With mobile AIR application development on the forefront, the approach to application optimization needs to be refined to accomodate the platform.   To get the optimal performance with any mobile device, it is important to maximize the hardware capabilities as well as implementing software development best practices.

Check out this article by Jun Chen, where he describes priceless development practices that help improve performance of mobile AIR apps. Topics in this article include applying manual garbage collection, improving performance by updating the AIR SDK, vector versus bitmap graphics, etc.

via the Adobe Flash Developer Center

At last year’s Max conference, a new Adobe technology called Adobe Wave was revealed that demonstrated how web content publishers could easily publish notification to their user’s desktops.  The Adobe Wave client is built on Adobe AIR allowing users to receive near real time notifications of new content, a new social interaction, or another notification that the publisher would like to let you know about.

Earlier this summer, this previewed technology was added to Adobe Labs for both users and publishers.  For those of you that have ever used Growl notifications for Mac OS X, the style of notifications is very similar.

The Potential of Adobe Wave

Personally, I feel that Adobe Wave has some legs and if widely adopted can provide a streamlined connection with the content publisher and user.  As web users, we are always looking for a way to stay on top of the web’s content.  Adobe Wave simply provides content publishers the right tool to do just that in almost real time.

Overall, I think this is an exciting technology and indicates that our needs of how we receive our content are evolving.  This is definitely something I will be keeping a close eye on.  Don’t forget to check out, the video overview for both publishers and consumers.  Also, for more information, visit Adobe Wave on Adobe Labs.

These days as a designer/developer rapid prototyping has become a key component to getting projects in and out the door much quicker.  To this effect, many prototyping tools have surfaced over the last year or so.  A new rapid prototyping tool, FlairBuilder, created in Adobe AIR has just hit the market and first looks of it look pretty impressive.

What is FlairBuilder?

FlairBuilder is a cross-platform tool for rapid authoring of interactive wireframes and software prototypes. FlairBuilder comes with a set of 40+ (and counting) components for prototyping both web and desktop application. These are functional components and not mere images or mock-ups.  A few components include a GoogleMap component, as well as YouTube or Vimeo video player, and even a WebCam.

FlairBuider looks to provide a usable solution to spending less time prototyping and more time developing.  Not only does FlairBuilder make things easier for its users, its free online viewer allows your clients to view the wireframes that you have created instantly using the Flash Player plug-in.

Video breakdown of what FlairBuilder has to offer

Feedback:

Congrats to the author, Cristian Pascu, for taking on such an innovative project.  If you happen to give FlairBuider a run through, take 5 minutes out to provide some constructive feedback.  Your feedback will help push this project further in the right direction.

Additional Resources:

• Learn more about FlairBuilder
• Give the online demo a try

Ever since Joe Johnston spawned the idea of creating an iPhone for your desktop, I was amazed on how well he kept the look and feel of the application. If you own or have ever used an iPhone, there is just nothing that feels like it and the AIR iPhone comes pretty close.

One big feature of the AIR iPhone is the ability of using Ribbit to make and receive phone calls.  Joe recently added a calling notification feature which makes the use of this app just that much cooler.  When the AIR iPhone is minimized the calling notification window will appear when you receive a incoming call.

Check out this quick video demoing this new feature:

Haven’t downloaded AIR iPhone yet?  Download it here!

With Adobe AIR picking up steam, there are certainly some great applications available however, the few attempts at creating effective mulit-platform games on AIR has been somewhat of non-existent. That is until a new innovative game called Now Boarding was created.

Now Boarding will consume you “valuable time” and you’ll love every minute of it.  I was blown away at the whole user experience as you nurture this ailing Airport.  Through all the panicking of not wanting to fail, this game really grows onto you.  I’d give it two thumbs up.

However, like I mentioned Adobe AIR is growing and in order to get the full experience of Now Boarding – you would have to purchase an activation for a small fee of S16.99.  I know this is not what people like to hear, but the truth is Adobe AIR will soon enter a waive of quality of commercial applications.  It is potentially a huge market and if the quality meets its price I think it will be great for Adobe AIR’s fan base.

I am excited see how Now Boarding raising the bar will effect the future of Adobe Air and gaming.  How do you see this affecting the future of Adobe AIR applications?

Now Boarding: The Backstory

The employees of Airways Airlines are an interesting bunch.  Their airport is going to be closed if they don’t get some help quick.  Take charge and get the airport running smooth.  Be responsible for delivering all passengers and keep them happy.

But you’re not alone – employees will be working along side you.  Lead your team and help them learn skills.  Renovate and make the terminal look fantastic.  Grow and expand across the country!

Now Boarding Trailer

Maintaining a blog’s comments can be somewhat of a drag with so many worries of spamming and responding to user’s comments in a timely fashion.  If only someone created a desktop application that allows blog owners to modify their blog’s comments easily.

Introducing Moderator…

Daniel Dura, a platform evangelist at Adobe, recently released his very useful AIR application called Moderator.  Moderator allows WordPess users to modify their comments from the convenience of their desktop.

With the installation of a WordPress plugin and AIR application, Moderator will change the way you feel about moderating your blog’s comments.  (Hopefully)  If not, it is still one of the better AIR applications out there.

Some of the features include:

• Viewing un-moderated comments.
• Dock and system tray notifications of the number of unmoderated comments.
• Accept, delete, and spam comments from within the desktop client.
• Close application window, or minimize it to the system tray while running.
• Shows the Gravatar icons for the user who posted the comment.

Additional Resources:

• Download Moderator
• Download Adobe AIR

What is the ActionScript 3 RIA API Guide?

This ActionScript reference for rich Internet application development provides an alphabetical reference for all native ActionScript APIs for the Adobe Flash platform runtimes: Adobe Flash Player and Adobe AIR-as well as the Adobe Flex framework APIs.  The RIA guide has been recently updated to include the API changes effected by Adobe AIR 1.5, Flex 3.2 and Flash Player 10.

Additional Resources:

• Download the guide
• ActionScript 3 Language Reference
• Adobe AIR documentation

Mike Chambers reports that the beloved open source Growl notification framework will be able to be leveraged by Adobe AIR applications.  If you are unfamiliar with Growl, Growl is a notification system for Mac OS X that allows applications that support Growl to send you notifications.

What is As3Growl?

As3Growl is the project behind this integration and provides an API for working with the new Growl functionality.  The project is hosted at Google code and already contains the complete API source, API docs, examples, documentation, unit tests and other information.

This is an exciting project and will only improve the user’s experience within Adobe AIR applications.  Thanks to Mike Chambers and all involved.

Additional Resources:

• Visit As3Growl’s project page
• Learn more about Growl
• Download As3Growl

The JW Desktop Player uses the Adobe AIR Framework to playback FLV, MP3 and MP4 files on your MAC or PC.  JW Desktop Player allows you to playback a video by simply dropping it on top of the display.

Also, if you are curious as to what is under the hood of this Adobe AIR Application, source code is available for your eyes to see.

Additional Resources:

• Download and install JW Desktop Player
• Download the full source code

Here is a fun little AIR application that Lee Brimelow made to create fake receipts. You’d might ask why would an application like this would ever be created. Lee actually created this to assist with his daily receipt documentation. For what ever reason this application was created, it’s still presents itself as very original.  Interesting to see how it can be taken further.  Check it out!