I have a strong feeling that is going to change dramatically in 2010. Some will disagree or say that I am too biased but I really do think it’s going to happen… Want proof? Ok… You got it!
I’m sure you’ve all heard that the next release of Flash (CS5) will allow you to build native applications for the iPhone. Instead of having to learn a new language to built such a native app, you just build it with the tools and technology you all know and love. The demo video below shows an application that I’ve been building the last couple of days. A FailBlog video player that gets all the latest FailBlog videos and allows you to watch them on your iPhone or mobile device. It is completely written in ActionScript 3.0 and plays Flash Video (FLVs with On2 VP6 in this case. So no need to transcode your videos!) on the iPhone. And that’s not even the coolest thing about it! The coolest thing about this is that I can export this as an iPhone application, SWF file and AIR application with just one button click. At the end of the video you’ll see a sneak peek of the same application running on a Palm Pre in its browser with Flash Player 10.1! And that is the power of the Flash Platform! Write once, deploy anywhere? It’s finally becoming a reality!
If all goes well, you should be able to play with the iPhone version of this app before the end of the year. I still have some optimizations to do and have to clean up some bits and pieces but I’m feeling confident that that shouldn’t take too long. Keep an eye on my blog for more details!
Flash on!
How exactly is this content running on the palm pre? as an native application, in the browser or as a ‘native’ flash application?
Grtz Thomas
It’s running in the browser.
It’s definitely great that once you have written an application you can use it endlessly really benefiting from your initial time investment. The app you have written seems to be working for the iPhone, congratulations. By the way, the Tarzan video on fail you’ve showed was very funny.
Brilliant. “Write once, deploy anywhere”, the moment we’ve all been waiting for…
Nice post Serge!
It is an exciting time and we’re approaching a reality of write once, deploy everywhere — though admittedly you have to architect your application so it can run well on from a low end phone, to the iPhone, tablets and netbooks, desktop and any other internet enabled devices.
That means keeping the memory consumption under control, designing an appropriate UI and dealing with different types of user interaction.
The real challenge will be to build something that runs well on low end devices, scales to different screen sizes, can deal with multiple types of input and is still compelling on all other different platforms.
Its not easy an easy thing (though the Adobe Flash Platform makes it a lot easier). Think I heard somebody of the Adobe XD team say a while back that he think the key concept here will be modular development where you have the same basic skeleton application running everywhere but you “decorate” it with different functionality depending on the abilities of each platform.
If you think about how Flex 4 is architected in terms of its skinning and the work being done on a mobile Flex framework – I have high hopes for the Flash Platform in 2010 and beyond!
Does this app run also smooth on the first generation of iPhone ?
And how long did you need to compile this rather basic app ?
I’ve only tested it on my 3GS so far but will obviously also test on slower devices.
Compilation took 1 or 2 minutes. Haven’t timed it but will time in the next iteration.
Care to share the code? ;)
I do plan to share “some” code. It’s really not a complex app ;-)
I’d mainly be interested in your grid layout and pagination code. Did you do it from scratch?
@Bryan: yes this was indeed built from scratch. I am rebuilding that component though. I want to make it as reusable and as fast as possible.
How did you install it on your iPhone after you compiled the app?
Thanks -
@Chris: These apps will be distributed via the app store and thus installed like any other iPhone application. There’s also a way to compile a test version that you can add you your own phone for testing. We’ll obviously provide all the info once Flash CS5 goes public.
I am looking forward to this app. Looks rly nice to have when your bored in the bus or anyware for that mather.
When will that be ;)
Ik lees zojuist op de adobe flash platform blog dat er GEEN beta van flash cs5 komt! Ik vind dit zeer negatief nieuws, zeker voor de mensen, zoals ik, die al jaren Adobe steunen en de creative suites gebruiken.
Ik zou het daarom op prijs stellen als er wel snel (lees: nog voor de jaarwisseling) een release datum wordt gecommuniceerd. Eigenlijk zou ik willen zeggen: Adobe, BELOFTE MAAKT SCHULD!
Beste Serge, kun je op z’n minst, de mensen die er om vragen, een pre-beta doen toe komen?
Met vr. gr. Dave Wouters, Nederland. (a.k.a. DaveFlash op twitter)