The same iPad app made with Flex and AIR 2.7. The first list contains 480 items, the second one 280 items. Scrolling looks smooth. Not as smooth as native one, but looks good.

Just captured this video of sample AIR Flex application I posted long time ago.

As you see it runs MUCH better. Scrolling is smooth, transitions are OK. It’s not as fast as native iOS applications but looks like finally you can make more complex iPad apps using Flex than a simple scrolling list.

Adobe did great job with AIR 2.7!

AIR 2.6 brought a lot of great stuff, but one specific feature I just couldn’t pass by — publishing for iOS. Yes, there was this thing called Packager For Iphone, but now it is a part of ADT and is claimed to be much faster.

So, we have Flash Builder Burrito, Flex Hero SDK focused on mobile development and now AIR 2.6. You can see clear vector where Adobe is moving. There are many tutorials for Android platform, but iOS is lacking. So, let’s try to compile a small Flex application for iPad.

Few days ago we got AIR 2.6 which now includes iPhone/iPad export from the box. So, I downloaded Flash Builder Burrito, Flex Hero SDK and AIR 2.6 to follow this tutorial and make a simple Flex application for iOS. While development process was easy and deployment straightforward the final result was not what I wanted at all.

Here’s the video we made in the office (thanks Anton for editing!) which shows how slow and unresponsive the interface is. I’d say that it’s by order of magnitude slower than native apps. Considering that the application does nothing but showing local data.

While the idea of AIR being able to be executed everywhere is good and Adobe is working on performance issues (I hope), right now I would agree with Steve Jobs and keep Flash away from my iPad.

Now as jailbreaking is legal, couldn’t Adobe publish a Flashplayer for the iOS (iPhone, iPod, iPad) over Cydia(App Store for Jailbreaked Apps)?
I guess this would be a huge market!

https://bugs.adobe.com/jira/browse/FP-5228
I’d like Flash Player on my iPad please!

So, earlier this week Apple announced iPad.

Everyone and their mom has already blogged about it, but my view is kind of different. Considering other blog posts I’ve read so far.

Is iPad a failure?

First of all, people were waiting for a MacBook Touch but got a giant iPod. Second, the majority of bloggers are IT specialists or geeks. iPad isn’t a MacBook Touch and isn’t really for geeks –> iPad == failure. That’s the logic I see everywhere.

I was thinking same way until I tried to look at the device from a common user’s view. Let’s take my mom. iPad is actually how she sees a computer. It’s easy to use, fast, can browse internet for news and play videos. And it’s cheap. iPad is perfect for her. I’m seriously thinking to buy her one when it comes out.

iPad is a tablet PC for common people not for geeks like us.

So, no, iPad is not a failure.

What if Apple released something like a MacBook Touch?

Well, what do we have now (actually, will have in 2 months). A fast, easy to use device with big cool multi-touch screen. App store offers a lot of software and soon there will be a lot of apps adapted for large screen. It can work for 10 hours straight. Millions of iPhone/iPod owners know how to use it. And it’s cheap.

Now imagine a MacBook Touch.

1. It’s damn expensive,
2. It can work for 2 hours without recharge,
3. It’s kind of slow and everything is too small for a touch interface,
4. There are no apps for it, existing OS X software is unusable with touch screen,
5. Common users don’t really know how to use it.

Apple tries to hold everything in their hands. That’s why general non-geek users will love the ease of use and good usability. I predict it to be very popular.

Unlike other tablets with Windows 7 trying to be small laptops without keyboards. I’m sure a lot of geeks will buy those, but geeks are a small percent of people. Do you think why iPhone is so popular? It’s a closed platform too. Unlike Android which is a geeks-2-geeks product.

So, how iPad affects flash developers.

Personally, I pray for CS5 to be able to publish real iPad applications. Adjusted for big screen, working fast and smooth. Otherwise I’ll have to learn Objective-C. iPad will definitely be a trend which you can’t just ignore. Apple vs. Adobe war makes us flash developers suffer according to theflashblog.

I understand why Apple is doing this but nowadays web experience without Flash isn’t full. Flash is everywhere. If it wasn’t a big problem with iPhone, it definitely will be with iPad. It is targeted for common users and they don’t care why sites can’t be shown as they are used to. Hope Apple and Adobe will come to an agreement some day.

As for now flash developers are not needed for iPad because there’s no flash. If mobile Safari supports HTML5 and the power of AJAX there will be more sites using these technologies instead of Flash.

But as I already said, if CS5 is able to create full-featured iPad apps it will be TOTALLY AWESOME! Flash developers will rock the world!