Back From MAX
Wow… I’m not sure where to start… I’ve been home for a week now and I’m still buzzing… Ok… So let’s start with the beginning. The keynote opening… Wow… That was absolutely mind-blowing. You could only do one thing after watching that and that was applaud as loud as you could. Seeing it on the massive 11.5 meter/38 feet tall screen was breathtaking.
The video really doesn’t do it justice but if you weren’t able to attend MAX this year it’s the next best thing.
There were plenty of exciting announcements in both keynotes. In day 1 we introduced our Creative Cloud offering and our new creative touch apps. Both will change the way you work! I’ve been playing around with our touch apps for a few weeks now (an employee privilege :D) and absolutely love them! My favorites are Proto and Photoshop Touch. Adobe TV has a bunch of videos introducing each one of the touch apps.
Another exciting announcement was the release of the Digital Publishing Suite Single Edition. Now everyone can use the power of the software behind tablet publications like Wired, Martha Stewart Living and 100s of other digital magazines.
And let’s not forget about the acquisition of TypeKit!
And that was just day 1!
Where day 1 was full of design oriented announcements, day 2 was all about developers. And not just Flash developers! If it wasn’t clear before that Adobe wants to support HTML5 developers AND keep innovating with the Flash Platform then I’m sure this keynote proved that point. The acquisition of PhoneGap and the release of Edge Preview 3 were just the starters. The CSS Regions and CSS Shaders entrees were delicious. But the dessert was definitely the highlight. 3D gaming in Flash Player looks absolutely amazing with Epic announcing support for the Unreal engine in Flash Player. The Nissan Juke website is a perfect example of how Flash Player keeps innovating and upgrading the web with every new release.
“But hey… You didn’t talk about Flash Builder in the keynotes.”
That’s true but that doesn’t mean that the Flash Builder team has been sitting around doing nothing! The Flex 4.6 SDK and Flash Builder 4.6 bring a ton of new components and features. Check out Jacob Surber’s article on what’s new in the Flex 4.6 SDK and Flash Builder 4.6 for more info. You can also sign up for the Flash Builder 4.6 prerelease.
Oh… And let’s not forget about the sneaks! I think Rainn Wilson was the best sneaks host to date but the engineers behind the sneaks were the stars of the evening. My favorite sneaks were “crowd sourced video” and “image deblurring” but really all of the sneaks were equally amazing! Oh… And you can view all of them online!
Is it weird that I’m already looking forward to MAX 2012? Mark your calendars: October 20th to 24th 2012, Los Angeles.
PS: If you’re in/near Paris, Berlin or London and would like to see some of this technology firsthand then make sure you sign up for the free Back From MAX events!
A new adventure
November 1st will be my 4th anniversary as a Platform Evangelist… And March 2012 will be my 5th anniversary at Adobe… And what a crazy 5 years it has been! No no… This post is not to announce that I am leaving Adobe. On the contrary, I’m actually moving in to a new role… in our San Francisco HQ.
I’ve never made it a secret that I would one day love to live and work in the US and I feel truly blessed that Adobe is giving me this opportunity. In my new role as “Solutions Architect/Evangelist” I will still be doing a lot of what I’ve been doing in the last 5 years but I will also start building relationships with big name brands and work on strategic partnerships. It’s that part that’s got me really excited about this new adventure and I’m really looking forward to it!
It’s funny… While I was writing this post I saw this article in my Twitter feed. “Disrupt Yourself” is the title and that is exactly what I’m going to do. ;-) The article also says that “if it feels scary and lonely, you’re probably on the right track” and I must say that it definitely is a little bit scary… And lonely… Well… I never thought I would do this all by myself. I always thought that my girlfriend would join me but she sadly decided to end our relationship (also the reason why it’s been so quiet around here the last couple of months). But… I guess there are worst places than San Francisco to be as a single guy…
I’ll start packing right after MAX and then move some time early November. The California sun still shines in November, right? ;-)
John Warnock on innovation
John Warnock is one of the founding fathers of Adobe. John is also the inventor of Postscript, and recipient of the National Medal of Technology and Innovation, one of the highest honors bestowed on scientists, engineers and inventors in the USA. John and Chuck Geschke also were recently awarded the Marconi Prize, considered the highest honor specifically for contributions to information science and communications.
In this video, the first in a series of conversations with leaders in technology, Adobe’s CTO Kevin Lynch talks to John about innovation and how Adobe encourages it.
Video interview: Paul Gubbay on Adobe and HTML5
So… What has Adobe done so far for HTML5?
I asked Paul Gubbay – Adobe’s VP for product development for web, design and interactive – that very question.
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!
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