MWC: Adobe AIR Sees Accelerated Momentum

At the Mobile World Congress (MWC) conference for everything mobile, Adobe Systems announced accelerated momentum for its Flash Platform technology on mobile devices.

At the Barcelona, Spain conference Adobe officials said developers and content publishers can now deploy Adobe AIR applications to the more than 84 million smartphones and tablets running Android and iOS. Thousands of applications have been created and made available on Android Market and Apple’s App Store to date.

200 million devices

By the end of 2011, Adobe expects more than 200 million smartphones and tablets to support Adobe AIR applications. For examples of popular AIR applications for Android and iOS, visit m.flash.com.

In addition, Adobe announced that more than 20 million smartphones were shipped or upgraded with Adobe Flash Player 10.1 software on over 35 certified devices in the first six months following the launch. And for 2011, the company expects Flash Player to be supported on more than 132 million units worldwide. More than 50 tablets are expected to support Flash Player in 2011 alone, Adobe said. And using Adobe Creative Suite 5 tools, more than three million Adobe Flash Platform developers are now able to author content across a substantial number of devices for both Flash Player and AIR.

“We are thrilled to see mobile adoption of Flash Player and AIR exceeding even our own expectations, with much more to come in the months ahead,” said David Wadhwani, senior vice president, Creative and Interactive Solutions Business Unit, Adobe, in a statement. “This is tremendous progress toward ensuring that mobile users everywhere have access to their favorite content from casual games to web video and enterprise applications regardless of what device they are using. And, our CS5 customers are excited about the ability to easily extend their creative work across millions of mobile devices.”

Meanwhile, also at MWC, Adobe is showcasing the latest release of Flash Player – Flash Player 10.2 – along with additional performance advancements at the conference. The new release includes support for innovative new features including Stage Video, which delivers improved video performance through optimising hardware acceleration on mobile devices, desktops and TVs. Stage Video decreases processor and memory usage while enabling higher frame rates and improved video quality. Test results show up to 80 percent CPU savings when playing back video in 1080p on Windows and Mac OS. Stage Video support for mobile devices will be available on Android 3.0 “Honeycomb” and BlackBerry Tablet OS. Existing H.264 video content on the web will benefit from Stage Video on mobile platforms without any changes to the content, Adobe said.

Leveraging existing code

As a key element of the Adobe Flash Platform, AIR enables developers to leverage existing code to create and deliver standalone applications across devices and platforms. Adobe AIR supports smartphones and tablets based on Android, iOS, BlackBerry Tablet OS, and desktops including Windows, Macintosh and Linux operating systems.

Adobe officials said Samsung is the first television manufacturer to ship Adobe AIR in its line of Samsung SmartTV devices. With Adobe AIR, developers are able to use familiar tools including Adobe Flash Professional CS5, Adobe Flash Builder and Flex to build rich standalone multi-screen applications. Thousands of apps are already currently available on Android Market, Apple’s App Store, Adobe InMarket and Intel AppUp center, Adobe said.

Adobe AIR enables rich application experiences through a series of features, including support for accelerometer, camera, video, microphone, multi-touch and gestures, Adobe said. Support for geolocation allows developers to create location-based applications and services. AIR is also able to display native browser controls within the application allowing for the integration of HTML and .SWF content. With SQLite support developers can easily store and cache databases inside an AIR application.

Adobe’s Flash Player is available today on Android, HP webOS and Google TV. BlackBerry Tablet OS, future versions of Windows Phone, LiMo, Samsung SmartTV and others are also expected to support Flash Player. For a list of certified devices, visit http://www.adobe.com/flashplatform/supported_devices/smartphones.html.