My MAX Wishlist
So, I’m not going to MAX this year… The economy has made a lot of extra spending go away and conferences are no exception to this rule. I do plan on virtually attending the webcasts and keynotes this year, though, so I definitely am staying in the loop.
I’m not putting together a prediction list, but rather a wishlist… Will any of these happen? I dunno, but I do know they would make my life in the Adobe universe better and more productive.
- AIR on iPhone – It’s unlikely that I am going to be learning Objective C anytime soon. And while I would love to take a stab at creating an app on the iPhone, this is really about the only way to do it. If I could compile an AIR app for the iPhone, this would help bridge that gap.
- A release date for Flash Builder 4 and Flash Catalyst – Believe it or not, I’ve been using these tools for some time on real work. Flash Builder a bit more, but I have been able to get some nice stuff out of Catalyst from time to time. I’d like a formalized release schedule and a price so I can put it in my budget ASAP and get it on my team’s desktops for real.
- Some word on what the Omniture buyout means for Flash platform analytics – Is it going to be a LiveCycle product? A Flash Platform SaaS? What? How can I get integrating this into my experiences and RIAs?
- A bit more concrete info on AIR 2.0′s deeper features – FOTB leaked that C++ and other API integration was coming, but what about Google Earth? Open GL? BYOAPI (Bring your own API)
- More Hardware acceleration control and/or better threading/CPU support. – Building 1080P+ experiences on Flash sucks. There I said it. I’ve been burned enough over the last couple of years to know this. At The Iona Group we often build large HD resolution kiosks, presentations, installations etc. We prefer using Flash for our rich media development. These two things collide in unpleasant ways more often than they should. In many ways, Director is still more capable at performing in world class fashion at high high resolution. Processing is too. This could be for Flash Player 11, AIR 2.0 or whatever… Just the sooner, the better. Grant Skinner has made pleas to Adobe to improve CPU usage and performance, so maybe that will be enough.
So there you have it… not sure if any of these will happen, but it sure would be grand if they did. What are you putting on your MAX Wishlist?
Posted on October 4, 2009
thebouv Oct 4
Gah, I’m going through the pains of learning Objective-C right now. If AIR could go on the iPhone, that would open a whole brand new world for many developers, especially me.
I love programming. I love programming languages. However, programming in Objective-C is like the code is stabbing my brain.
I really don’t see this happening any time soon, however. The iPhone is VERY particular about memory management. Objective-C has garbage collection .. for desktop apps. The iPhone mem has to be handled all manually (from what I know right now of course).
And don’t get me started on the damn “messaging” syntax and method signatures with parameters in the middle of the damn method name. *twitches*
So, um, yeah .. my wishlist is the same as your #1 and #2.
Brian Deitte Oct 4
As for #5, it looks like GPU-accelerated video is being announced:
http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=20471
Chad Oct 4
thebouv, thanks for dropping by… you out there in LA?
And Brian, I want a lot more that just GPU accelerated video… I want the whole DisplayList to be able to be offloaded to the GPU if the card can handle it. Sprites, Movieclips, UIComponent… all of it. And I don’t want it to require entering fullscreen mode.
thebouv Oct 6
Nope, too busy to go to MAX.
So, your wish #1 didn’t exactly come true (AIR on iPhone) but pretty damn close! Flash Pro saving flash apps to iPhone native apps. Damn sweet.
Flex can be done too, but it is too heavy, so it’ll be getting Slider .. I guess a Flex mobile streamlining framework.
Now I can go burn these Objective-C books I have.
Jason Terhorst Oct 6
@thebouv:
Obj-C is actually a beautiful language once you get to know it. Give it an honest try, and you’ll grow into it, I’m sure. It takes a while, but so does learning any other language.
Manually managing the memory has the benefits of not having the GC system taking up overhead that you can otherwise use. While you can retain/release objects as many times as you want (as long as you don’t drop below 0), I like to think of them as open/close, like HTML. That makes it a bit easier to grok when I’m writing, as I can think of objects as open or closed. Pro tip: set objects to = nil when you release them, in case your code tries to call it again somewhere. That’s the safe way to go. It took me a little bit to grasp this, but now that I do, I don’t even use Interface Builder on iPhone – I just build all UI by hand. (More precise: I can offload parts of the UI to another thread manually, to control the experience. I *had* to do this with Touchlytics, to keep things snappy.) The iPhone’s hardware is a small room, so everyone has to trim every bit of fat they can to fit. Low-level is the best way to do that.
It’s unlikely that Flash/AIR will be approved by Apple except for games with immersive UI, due to the “uncanny valley” issue. Any attempt by Adobe to imitate the Cocoa Touch UI elements wouldn’t look/work correctly – even subtle differences would look off. Apple is very protective of experience, and if Air apps on the Mac are any indication, Air just results in fugly tragedies. Just like Firefox on the Mac looks and acts like a bastard child – those subtle differences, compared to something like Safari.
thebouv Oct 7
All I see out on Twitter is a bunch of FUD by Obj-C developers about this announcement. These apps will never be approved. Obj-C is so much better. You’re not doing it right if you use Flash.
Guess what? There are thousands of Flash developers just itching to do this. I have one working for me. He makes wonderful interfaces in Flash. I can’t wait to throw some FlashiPhone projects at him to see him innovate with it. But I can’t sit here ask him to learn Objective-C.
This announcement is HUGE for me and my department.
And maybe the tiny pool of Objective-C devs out there are a little worried the market is about to get flooded with new apps protoyped and created in a faster method than they can compete with.
Jim Ferolo Oct 10
Word on the video performance. The GPU accelerated video is a must. I am usually Chad’s wingman on these insane Flash resolution pieces and I also go way back to the Director days and know that Flash should be able to pipe video much more efficiently. Anxiously awaiting to see what the improvements look like once they are actually implemented.