A few months ago I released an early version of my Package Assistant application. The application made it easier to compile native installers for AIR 2. While it was a lot easier to use compared to using the command line the application wasn’t very user friendly. A few weeks ago I started working on a brand new version and I think you will like it!

When you first launch the application, it will ask you to enter the paths to ADT and your code signing certificate. When you have access to the AIR For Android Beta you can also add the AIR 2.5 ADT to package native Android installer packages. AIR For Android is currently in private beta but you can sign up to be notified when it is publicly available. When you have set your preferences, you are ready to go. Just point Package Assistant Pro to your application descriptor XML file and it will read and set all your parameters from it. Package Assistant Pro will also check if you correctly entered your code signing certificate password.

If you don’t mind playing around with beta quality software then check out http://bit.ly/papinfo for the downloads (available for OS X and Windows) and more information. If you run into an issue, have feedback and/or have a feature request, feel free to get in touch or leave a comment on this post.

Package Assistant Pro would not be possible without AIR 2. To learn how to use native processes in AIR 2, check out this article on Adobe Devnet.

Hi… My name is Serge and I am a news junkie… While there are a lot of breaking news services on Twitter, you can’t always leave your Twitter client running to get the latest breaking news updates (for instance at work or while presenting). In some cases you may still want to stay up to date on any breaking news which is why I started creating this little app last night…

It’s not quite finished yet but almost. I’ll release this when we release AIR2 and will also try to build a Windows version of it (although I am not sure if Windows also has a command line tool for their speech synthesizer).

The Fiat eco:Drive application built by AKQA won a MediaGuardian award this week  in the “DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY” category. eco:Drive is an innovative application built on AIR that aims to improve your driving skills. It analyzes your driving style and helps increase your fuel efficiency, saving you money and minimizing your CO2 emissions.

Andrew and I recorded a video about eco:Drive a few months ago. If you haven’t seen it and would like to find out more about why and how eco:Drive was built, check out the video here.

Congrats to Rick, Adam and Harald at AKQA and Claudio at Fiat.

A few weeks ago, Andrew Shorten and I talked to Fiat and AKQA about the Fiat EcoDrive AIR application. Find out why Fiat decided to make this application and how AKQA built it. See how this AIR application can save money for Fiat drivers and how the car is connected to it.

Interested in building your own AIR application? Then check out these applications used by AKQA to build the EcoDrive application:

• Adobe AIR
• Flex Builder 3
• Flex Component Kit for Flash
• Cruise Control

Do you have a cool Flex or AIR application that we should highlight in a future video – if so, please get in touch.

From Wikipedia:

As of June 2008, the number of personal computers in use worldwide hit one billion, while another billion is expected to be reached by 2014. Mature markets like the United States, Western Europe and Japan accounted for 58 percent of the worldwide installed PCs. The emerging markets were expected to double their installed PCs by 2013 and to take 70 percent of the second billion PCs.

As I’m sure you know, PCs are everywhere these days and the market is still growing rapidly. I’m also sure you know that Adobe AIR can run on most of these as well (provided they run Windows Vista Home Premium, Business, Ultimate, or Enterprise, Windows Vista SP1, Windows XP Tablet PC Edition SP2 and SP3, Windows XP SP2 and SP3, Windows 2000 SP4, Windows 2003 Server, Mac OS X 10.4.11 or higher or Linux). That means that, building an application that runs on Adobe AIR has a potential user base of 1 billion users that is growing rapidly every quarter!

“That’s cool, Serge. But how do I make money from building AIR apps? Where’s the AIR app store like Apple’s app store for the iPhone?”
I think Apple has done a tremendous job at making buying and installing applications completely foolproof. But the real question is: “Do you really need an app store for AIR applications?”. There are lots of ways to monetize your application. And there are already lots of good examples of people making money with AIR applications.

For example: EarthBrowser, Agile Agenda, Broadchoice, Tanager Audioworks and Balsamiq all sell licenses per user. No developer programs to sign up to and no middle man (with the exception of the payment provider). Easy to set up and you have total control.

Selling software licenses is just one way of monetizing your AIR application. Robert Christensen, one of the AIR product managers, did a session on this topic at MAX in Milan. If you want more information on how to monetize your application, I would suggest you check out Rob’s blog post on this. Rob has a few real world cases that will definitely inspire you. You really don’t need an app store and thus you don’t have to wait to make money with your work!

Now the only things left to do, is start building your AIR applications, make money with them and send me a percentage of what you make with them ;-).