RefreshingApps.com

Very nice looking CD based AIR application from EffectiveUI covering all of the back issues within an interactive app.

The set can be purchased from National Geographic direct for a current price of $69.99USD, more details from the National Geographic site here.

More details can be found here on EffectiveUI and a writeup by Adobe on the AIR blog here.

BIG news this from the Adobe MAX keynote in LA. In the forthcoming version of Flash (CS5) you will be able to create applications that compile down to actual real iPhone applications and are deployed using an Adobe AIR type runtime.

Just imagine this the world of iPhone development opened up to all of the great Flash & AIR designers and developers creating great experiences for this device. What excited me even more is that we can take our existing skills and create apps for so many devices ...

Over at ReadWriteWeb there is an article surrounding Adobe AIR focusing on the honeymoon period being over for the framework.

But recently, we’ve begun to question AIR’s longevity. Now don’t get us wrong – many of our favorite apps (TweetDeck, Tumbleweed, Yammer, etc.) are built using Adobe AIR. However, there’s no reason why these apps couldn’t just run in a browser instead…and that might even be a better place for them.

I personally think that the writer does have a point, some of ...

Great news Flash Catalyst and Flash Builder are not both out of Adobe labs. Get going with next generation designer / developer work flow.

Adobe have posted a good beginners tutorial for Flex and AIR. It’s split into a number of modules and instructions and code are included.

Adobe AIR has won a Webware 100 award in the Infrastructure & Storage category!

Great to get more exposure for the best RIDA (Rich Internet Desktop Application) platform there is.

Registration is now open for this years Adobe MAX conference. As we know there is no Max Europe this year which is disappointing but for those who can afford to go to Los Angeles this years MAX is shaping up to be a great conference.

Head on over now to save $200 off the regular price until August.

Today I started AIRAppFriday on Twitter. So the idea is that every Friday you tweet your favourite AIR application of the week using the hashtag #AIRAppFriday, simple.

So setup a search in your AIR desktop Twitter client or use the search on the Twitter website (http://search.twitter.com/search?q=airappfriday).

There is common knowledge that AIR apps can sometimes be CPU hogs. Well Grant Skinner has written a great blog post about how an AIR application in Flash that does nothing uses 4% of his new Mackbook pro CPU. It’s worth pointing out that Grant finds this only with Mac and not Windows and it is also seen in the Flash Player.

He is urging you to file this in the bug database at Adobe called Jira, the bug is numbered FP-2009 so do a quick search for that.

In the mean time Grant has created a ...

FlashCamp is back in the UK at Birmingham on 16th June 2009 so get on down and register your attendance.

Again there are some great speakers and sponsors for the FREE event that runs from 12:00 until close at 20:00. Covering a variety of topics from Flex custom component creations with Mike Jones (aka Flashgen), there is some skinning with Degrafa and FXG by me (jameswhittaker.com). Some cool 3d from Away 3d creator Rob Bateman and getting started with PureMVC with Simon Bailey.

Keep an ...

Well this came out of the blue. Adobe are actively working on a 64bit version of Adobe AIR and the Linux version is going to be the first one out of the stable.

According to Ashutosh Sharma’s blog the AIR team are requesting that if you are interested and have the time to offer feedback then they would welcome your application to the pre-release program.

Read more here.

A great article at InsideRIA today on some best practice AS3 principles for speed and optimisation so go and check it out.

There is some good feedback and extra resources mentioned in the comments particularly the newly updated Grant Skinner performance test harness for AS3 and FP10, and an article over at OSFlash on AS3 optimisation.

As usual posts like this always generate discussion both for and against what is suggested just like design patterns, however it’s always good to step back ...

If you didn’t know by now the BBC have released the iPlayer desktop AIR application out of the labs stable. Also new HD streams are becoming available. Read more at the BBC Internet blog.

This will really help the adoption rates of the AIR runtime which can only be a good thing.

Still wondering why the BBC didn’t include the launch now badge functionality?

SmashingMagazine have excelled themselves again in producing a fantastic list of sites and resources for all things related to Adobe AIR.

Wheather you’re a designer, HTML, Flash or Flex developer there will be something in this list for you.

Oh and they kindly include a helpful link to your favourite Adobe AIR showcase site, RefreshingApps.com.

So head on over to SmashingMagazine and read all about it as they say.

The team who built the Queued Adobe AIR application for NetFlix (reviewed Feb 2009), have a blog where they are giving details about how the desktop application was built.

Covering areas like UI design and wireframing to skinning and more. So have a look at the blog and check out the Queued AIR application.