Adobe AIR Development

[UberschallSamsara]

Sorry if this has been answered elsewhere, but given short timelines for those of us who might feel painted into a corner with possibly not qualifying for the 10K/Built for BlackBerry program with AIR apps but for whom it's too late

to try to rework in Cascades or WebWorks, I am wondering this:

If you submit a qualifying AIR app prior to the deadline but then during the 12 months of the 10K program you rewrite it in Cascades in order to get away from shortcomings of AIR support, does the app remain qualified as long as it's the same SKU and essentially the same app?

I can see where an AIR app might turn out ugly at launch and fail to gain high ratings and sales traction until it is buttery smooth like a Cascades app ... which might require it to actually become a Cascades app unless AIR on BB10 catches up very dramatically and quickly to Cascades.

[jtegen]

If I had to guess, it wont matter. It is the sku and sales that would matter. Keep in mind we will be getting AIR 3.4/3.5 in a few months which will dramatically increase performance, and we will probably get more ANEs for some of the other APIs. But of course and time proceeds and you think you will get a better UX under Cascades, go for it. I expect after stage3D is available, you will be hard pressed to tell the difference between a Cascade app and an AIR app.

[apman]

But you'd be missed in the AIR Forum, ÜberschallSamsara! And the more good people make the move to Cascades, the less pressure on RIM to provide decent AIR support ...

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My app : Get set - Get up!   Get ready for the snooze revolution.

[jtegen]

@UberschallSamsara: Curious, what shortcommings do you see AIR having on BB10?

[UberschallSamsara]

I'm mainly concerned about the lags to gain API parity w/the flagship dev stacks.  I understand that limited resources have to be deployed for BB10 launch.  It just remains to be proven that AIR is a first class native dev stack.  Platform choice is part of the RIM sales pitch to devs; that's a tall order but if RIM can consistently deliver it over the coming year  I think it's a powerful pitch.

[jtegen]

I think we will see some positive changes to the AIR stack once BB10 is released: AIR 3.4/3.5, additional ANEs for BBM, Contacts, etc. Once those are in place, I think it might be a more attractive solution to many.

[UberschallSamsara]

In any case, it would be good to get an official answer from RIM on the question at the top of this thread.

[jtegen]

Likewise, AIR is much further ahead than some of the other stacks. If you monitor native and Cascade forums, a lot o fthe questions are basic functionality. They will get there, but it seems very painful for them to do what AIR developers take for granted. But the time Cascades 1.0 and NDK 1.0 get all of their features and bugs worked out, AIR 3.4/3.5 will be in place, and there will be a lot of parity between the 3 basic UI stacks.

There is no way I would have completed Magellan Compass for BB10 in time if I relied on Cascades as it is today.  Granted, I would have loved some of the slight performance things Cascades can do and threading, but I was able to work around 99% of the issues by being creative with AS3.