Adobe AIR developer demonstration: one game, five platforms, all the same code

We love the idea of Android apps running on iPhone and vice versa, and that's exactly what Adobe's selling with its multiplatform development solution AIR -- but though we've seen a demo here and there, conversations we've had with the company led us to believe that AIR was not yet up to the task. However, Adobe dev Christian Cantrell has the proof -- he created a game of Reversi that runs on five platforms without having to change a single line of code. In a video after the break, he demonstrates iReverse running on OS X, Windows 7, Ubuntu Linux, the iPhone, a Droid and the new iPad, explaining how it took only a series of seriously tiny platform-specific wrappers to make his program function on each. Since each platform has its own hardware strengths, this kind of convergence isn't always a good thing -- but if it provides extra incentive for developers to get cracking on hot new apps, we're all for it.

[incendy Posted Apr 5th 2010 11:32AM]

This is always great to see! I am still a silverlight guy though : ) C# forever

[McHoffa Posted Apr 5th 2010 11:50AM]

maybe I've missed something, but how is he creating an AIR app for the Droid? is this possible now for anyone, or just Adobe devs at this point?

[kreativeking Posted Apr 5th 2010 11:59AM]

Im really digging this. This will cut down on development time and also be acessible to most people now without relying on the horrid OBJ C to make things for the iPhone and iPad. While at the same time providing support for Android (Blackberry soon), Mac OS and PC.

Really digging this =D

Follow me on Twitter www.twitter.com/kreativeking

[Plazmic Flame Posted Apr 5th 2010 12:02PM]

I saw the title and then I saw the picture and my heart started racing....

I'm not a Dev at all, so can someone tell me: Does this equal flash on iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch or no?

[NewL Posted Apr 5th 2010 12:28PM]

@Plazmic Flame - No, not at all.

At best, it means that Flash developers can package their games or whatever into iDevice apps, but not that you can just take a .swf file and open it in the browser.

[chaddledee Posted Apr 5th 2010 12:04PM]

Bloody hell, reading some of the comments here. You write your app in Adobe Air, and then it compiles it into native language for platforms that need it, like the iPhone.

[Cheesus Crust Posted Apr 5th 2010 12:05PM]

@Ike Turner I didn't know Sliverlight was Azn

[xxaznmonk Posted Apr 5th 2010 12:08PM]

that's crazy...but i'd still rather just get the android phone

http://www.tvlesson.com/video/43270_motorola-android-review.html

[SuperDre Posted Apr 5th 2010 12:13PM]

This is not actually one program that runs on 5 different platforms, it's one program that runs in a runtime-enviroment that runs on 5 different platforms.... It's nothing new...

Now if only those runtime enviroments were using the hardware to it's fullest I would be impressed, but that's something a modern programmer hasn't learned how to do, use hardware... Why is it that a modern device like an android phone which is much faster as a 15 year old computer, but runs an app like it was running on a commodore 64... Programmers are too lazy, and all just rely on even faster hardware so we can create even more bloated unoptimized enviroments.

[A1programmer Posted Apr 8th 2010 10:50AM]

@SuperDre
No. You basically have no clue what you're saying. There is no runtime environment.

The ActionScript 3 used to write the AIR apps is most likely translated / cross compiled to objective C, so you get the benefits of objective C without writing objective C. Lazy Apple engineers should invest more time in writing better compilers. They could have chosen anything as the language of choice, yet chose to use a 15 year old language? That sounds pretty stupid to me.

Ultimately, the "language" used is meaningless. If anyone is willing to put forth the effort, they can translate any higher level language to lower level machine code which runs natively on the platform.

Read a book.

[geolemon Posted Apr 5th 2010 12:20PM]

Oh god, please no...
great idea, but anyone but Adobe...
Purveyors of leaky/crashy/bloaty/poorly implemented software products like it was part of their corporate mission statement.

This is a lot like the iPad announcement IMO-
A great idea at a high level, but an implementation missing a lot of things you'd want. Or, in this case, a competent software company. Maybe I'm jumping the gun but the name "Adobe" simply isn't good foreshadowing.

[tonicboy Posted Apr 5th 2010 12:42PM]

@geolemon
Adobe makes fantastic software, but it just so happens that none of it is in the realm of enterprise development tools and technologies. They need to stick to what they know - graphics manipulation software.

[Carld Posted Apr 5th 2010 12:31PM]

No WinMo 6 version? I'm a sad panda.

[fast Posted Apr 5th 2010 12:57PM]

@Carld Adobe said it wasn't worth it. Taking a ginourmous crap on winmo users up to 6.5. They will provide it for WP7...sometime after launch....lunch.

[Johnny Rockets Posted Apr 5th 2010 1:56PM]

Adobe is so dumb for taking so ridiculously long to release flash. By the time it actually releases, html 5 will have taken over. Enough with the delay after endless delay and release a beta.

[A1programmer Posted Apr 8th 2010 10:50AM]

@Johnny Rockets
No.

[appszilla Posted Apr 5th 2010 2:32PM]

Great new free software that makes computing faster and easier and runs on AIR. http://smi.sh

[cdf74dc9 Posted Apr 5th 2010 3:11PM]

The only thing I see iPad are useful are for board game like Monopoly, 5 in a row, chess/checker, and the likes... Low memory and "mobile" internet browser is just lame for a 10" tablet... Isn't this suppose to beat netbook? I dun think so!

[hvakrg Posted Apr 5th 2010 3:13PM]

So Adobe has two platforms (Air and Flash) that offers the same as one platform from MS (Silverlight)? Not exactly something to brag about.

[Plazmic Flame Posted Apr 5th 2010 3:43PM]

@hvakrg

Can Silverlight be run on those 5 platforms in the article?

[hvakrg Posted Apr 6th 2010 1:30AM]

@Plazmic Flame

Well you have Windows, OSX and Linux (Moonlight is lagging a bit behinnd but it's there) already, If it isn't on the Iphone already it's on the way, and the same goes for Android, and in adition MS has announced it for Symbian aswell.

http://www.taranfx.com/silverlight-iphone-android

http://mashable.com/2009/11/27/silverlight-iphone/

[newt45 Posted Apr 5th 2010 3:22PM]

Web OS?

[Luffy Posted Apr 5th 2010 8:16PM]

Every AIR app I'ved used ran quite choppy/jittery. On my quite powerful desktop computer at that.

[grobbo Posted Apr 5th 2010 8:38PM]

*Yawn*

I think I've seen something similar before, um, what was it called?
J..J..J...Java, that's it!

And Adobe Air is a massive resource hog.