Adobe AIR Development

[jtegen]

That would be true. However, I believe the certitication goes beyond just UI guidelines. One aspect that I know is in the requirements is the use of the invocation framework. That is possible in AIR too. AIR has specifically been left out to be considered as part of the certification. We're just trying to get RIM to either reverse their decision or clearly define why it was left out.

[georg22]

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 guidelines 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?

Currently RIM is discussing it internally, Saunders tweeted.

I will send A. Saunders another mail to give some arguments, not sure if it will help. I doubt that anyone at RIM is reading these threads.

[jtegen]

Great! Sanders is a reasonable person trying to make the RIM developer community the envy of the mobile world. It will go a long way for them to reverse this decision and for us to know we have some marginal influence. The more emails to him the better. What is the worse thing he/RIM can do? Say "no"?

[georg22]

Because i need some list controls for my next app i tested the performance of a AIR BB10 List control yesterday ( a simple List, fullscreen on DevAlpha). It was responsive, yes, but the scrolling was recognizable under 60 fps. Is this the reason, why we are excluded from "Made for BB"? Performance in standard controls? Maybe i should better switch to HTML5, where everything is running smooth as constantly reported, i thought. 

So i made the same scrolling-test with HTML5 and a plain bbui.js list.

It was hard figure it out how it works because i am not familiar with HTML5. But a few minutes ago i had my list up and running on the DevAlpha. First: the app lakes longer to load. Second: the list doesnt scroll much faster than the AIR list, if at all. Its not really smooth, not 60fps. And more important: ITS LESS RESPONSIVE. The AIR list follows the moving finger without any lag, but the bbui-List is allways a little bit behind. I am sure, that a user would prefere the AIR list. Will this change, once HTML5 app dont run inside an AIR-Browser anymore?

I am totaly confused now. I thought i need to switch to HTM5 do provide better user-experience - but that seems not to be true.

So whats the reason why we are excluded?

[jtegen]

You have to think HTML5 will get better since RIM controls the browser, JS engine and the JS library. I think the exclusion comes down to "control" of the API and runtime. Though RIM does have source code rights to AIR, they do not "control" the underlying technology. But that argument is pointless because they do not control phoneGap either.

[georg22]

Ok, i understand. But as far as i know the browser and JS engine are already very fast - so will it improve a lot?

I also have no idea what to to with very long lists. In AIR it doesnt matter because there is always a small number of item-contaier which will be rused but in HTML they will all be rendered  - which slows down the pageloading...

Well, i need to make a decision, because i want to give the user a well performing app, and dont know whats better now.

EDIT:

I got an answer from the HTML5 team, that the performance will get better in the next release of the SDK. But in the last minutes i repeated the test with 500 list entries in both. The AIR app needs a second to load and show the complete list. Performance of the list did not change. The HTML5 app needed 2 seconts to load and additional 2 seconds to open and render the page with the list. The list with 500 entries is unuseable slow and laggy. I just cant believe it. This can never be better than an AIR...

[jtegen]

I believe the browser will be all C/C++ in BB10. I think there were element of it in C/C++ under PlayBook, but I think the shell was AIR. So it might be faster with the final browser. Someone might be able to correct me on this.

I would go with the technology that can get your product to market fastest with enough user interaction speed. My migrating app to BB10 is all about maps, internet services, lots of GUI elements and performance is good. I have long lists of stuff and scrolling is just fine. Until RIM can prove that they will survive in the marketplace, I am personally not ready to move to a proprietary SDK. Event then, I would only go to Qt since that has some market reuse. However, Haxe looks real interesting as well.