Lapse It – time-lapse video app made with AIR for Android
I just came across this very nicely made time-lapse video application in the Android Market. Lapse It is built with Flex 4.5 and runs on the AIR runtime. You can set the capture interval to anything from 1 second to as long as you like. You can also limit the length of your capture by limiting the amount of frames, by setting a time or you can stop it manually. Lapse It will capture frames with a resolution up to 720p (It’s actually not 720p but 720×480) (the free version is limited to 240×160) and the final result can be either a JPEG sequence or an FLV video. The app also has a built-in video player so you can immediately see the result and will even allow you to directly upload it to YouTube.
I was going to record the sunrise this morning… But then I remembered that I actually live in Belgium and that we are in the middle of the winter… ;-) The chances for sun are very slim and this morning it was too cloudy to record anything useful. I love time-lapse video so you can bet on the fact that I will be using this app whenever I can!
Go check it out!
UPDATE: I just did a quick little test with Lapse It and I absolutely love the result!
Start building AIR for TV apps today! More exciting news for Flash devs from CES!
More exciting news for Flash developers coming out of CES this morning. Samsung and Adobe bring AIR to Smart TVs.
Samsung’s Smart TV platform (demonstrated at MAX 2010) will be the first to integrate support for AIR 2.5 for TV, making it easy for developers to build, distribute and monetize standalone applications through Samsung’s Smart TV applications store, Samsung Apps.
All of Samsung’s 2011 Smart TVs and Smart Blu-ray players will include support for Adobe AIR for TV and Samsung also announced plans to bring Flash Player 10.1 to its Smart TV browser.
Adobe is a key partner for Samsung and we are thrilled to be the first TV manufacturer to support Adobe AIR across the Samsung Smart TV platform,” said Boo-Keun Yoon, President of Samsung’s Visual Display Business. “Together, Samsung and Adobe are transforming the ways in which consumers interact with devices and content, providing rich, interactive applications built with industry-leading, cross platform tools.
Companies such as CNET, Epix and YouTube are already developing apps for Samsung’s TV app store. In the video below Don Woodward demonstrates what those apps look like on an AIR enabled TV.
You can already start building apps for the new Samsung TVs! Watch Don Woodward’s MAX 2010 session,“How to Develop AIR for TV Applications” and then check out the resource page on Adobe’s Devnet. Flash on!
InMarket: Monetizing your apps made easy
InMarket makes it incredibly easy to start making money with your AIR applications. InMarket provides a central mechanism to distribute, monetize and manage applications across various channels. In just a couple of easy steps and only a couple of lines of code you’ll be able to add a complete payment and licensing solution to your application.
Once your application is ready you can submit it to the InMarket Portal. InMarket will then submit your application to multiple application stores. Adobe is working with several store partners to provide the widest distribution possible for your applications across devices. Intel AppUp and the AIR Marketplace are the first stores that are supported and we’ll keep adding new stores once they become available. These stores will not only be available on laptops and netbooks but also on tablets, mobile phones, TVs, and set-top boxes. You can also just distribute the application on your own website using an AIR install badge.
One of the biggest benefits of InMarket is that you only need to remember one URL and login/password. If you have an update to your application you can just submit it to the InMarket Portal instead of having to update the file on all the different stores you published it on. The portal also has all the information available about your app and your revenue.
InMarket also allows you to create trial versions of your application. These trial versions can be time based or feature based. You can have a time based trial that gives the user full access to the app for a number of days or disable some of the features of the app until the user buys a license.
For instance, a feature based trial for a game could be one free level. If you want to play more you have to buy the app.
If you wanted you could even build an application that shows a “nagscreen” every x minutes to prompt the user to buy your app.
Adding InMarket to your application is also really easy. The InMarket portal will tell you exactly what you need to do and will even generate the necessary code.
If you sign up for InMarket today we’ll also give you a free code-signing certificate that you can use to sign your applications. You receive 70% of the sales revenue; Adobe and its partners take care of credit card processing, hosting, and marketing.
For more information and registration go to adobe.com/go/inmarket.
Multi-screen excellence: Giroflex
This has to be the one of the best multi-screen apps I’ve seen to date. It is absolutely gorgeous and the story behind it is even more impressive. Thanks to the Flash Platform they were able to build an application that runs on multiple devices in record time.
Giroflex is a leading manufacturer of ergonomically designed office furniture. They asked Publicis Modem to create an application for the Orgatec trade fair taking place in Cologne next week. The application needed to be built for multi-screen purposes. The client wanted a microsite, a multitouch application to run on the HP TouchSmart 600, and the application needed to run on the Samsung Tab. In their booth visitors can experience the new chair in a dynamic modern way on the TouchSmart PCs, representing the company’s spirit. The Giroflex sales executives will all have a Samsung Galaxy Tab at hand to show the same app to their customers. The choice for the Flash Platform was an obvious one.
Thanks to the Flash Platform the team at Publicis Modem led by Marcel Vogt and Tiago Dias was able to produce an application that runs as a microsite in the browser and as a standalone application on the TouchSmart PCs, the Samsung Galaxy Tab’s, and even any other Android device. In just 2.5 weeks they created a multi-language, rich, easy to use and intuitive application with AS3 and utilizing AIR’s local SQLite database and multi-touch features.
They started out with the microsite which is built based on their own AS3 framework. The entire UI is customizable via XML files. They finished the microsite in just 1.5 weeks. When the microsite was done they only needed to add multi-touch capabilities and update the graphics and layout so it would fit on the Galaxy Tab and the TouchSmart PCs. It only took them an additional 6 days to “port” the app to the Galaxy Tab and the TouchSmart PCs. As a little extra they also wanted to see how long it would take them to port this app to an HTC Desire. It only took 2 hours!
I’m also really happy that I was able to help them a bit. They used my Package Assistant application to create the APKs ;-)
This is a great example of the power of the Flash Platform and how easy it is to build multi-screen applications using it!
Here’s application running on a Samsung Galaxy Tab:
The application running on the HP TouchSmart PC:
And on the HTC Desire:
Marcel and Tiago will be at MAX next week so if you see them around make sure you ask for a demo! Great work guys!
Got AIR for Android? Try these games!
I saw some comments from people installing AIR on their Android device who couldn’t find any apps for it. I think that’s just the beauty of it all. An AIR application behaves exactly the same way as any other application in the Android Market, so while there are already a few AIR apps in the market, they’re not explicitly identified as AIR applications. But I understand that you all want to test the performance and experience, and you want to know which apps run on AIR. So here’s a few AIR-based games that are currently available in the Android Market for you to try out.
I’ve also created an AIR for Android Applications list on AppBrain (UPDATE: AppBrain now has a list of all AIR applications on the Android Market: http://www.appbrain.com/apps/adobe-air) and will keep that up to date with new apps I find or hear about. If your app is already in the Android Market I’d love to hear about it!
AIR for Android now in the Android Market
Now that’s fantastic news to wake up to: The AIR for Android runtime is now available in the Android Market.
Just open up the Market application on your Android (Froyo) device, search for Adobe AIR, and install it on your device. That same search will also reveal some apps that are built with AIR. I’m sure there will be more apps in the market in the next coming weeks. If you’re looking for some apps to try out I can highly suggest Qrossfire, Gridshock and Chroma Circuit from Bowlerhat Games! UPDATE: I posted a list of other games that are available in the Android Market and I’ve started a list on AppBrain with even more AIR games and apps! AppBrain is maintaining a list of applications built with Adobe AIR. Check out http://www.appbrain.com/apps/adobe-air
This is a really exciting release. It gives Flash Platform developers direct access to the Android Market without having to learn anything new. You can just build applications with the technology you already know and distribute them in the Market application that the user already knows.
Where to go next?
- To build applications you can get the SDK from the prerelease program.
- Build your applications using Flash Builder, Flash Professional CS5 or your favorite ActionScript development tool.
- Package your application with the AIR SDK as an APK file (an update/fix for Package Assistant Pro is coming
later todayon Monday) - Publish your application to the Android Market. Ryan Stewart has an excellent post on how to sign your applications and submit them to the Android Market.
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