News

Adobe Ramps Up Mobile Development Tools

• By Keith Ward
• June 21, 2011

Adobe's Flash Platform is moving aggressively into the realm of mobile development, having added the ability in its latest release to build apps for iOS and BlackBerry devices.

In April, the Flash Builder tool was extended to for Android development. With today's announcement of Flash Builder 4.5 and the Flex 4.5 framework, "...Enterprises can now use one tool, one framework and one codebase to create high performance applications that run on desktops as well as on smartphones and tablets," Adobe states in the the press release.

To support its claims, Adobe highlighted a number of applications built with Flash Builder 4.5 and Flex 4.5 that have appeared in Apple's App Store, Android Market and BlackBerry App World. They include Netflix Queue Manager, Pyramix and Mr. Mixit among others.

Flash Builder can be bought as a standalone product for $249, while the premium version is $699. It also comes as part of the Creative Suite 5.5 Web Premium and Master Collection umbrella products. Adobe says that Flash Bulder 4.5 has full support for building ActionScript apps for iOS, but developers should note that Flex support for iOS isn't here yet; it will be coming "later in 2011", the company states. Flex is Adobe's free, open source framework for building mobile, web and desktop apps.

One mobile developer, Sean Carey of HD Interactive, had kind words about the time savings his company found from using Flash Builder. From the press release:

"Flash Builder 4.5 allowed us to develop our Mr. Mixit and Pyramix apps and use the same code base to quickly and easily deploy them to multiple platforms. To create an app natively for one platform would have taken at least three times the amount of time—and then we would have had to start from scratch all over again for a native app on the next platform."

A 60-day trial of Flash Builder 4.5 Premium is available from Adobe's website.