AIR for Android now in the Android Market

Posted by on Oct 8, 2010 in AIR, android | 7 comments

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 today on 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.

Package Assistant Pro

Posted by on May 13, 2010 in AIR | 2 comments

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.

Introducing: Package Assistant (AIR 2 package utility built with AIR 2)

Posted by on Dec 17, 2009 in AIR | 7 comments

Update: A brand new version of Package Assistant is available. Check out this page for more info.

Two of the most requested features for AIR were the ability to create native installers and to launch/talk to native applications. Among other new features, AIR 2 allows you to do that. To build these native installers you have to use the command line compiler.

A while back I was thinking if it would be possible to write an AIR application that would talk to ADT (the command line compiler) and that would make it easier to compile a native installer. And here it is… Well… It’s not quite finished yet but it’s very close. I just couldn’t wait sharing this screencap with you guys because I think it’s a great example of how powerful AIR has become.

The wizard style application allows you to easily identify the files it needs and after just 4 steps you simply
hit the compile button. A lot easier than fiddling around with the command line ;-)

I should have this finished before the holidays so stay tuned!