It’s always nice to wake up to great news!

Apple’s announcement today that it has lifted restrictions on its third-party developer guidelines has direct implications for Adobe’s Packager for iPhone, a feature in the Flash Professional CS5 authoring tool. This feature was created to enable Flash developers to quickly and easily deliver applications for iOS devices. The feature is available for developers to use today in Flash Professional CS5, and we will now resume development work on this feature for future releases.

This is great news for developers and we’re hearing from our developer community that Packager apps are already being approved for the App Store. We do want to point out that Apple’s restriction on Flash content running in the browser on iOS devices remains in place.

Adobe will continue to work to bring full web browsing with Flash Player 10.1 as well as standalone applications on AIR to a broad range of devices, working with key industry partners including Google, HTC, Microsoft, Motorola, Nokia, Palm/HP, RIM, Samsung and others.

From http://blogs.adobe.com/conversations/2010/09/great-news-for-developers.html

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

Just before the holidays, I released an alpha version of my AIR 2 Package Assistant application. As many of you know, AIR 2 allows you to build native installers. The only downside is that you have to use the command line in order to package these native installers.

I have just narrowed down the possible solution for the only reported problem. Some of you got an “Invalid input” error message and the packaging failed. I think this may be caused by forgetting to include the icons you use for the app. You have to include these in the final step where you add any additional files to the package.

I also updated the application so it now works with the AIR 2 Beta 2 runtime, which is available on Adobe Labs.

The Package Assistant application should still be considered in alpha phase. If you don’t mind testing alpha builds, go ahead and download the updated application. (Don’t forget to read these notes.)

If you find any other bugs or if adding the icons did not resolve the “invalid input” error message, feel free to leave a comment or email me directly.

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

I already sneaked this application last week but in case you missed that: I am building an application that makes it easier to package native installers for AIR 2.0. Instead of having to fiddle around with the command line to create installers, this wizard style application makes it very easy and straightforward.

Now before you go and install this application, there are a couple of things you should know.

1. This is an early version of the application. It may not do what you thought it would do and it may even explode ;-). If that is the case, please let me know. I’m releasing it now to get some feedback and to improve version 2 ;-) The application should be considered alpha quality.
2. It is currently OSX only. I ran in to a little snag with the Windows version but will try to get around that ASAP.
3. It currently only supports PKCS12 code signing certificates.
4. It’s not yet very user friendly if you make a mistake… If you for instance mess up your cert passcode, you’ll have to start over again. I’m also not saving the path to ADT.. These things are “on the list”.
5. Additional files are supported but are always relative to the folder that holds the main SWF… This is one that needs a lot of testing. If your setup does not work, please let me know.
6. If you have feature requests or you find a bug or something weird, please let me know. Just leave a comment to this post, send me an email or use the contact form on my blog.
7. Did I already mention that this should be considered alpha quality?
8. I think it’s fairly obvious but just in case: This application requires the AIR 2.0 runtime.

So… You’re still here. That must mean that you’re a geek like me and you don’t mind testing early builds of applications ;-). Good… Go ahead and download the application.

Adobe’s mobile platform has become a lot more interesting for Flash developers this week. Instead of having to open up the Flash Player on your device to watch the Flash content you created, you can now package your application using the Mobile Packager and distribute your application as an SIS-file for Symbian S60 or CAB-file for Window Mobile phones. Your users can now download and install your Flash based application on their mobile device just like any other application they install. What’s even cooler is that we also package a Flash Version Checker together with your application. As soon as the user launches the application, the Flash Version Checker is going to check if the Flash Player is installed and if it is the correct version. If not, it’s going to download and install the Flash Lite runtime seamlessly. Exactly like you would do on a PC and exactly as it should be. Check out Andrew Shorten’s blog post on the installation process.

I’ve recorded a little video that walks you through the process and will be doing more videos on how to build mobile applications soon.

Today, over 27 million users can install Flash applications on their mobile devices hassle-free. With the mobile packager and distributable player that we announced yesterday, you package your swf app together with a Flash version checker. The result is one SIS (for S60) or one CAB (for Windows Mobile) file. This is the type of file that people are used to installing on their mobile device. When the user installs the app and launches it, the Flash version checker will check if the correct version of Flash Lite is installed. If not, it will prompt the user to download and install Flash Lite. This is very similar to the seamless experience people are used to on the web!

Monetizing your Flash Lite applications has also become a lot easier. Not only did we announce partnerships with various aggregating partners like ZED, Thumbplay and GetJar, but you can now also distribute your applications through the Nokia Ovi Store and the Windows Mobile application store.

We have also announced the Flash Lite Developer Challenge at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. With $100.000 in cash prizes, why wouldn’t you try your luck?!