Adobe AIR Development

[bigmokujin]

I think the biggest issue (IMHO) was whether or not BB would keep some level of parity with the Adobe updates to both the Flash Player and AIR.  I know from previous discussions with QNX engineers at RIM that the jump to AIR3.2+ was a bit more involved.  And when I asked about a captive runtime option, I got a similar response.

So basically, when there is little to no details concerning the big picture road map for one of the technology stacks that this platform supports it is easy to assume the worst.  I think we should all reach out to our contacts within RIM, and procced with cautious optimism.  Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.

AIR as a framework does lend itself to cross platform development.  As for myself I was just wondering when I could leverage some of the new bells and whistles offered by the framework on a platform, I would like to develop for.

[jtegen]

The BB10 SDK for AIR does have the look and feel of a BB device. The end user would be hard pressed to tell the difference between an AIR app and a "native" app.

[georg22]

The crazy thing is, that the AIR BB10 SDK already offers the nice BB10 controls. Also the invocation framework is there. And there will be ANEs for more. The SDK is also prepared for different Screenresolution of future devices. The AIR team has done a great job.

With this information in mind i read the UI guidlines very carefully and i recently finished my first BB10 app. I made use of the BB10 controls all the time. And the look and feel is great IMHO. The differences to Cascades are hardly to recognize, if at all. I recently created a set of scaleable Icons for BB10 for future use. And i really want my apps to be certified. Did i waste my time?

On friday A. Saunders tweeted "no change, we are 100% behind AIR".

Hmmm...

But why are we excluded from "BB certified"? Is there a technical reason? What is wrong with AIR compared to HTML5? Was it a political decision?

P.S.

Early this year, when appworld was flooded by Android apps, i sent A. Saunders an eMail. I suggested to create a kind of label for apps, which are built especially for BB to give developers who follow the guidelins advantages in marketing. I was very lucky, when i heard that this program is getting reality, a few months ago.

Can you imagin how i feel now?

[jtegen]

I would email Sanders with your experience and thoughts. I 100% agree that there would be no difference to the user and that their experience should be as good (if not better) than apps created in HTML or Cascades. All we can suppose is that someone at RIM placed "AIR runtime" in the same category as "Android runtime" and did not know that the AIR runtime as a full suite of API that Android does not have and would never be able to be certified.

Sanders cannot make a change in the status of AIR certification if he does not hear from as many developers as possible.

[georg22]

The mail is sent.

Cascades will be more performant than AIR for sure, but what about HTML5? Is HTML5/bbUI somehow more responsive than AIR? If yes, why didnt RIM simply use it for the caledar/contacts/mail apps for PBOS 2.0? But they have choosen AIR (Cascades was not ready at this point). I have seen few demos of HTML5 apps, they were recognizable not as responsive as Cascades. Is someone familiar with both (AIR and HTM5/bbUI) and can compare it directly?

[jtegen]

At the time, the JS framework was not in place and the original WebWorks was dependent on AIR. That has been separated under BB10. Yes, Qt/Cascade/NDK will be a lot more responsive for complex activities than AIR. But it would be cool for someone familiar enough of all environments to do some basic benchmarks: Floating point, events, drawing, file i/o, network i/o. Not that it would change which would be used, but it would be nice to know in relative performance, how the 3 stack up.

[tneil]

Hi everyone,

Lots of great feedback and questions in this thread.  Let me see if I can help give you some answers

• No information about AIR 3.4 (they are still "discussing a timeline" since january). 
• Well I've heard off the record from an Adobe Engineer than RIM is actively working on updating their OS to AIR 3.4. You can take that with a grain of salt, but I think you're ok to stick with AIR. 
• I think the biggest issue (IMHO) was whether or not BB would keep some level of parity with the Adobe updates to both the Flash Player and AIR.  I know from previous discussions with QNX engineers at RIM that the jump to AIR3.2+ was a bit more involved.  And when I asked about a captive runtime option, I got a similar response.
• From my perspective this is based on a political decision to get rid of AIR sooner or later and the current progresses are only based on an old roadmap created a year ago. This includes, that we will never see AIR 3.4 and AIR will only be updated for bugfixes. I hope i am wrong.

I can confirm that we are working on the bring-up of a new AIR runtime on the platform. Whether that is 3.3 or 3.4 is still being worked through.  We've always said that we will bring a newer runtime to the platform, and we will deliver.  What we haven't provided was timing.  I can confirm that the new AIR runtime will only come to BlackBerry 10.  It will only be available on PlayBook when PlayBook receives BlackBerry 10.  We're getting closer to share the timeframe for when a new AIR runtime will be available. We're currently dotting the i's and crossing the t's with Adobe and our certification partners for this work.

IMO RIM will turn around and go the same way like android and iOs. They will allow you to install the complete AIR runtime packaged along your game.

We have no plans for going with a captive runtime approach.  All plans are to bring a newer version of the AIR runtime as part of the operating system.

AIR is completely invisible in all recent BB JAM conferences (an AIR developer who is interested in BB10 will not recognize that AIR on BB10 does even exist)

From past attendance at our BlackBerry Jam events, AIR developer attendence has been very low even when providing AIR content.  We have found that attending Adobe events representing BlackBerry and going to meetups/hackathons where AIR developers attend is a much better way to serve the community.  We'll be continuing to attend these events and ensure we have content for BlackBerry AIR developers.  This is similar to how we approach Android developers.  Attending and presenting at the events that the developers attend, vs asking them to attend a BlackBerry Jam event.

• AIR is excluded from "Built for BlackBerry" program
• I am starting to think that the "BB Certified" thing is mainly excluding AIR because it does not share the Cascades look and feel (while HTML can get it with bbui.js). I can see why RIM would want to emphasize apps that show a common interface and yet be willing to make exceptions for high quality native ports.

AIR has all of the core BlackBerry 10 controls and can create an application that has all the same look and feel as any other BlackBerry 10 application.  It also has ANE support so that a developer can access any of the native APIs for integration.  As far as AIR being included in the "Built for BlackBerry" program.. all I can say is keep an eye out on Twitter and the blogs

If you have more questions.. post them here and I'll do my best to answer them

[jtegen]

Thank you Tim. Good to hear some official word on this. I too heard from "reliable sources" that an announcement of AIR certification will be provided shortly.

[georg22]

Thanks for answering the questions. Now i can sleep much better

[tneil · Accepted solution]

You'll also notice that we just added Adobe AIR to the Built for BlackBerry Apps program

http://devblog.blackberry.com/2012/09/built-for-blackberry-and-adobe-air/