Adobe AIR Development

[jtegen]

After BB10, we all hope to get the latest AIR version.  But it is good to see that current AIR 3.4 in Adobe labs have things like:

• Threading (aka "workers")
• Hardware accelerated Stage3D
• Webcam/video streaming to GPU
• And more... 

[lrrm]

especially the getbytesfromcamera thing makes me smile. this will enable me to do very fast video processing

[bigmokujin]

Has there been any official dialog on when we can expect an upgrade to the flash player and adobe air runtime.  I assume it will be sometime after the release of the BB10 devices.  Just want to know how long the wait will be.

[jtegen]

No one really knows an exact time. Not certain if RIM even knows yet. Once BB10 is out, I would expect the next push would be to get the BB10 SDK over to the PlayBook so we're all working off one development environment. Then, I would think a time line would be defined to upgrade to 3.4 (or 3.5 by then).

[georg22]

Now its clear, that we will never see 3.4.

AIR and Android are excluded from the "Built for BlackBerry" program, so AIR is definitly second class. Its over now.

[bigmokujin]

Ouch, I guess you're right.  It would appear that AIR will be regulated to second class citizen.  Which is too bad, given the advancements with the new FlashPlayer and AIR updates.  And since Blackberry has licensed the technology and directly supports it's implementation on the platform, how long will it be before the browser support is dropped as well?? 

So I guess all the cool stuff about starling and stage3d, will never make it to BB10 either on the web or in the app stack.

The writing is definitely on the wall.

[spoutnik]

I am not so sure about it. On the road-map they mention support for FlashBuilder 4.7 .. Also they have released the sdk and all the qnx components for BB10. In fact it runs really smooth on the DevAlpha.

In my opinion they removed Air and Android from the 'Build for BlackBerry' program to limit the number of people to receive the $10k. There are plenty of games and apps build with Air or ported from Android and I bet that a lot of them are right in the category to earn above $1000.

So basically they break their commitment just to save some cash. That is really not a fair thing to do. But what can we do about it?

[georg22]

No, i think you are wrong. The "quality apps" need to meet a long list of criteria to come into the "built for BlackBerry" program. So its not enough to have an app which sells well. Average AIR games and Android ports will not meet the criteria anyway.

Fact is: RIM will get rid of AIR. They used us. The needed us for the PlaybookOS. And now they throw us away. 

Even when RIM continues to update the SDK a little bit - no new AIR Developer will come to BB10 now. Others will leave us for HTML5 or Cascades or leave RIM completely. And then RIM will stop it - because there is no demand for AIR anymore.

[spoutnik]

Maybe you are right. It is very disappointing. Especially that it is all handled so badly. It is kind of a BlackBerry thing to build something and then destroy it right away. 

When I started out developing for PlayBook OS it was all about the great support for Air and Flex. Now things seem to turn around and we get much better support on iOS and Android than on BB10. So I will probably turn my attention towards these platforms instead. 

[jtegen]

It is sad how the community of developers were the reason for any marginal success of the PlayBook and it the same amount of time, we are dropped for a less mature environment. It does not have to be one or the other. It can be all. BB was suppose to be a platform that the developer gets to choose what development environment is best for the app. To continue that, all SDKs need to be treated equally.

Very sad that once again, RIM has a hard time in describing their plan and direction.