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!
MAX Wrap Up
Wow… I can’t believe that around this time exactly a week ago we were partying at the MAX Bash. Well… The MAX Bash was already over and we continued the party in the hotel bar ;-) Now… Where do I start…? Did I not tell you that this was going to be the best MAX ever? Even on a personal level this one is going to be hard to top. I mean… It was already pretty amazing to be on stage welcoming everybody for the day 1 keynote while Joa Ebert was coding and Eric Natzke was making some amazing art behind me.
Backstage MAX Online was already in full swing. Joining Ryan Stewart in hosting MAX Online was also a lot of fun and meeting/interviewing Martha Stewart is also going to be hard to beat.
Then my live intervention from the Device Lab in the day 1 keynote and hosting the Iron Builder segment in day 2…
And later that night meeting William Shatner… (I owe you one Nicole!)
I’m telling ya… It’s going to be hard to top this next year.
And then I haven’t even started about the amazing things we talked about in the keynotes and sneaks, the lovely people I met, winning the “Are You Smarter Than An Evangelist” contest with my evangelist colleagues, the new technologies that launched at MAX, … The AIR team has a great overview of AIR related announcements. You should also check Adobe Labs for more things to start playing with. My favorites are the preview releases of Flash Builder “Burrito” with Flex “Hero” and Flash Catalyst “Panini” as well as the first ever public demo of the BlackBerry PlayBook and the sneak peek of the upcoming 3D capabilities in Flash Player.
MAX will be back in Los Angeles on October 1st to 5th 2011. You better mark that in your calendar so you don’t miss it next year! I hear you can get very cheap airline tickets if you book well in advance ;-)
Do not miss the best Adobe MAX ever!
I know… I know… I say this every year… But trust me on this one! If you don’t attend MAX this year you’re going to kick yourself in the head. I’ll even take bets on that! I am 100% sure that you’re going to say “Well, Serge. It looks like you were right” by this time next week!
So what is happening…? Well… Did you really think I was going to tell you everything I know? ;-) I don’t want to spoil the surprises and frankly I don’t even know everything but the things that I do know about are fantastic.
If you’re still on the fence about going to MAX then perhaps this incentive can help. As a extra thank you gift, MAX attendees can save 20% on all your favorite Adobe products, training, and support from October 23, 2010 through November 1, 2010. Eligible products include Adobe Creative Suite, ColdFusion, Flash Builder … and anything else in the Adobe Online Store. More details will be available at MAX.
I’m pretty sure you can tell that I am super excited about MAX this year! Not only will I be co-hosting MAX Online with my colleague and good friend Ryan Stewart but you’ll also see me during both keynotes. Oh dear… Writing that just made me a little nervous actually but I’m sure it’s going to be a lot of fun!
If you can’t make it MAX then make sure you sign up for MAX Online. We’ll be streaming both keynotes live. That said… You should really try to be there in person! Again… Trust me on this one ;-)
Weekly blend – The MAX-edition
With so many announcements at MAX (and after), I thought it was a good idea to do a round up of all the cool stuff we announced/showed/released this week.
Alchemy: Alchemy is a research project that allows users to compile C and C++ code that is targeted to run on the open source ActionScript Virtual Machine.
Bolt: Bolt is the code name for a new Eclipse based development tool that you can use to build applications for ColdFusion. Click to sign up for the beta.
Centaur: Centaur is the code name for the next release of ColdFusion. Beta applications are now being accepted. Click for more info.
Cocomo: Cocomo is a Platform as a Service that allows Flex developers to easily add real-time social capabilities into their RIA.
Configurator: Configurator is an open source utility that enables the easy creation of panels (palettes) for use in Photoshop CS4.
Durango: Durango allows developers, designers and end-users to easily mashup independent components to create new applications or extend existing Durango-enabled applications.
Flash Catalyst: Flash Catalyst is a new professional interaction design tool for rapidly creating application interfaces and interactive content without coding.
Genesis: Genesis is the code name for a new product initiative at Adobe with the objective of joining business applications, documents and the web on every knowledge worker’s desktop with integrated collaboration capabilities.
Gumbo: Gumbo is the code name for the next generation of Flex.
InContext Editing: InContext Editing is an online service that allows designers to create, manage, and control editable web pages.
PatchPanel: A first glimpse at combining the dynamic control of ActionScript with the power of Adobe’s Creative Suite.
Pixel Bender 5: An image and video processing infrastructure with runtime optimization on heterogeneous hardware.
Stratus: A new communications protocol called the Real-Time Media Flow Protocol (RTMFP). The most important features of RTMFP include low latency, end-to-end peering capability, security and scalability.
Text Layout Framework: The Text Layout Framework is an extensible library, built on the new text engine in Adobe Flash Player 10, which delivers advanced, easy-to-integrate typographic and text layout features for rich, sophisticated and innovative typography on the web.
Wave: Wave is an Adobe AIR application and Adobe hosted service that work together to enable desktop notifications.
Wow… That should keep you busy for a while ;-)
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