascal and we had to debug on paper).
I can’t say I am the perfect programmer but I am good on what I am doing as I am passionate about it.
All these people that think they are the best they are only happy with their own code obviously. They moan and moan and moan…
If you are that good you shouldn’t worry and more importantly you shouldn’t be able to code only in one language. A good developer should be able to adapt in almost any language very easily and he or she should want to do it as it gives them pleasure. I am primarily a Flash and Flex developer but can’t wait to find some free time to get my hands on Obj C.
And I m not great. Just a good and passionate developer.
And by the way these are great news.
To all who complain about the news:
So stop moaning about crappy old flash and bad Flash people. They are excellent Flash developers out there and if you were that good in Obj C you would be learning AS3 as well as it is another very good tool in your belt.
George
12 Oct 09 at 3:19 am
[...] comment on Mike Chambers’ post might be a bit knee-jerk and unjustified, but also hints as to some of the feelings that will no [...]
» Stuck Inside of Mobile Marc Hibbins
12 Oct 09 at 6:13 am
@Geoff Gaudreault
“What people fail to realize is that if Adobe didn’t do this, someone else would have.”
—-
True, we at Open Plug (http://developer.openplug.com) are developing a tool that compiles Flex/AS3 into native code for WinMob and Symbian, with iPhone coming soon … and it’s available for trial now.
Adobe has been very fair to us since they invited us to MAX to present our solution. So all is not closed in what Adobe are doing. Especially that the Flex Framework and many parts of AIR are open source.
—
“I’d rather it exported the generated source code that could then be tweaked and improved upon”
—
This is exactly what our ELIPS Studio 3 tool does: turns your AS3 / MXML code into C++ that you can profile / debug on target/ extend with native libraries
Guilhem Ensuque
12 Oct 09 at 9:04 am
[...] MAX 2009 that probably generated the most buzz and discussion online was the announcement that Flash CS5 will have support for outputting applications for the iPhone. While I am really excited about the news, and the work we are doing around the iPhone, I am here [...]
Why you should NOT care about building apps for the iPhone with Flash at Mike Chambers
12 Oct 09 at 11:12 am
@Emanuele Cipolloni
Dont you think that when you are criticizing this announcement, you should mention that you are working on a solution that is doing something very similar? i.e. basically something that will be competing with what Adobe is doing.
I was wondering why you were commenting on this on pretty much every single blog post on the topic. (and now I know why).
mike chambers
mikechambers
12 Oct 09 at 6:17 pm
Mike, first of all I didn’t criticized the “announcement” per se, I raised some points which I reckon are valid on this FlashCS5-to-iPhone thing, several others bloggers have raised even deeper issues and why Apple should prevent these applications from being approved – I didn’t say anything like that. After mentioning issues on closeness of the resulting converted apps and a general slowness; I didn’t see many disagree with this beside the usual evangelists and people that don’t know the difference between Objective-C and assembler – blogs are in place to educate people, not brain wash.
Given that CS5 is still on alpha, criticizing now would be stupid but if the directions to solve the Flash-to-iPhone problem are the ones highlighted at the CS5 presentation, there is nothing wrong on some “early” discussions.
As somebody that has been watching the industry for many years, I know how these announcements work for the bigger players, just need to wait until products are actually released to see how effective they are and sometimes even wait a bit more. I have learned this in the hard way, for example, by upgrading to CS4 when it was just available and keep it in the box for another 8 months until it was barely usable (remember the report that was saying that by using it I would have increased my productivity by 48%?) The “wow” factor at shows means zero on that front.
I believe you’re confusing me with OpenPlug, which instead will have a broader solution than the Adobe one and will directly compete with Flash CS5 in terms of being able to convert AS3/Flex code to native applications on a variety of platforms and not just the iPhone.
Regarding myself and my company, we have been doing this since 2003: providing the ability to reuse Flash content within native applications without precluding access to the rest of the hosting platform including native UI and accepting every flavor of ActionScript from version 1 to the latest. Should be quite easy to understand that we don’t have a Flash Player/runtime and the concept is completely different since we don’t turn Flash applications into binary blobs. And we are not limited to just supporting Flash.
More important, the offer we have is more at service level rather than at tools/technology level, as such, maintaining internally our own technology to support Flash content playback and conversion is a noticeable cost that we would happily skip the minute somebody will offer tools of comparable power. Having to “just” optimize customers’ Flash content and being able to spit native smartphone apps from them by just pressing a button, would be just a dream. Which I reckon will be staying as dream for much long, even after CS5 release.
Unless you would like to imply that since we mention Flash support in our products, I have no rights to raise any issues or questions on whatever Adobe presents.
Unfortunately we cannot be street level as Adobe currently is, and we don’t have paid evangelists worldwide that just keep telling and blogging about how fantastic we are, so, yes, being present even on discussions and blogs is a way to let others know, but only when it is appropriate to do so. Most of comments are moderated anyway.
So, in the end, I didn’t mention anything about what we do simply because it is not a competing solution (OpenPlug is), it is something completely different. We have been dealing with agencies, telcos and manufacturers for the past 8 years, when there was no iPhone and FlashLite was already pretty much everywhere and touted as being capable of doing incredible things already.
We didn’t have any problem in doing our business since then and I reckon we are going to be fine even when the iPhone “export button” will be on the market, given the limited scope of this solution.
We know how Adobe is not hostile to competition, at the end of the day there have been companies which have been living by producing alternative optimized Flash Players and Adobe has also invited OpenPlug at MAX, so if you believe it was anything different from “friendly fire”, then you took it wrong.
Emanuele Cipolloni
13 Oct 09 at 3:17 am
[...] Building Applications for the iPhone with Flash par Mike Chamber – Adobe Why you should NOT care about building apps for the iPhone with Flash par Mike Chamber – Adobe Developing for the Apple iPhone using Flash par Aditya Bansod – Adobe Flash Platform Extends to the iPhone Platform par Mark Doherty – Adobe [...]
Développer des applis Iphone avec Flash CS5 « DisplayObject
13 Oct 09 at 4:54 pm
[...] Building Applications for the iPhone with Flash at Mike Chambers – The next version of Flash Authoring will enable developers to create stand-alone iPhone applications using Flash technologies (including ActionScript 3). These applications are just like any other iPhone application and can be distributed via the Apple iTunes Application store [...]
Daily del.icio.us for October 2nd through October 13th | Vinny Carpenter's blog
13 Oct 09 at 5:02 pm
[...] tietoa netissä, mutta tässä vielä muutama linkki tarjolle: – Adobe Labs (apps for iPhone) – Mike Chambers (Building apps for the iPhone with Flash) – iPhone Hacks (Adobe Makes it possible to create iPhone apps with [...]
Pasi Manninen - Jyväskylän ammattikorkeakoulu
14 Oct 09 at 1:46 am
[...] recent announcement that Flash CS5 will be able to output standalone applications for the iPhone. Building Applications for the iPhone with Flash : My original blog post on the iPhone [...]
Resources for Learning more about Flash to iPhone at Mike Chambers
17 Oct 09 at 9:00 am
[...] with the most interesting and unexpected thing of the year. I couldn’t believe at first but the official Adobe statements made me believe that iPhone apps can now be developed with Adobe Flash. If you suspect that it [...]
Sample Site » Blog Archive » Now Develop iPhone Apps on Windows Using Adobe Flash CS5 and Actionscript 3
20 Oct 09 at 3:44 pm
[...] noch nicht vollständig aufgegeben: Wie Adobes Principal Product Manager Mike Chambers nun in einem Blog-Beitrag bekanntgab, versuche man weiterhin, ein Flash-Plugin für MobileSafari bereitzustellen. Mit der [...]
Mit Flash iPhone-Applikationen entwickeln! » Flash, Erste, Applikationen, AppStore, iPhone-Applikation, Flash-Anwendungen » Flash iPhone Applikationen u. Sourcen
2 Nov 09 at 10:49 pm
I expect that the number of App store submissions will shoot up substantially. I’ve always wished Apple would release some kind of tool that allows non programmers to make iPhone Apps,
r4i
11 Nov 09 at 2:21 am
[...] Building Applications for the iPhone with Flash – Post mostrando como construir aplicativos para o iPhone. [...]
Indicações de posts para aprender mais sobre o Flash para iPhone « ?
29 Nov 09 at 7:44 am
[...] Adobe hat auf der AdobeMax 2009 verkündet, dass mit der 2010 erscheinenden CS5 das Erstellen von Applikationen für iPhone mit Flash möglich sein soll. FAQs sind hier auf Mike Chambers Blog zu finden p>http://www.mikechambers.com/blog/2009/10/05/building-applications-for-the-iphone-with-flash/ [...]
Building Applications for the iPhone with Flash « blog.chiefinger.com
16 Jan 10 at 4:45 am
[...] http://www.mikechambers.com/blog/2009/10/05/building-applications-for-the-iphone-with-flash/ http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Applications_for_iPhone:Developer_FAQ#Are_there_currently_any_applications_on_the_iTunes_App_Store_created_with_Flash.3F [...]
DesignAxiom RGB - iPhone & Flash
28 Jan 10 at 10:33 am
Interesting discussion going on here about the release of CS5, Flash iPhone apps have been around for ages and true if Adobe hadn’t made them easier someone else would have and Adopbe would lose the market share of software such as Flash and Creative suite. The problem with making it easier to create these types of apps is the market will soon become saturated. The potential to add advertising to these apps using sites like Heyzap may look like an easy prospect for companies who just want a low cost way to enter the market. It means there is more potential for lower quality apps, spammy apps and the developers will lose out – just a thought as it is hard to see how things will go.
From my opinion (and skillset) this is great as I can now produce these apps to sell, or sell advertising as well as market it to business owners who think of the iphone app as being exclusive to large companies.
Flashy Steve
6 Apr 10 at 3:58 am
Hey- I was wondering- can iPhone apps developed in Flash connect to an SQL database, for logins and data-centrix features?
Cat
9 Apr 10 at 6:18 am
yes developing an application that will make it easy to create apps will bring in a lot of new people and make sure the market gets saturated. Thats not a good thing.
buitenkeuken
21 Apr 10 at 10:46 am
yes developing an application that will make it easy to create apps will bring in a lot of new people and make sure the market gets saturated. Thats not a good thing.
Arkadaslik Sitesi
24 Aug 10 at 11:15 am