Software
Adobe: Flash Professional CS5 to support making iPhone apps
By Jim DalrympleOctober 5, 2009, 12:12 pm PT
Adobe announced on Monday at the Adobe MAX conference that Flash Professional CS5 will support creating rich, interactive applications for the iPhone and iPod Touch.
The company demoed during the MAX keynote using Flash CS5 to export apps for the iPhone. Adobe said it leverages the same source code used to deliver applications across desktops and devices for Flash Platform runtimes – Adobe AIR and Flash Player 10.
“We are going from the Flash platform down to the native iPhone APIs and compiling that way,” Heidi Voltmer, Group Product Marketing Manager of Adobe’s Creative Solutions Business, told The Loop. “We have some innovative engineers on the Flash team and they have been able to come up with this solution.”
Adobe highlighted several iPhone apps from BlueSkyNorth, Bowler Hat Games, Breakdesign, FlashGameLicense, Muchosmedia, PushButton Labs and South Park Digital Studios, using the Flash CS5 Beta. In fact, some of the apps are already available from the App Store.
While the iPhone apps were built with Flash and not Apple’s iPhone SDK, Adobe said they are native iPhone apps. “We made sure we focused on Apple rules. We believe we are in full compliance,” said Voltmer.
Adobe didn’t know whether Apple was aware the apps were originally made with Flash, saying it was up to the individual developers to submit the apps to the App Store.
Adobe said it is submitting other iPhone apps to the App Store, including a version of its Web conferencing solution, Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro.
The fact that you can compile a Flash application into an iPhone app doesn’t mean that Flash now works on the iPhone. Those are totally separate issues.
“We know that iPhone users want Flash on the iPhone,” said Voltmer. “There are 3 million iPhone users month coming to our site looking for that functionality, but we don’t have anything for them yet.”
A public beta of Flash Professional CS5 is expected to be available later this year, the company said.
“We think this benefits Apple and the end user,” said Voltmer. “I have an iPhone and I’d like to have more options for apps. All these new developers are a boon for Apple.
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Adobe: Flash Professional CS5 to support making iPhone apps
By Jim DalrympleOctober 5, 2009, 12:12 pm PT
Adobe announced on Monday at the Adobe MAX conference that Flash Professional CS5 will support creating rich, interactive applications for the iPhone and iPod Touch.
The company demoed during the MAX keynote using Flash CS5 to export apps for the iPhone. Adobe said it leverages the same source code used to deliver applications across desktops and devices for Flash Platform runtimes – Adobe AIR and Flash Player 10.
“We are going from the Flash platform down to the native iPhone APIs and compiling that way,” Heidi Voltmer, Group Product Marketing Manager of Adobe’s Creative Solutions Business, told The Loop. “We have some innovative engineers on the Flash team and they have been able to come up with this solution.”
Adobe highlighted several iPhone apps from BlueSkyNorth, Bowler Hat Games, Breakdesign, FlashGameLicense, Muchosmedia, PushButton Labs and South Park Digital Studios, using the Flash CS5 Beta. In fact, some of the apps are already available from the App Store.
While the iPhone apps were built with Flash and not Apple’s iPhone SDK, Adobe said they are native iPhone apps. “We made sure we focused on Apple rules. We believe we are in full compliance,” said Voltmer.
Adobe didn’t know whether Apple was aware the apps were originally made with Flash, saying it was up to the individual developers to submit the apps to the App Store.
Adobe said it is submitting other iPhone apps to the App Store, including a version of its Web conferencing solution, Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro.
The fact that you can compile a Flash application into an iPhone app doesn’t mean that Flash now works on the iPhone. Those are totally separate issues.
“We know that iPhone users want Flash on the iPhone,” said Voltmer. “There are 3 million iPhone users month coming to our site looking for that functionality, but we don’t have anything for them yet.”
A public beta of Flash Professional CS5 is expected to be available later this year, the company said.
“We think this benefits Apple and the end user,” said Voltmer. “I have an iPhone and I’d like to have more options for apps. All these new developers are a boon for Apple.
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AIR coming to the iPhone!? Oh hell no… please tell me I read that wrong.
EDIT: I meant to say “AIR apps”
I figured Apple would be completely opposed to allowing people to develop applications for the iPhone in anything other than Xcode.
Don’t Apple’s terms for the App Store require the app to be built in Xcode?
Um..no, they don’t. THere’s a few third party IDEs for building iPhone applications in all kinds of languages.
John, I’m not talking about what is actually happening, but what Apple’s signing certificate agreement says. I believe it is part of the click throughs when you pay the $99.
Although I looked at the doc I thought it was in, and it isn’t there. Either I misremembered which doc it’s from, it doesn’t exist at all, or Apple removed it.
Whatever. Apple can figure it out.
Any of those third-party IDEs have any traction? Adobe Flash already has a ton of users. How many people planning on getting into iPhone development are going to ignore Xcode and the Mac now and focus on writing apps in Windows/Flash? This has the potential to become the source of a significant percentage of all iPhone apps. That doesn’t sound like a good thing to me.
You know, I don’t think I’d know if an app was built with something else. Is there anyway to tell?
According to ars technica Xcode is still used to compile the apps. http://bit.ly/zO1gX
This makes more sense now. I thought they were removing Xcode from the process entirely.
Updated. Apparently you DON’T need to compile in Xcode, but the App signing process is still unclear and most likely requires Apple software.
Also, Jim, they are saying you won’t be able to use any native Cocoa iPhone UI controls in these apps. This should be one way you can tell the difference between a flash app and a standard iPhone app. (I’m sure you already read about this) That, and if it looks like Joe Cartoon.
No Cocoa controls? So are they going to look like Java ports on the Mac?
You are much more versed in Cocoa than I am.
They’ll look pretty much like flash games minus the mouse cursor. All the buttons will be custom designed. Think > http://joecartoon.atom.com/games/6
Of course, some will look better than others. Technically they could make buttons that look/mimic cocoa controls (i.e. slider) but it would be totally cosmetic.